Hi ,

This Friday is Black Friday, an American shopping tradition exported around the world. Last year, Amazon made $9.8bn in one day of revenue from the Black Friday sales (or about 3 times more than the American Civil War cost). Amazon have become one of the largest and most powerful corporations in history, and CEO Jeff Bezos one of the world's wealthiest and most politically influential people. This, we think, is bad.

Amazon's abuse of workers globally, massive investment in carbon-emitting infrastructure during a global climate crisis, and use of their huge power to influence politics is how our inequality crisis is playing out on a global scale. The good news is that we're fighting back on a global scale too.

Amazon UK made over £27bn in revenue last year, but still got £7.7m in subsidies from the public purse while paying no corporation tax. They've used this money to bust unions from Birmingham to Birmingham, Alabama. That's why resistance has to be global too: workers from Germany, Italy, and California joined picket lines in Coventry last year, and this Friday, workers, activists and campaigners are uniting worldwide to Make Amazon Pay. Strikes and demonstrations are planned around the world; here in the UK, Tax Justice UK have handed in a petition with over 110,000 signatures calling for an end to tax breaks for Amazon.

It's why global efforts like last week's G20 vote to pursue taxes on the richest are so important. Leaders of the largest world economies agreed to work towards taxing "ultra-high-net-worth individuals", a step that felt impossible only a few years ago. That's not to say we need to wait for the G20 to act! France only last week voted for a wealth tax on millionaires, and the UK could follow at any time with mass public support.

But it's also about restructuring our economy so giants of inequality like Amazon can't warp society around us. One manifesto pledge by the Labour government that could make a real difference was to double the size of the co-operative and mutually-owned sector, a vastly more equitable way to do business. Co-operatives UK recently announced that British co-operatives had broken records, employing more than 1.3m people with a record income of £165.7bn. Co-operatives give employees a stake in ownership, share profits, and work towards the better communities that their members want: there's been a 50% increase in community-owned pubs over the last 5 years, while music venues and community spaces are thriving under co-operative ownership.

Growing global action against abuses by corporate giants can be matched by local work to create alternatives that thrive when people do.

Where do you think the Equality Trust can make the most difference campaigning for change? You said:

• "1. Focused research; 2. Enhanced publicity; 3. Working with many other bodies to get better weight."
  
  
• "Activists at the bottom have little agency to effect change without policy change. Consider how NI increases on employers will likely result in higher prices, lower wages or fewer jobs rather than lower profits for the better off. Activism for greater equality needs to engage public discourse at least as effectively as the extreme right have managed to seize the narrative blaming immigration."
  
  

• "Society shouldn't seek to lower the top, but to lift the bottom - this will come through reform of education to reduce time spent on areas which will not be beneficial to individuals outside of the education setting, with that time spent on educating people in key areas such as budgeting. Politics needs to shift away from division and time spent attacking each other, and instead needs to refocus on the politics of aspiration. Inspire the bottom, provide the right skills and knowledge and lift the bottom to meet the top."
  
  

• "Political education work. Also grassroots organising - though other organisations may be better set up to do this."
  
  

• "Naming and shaming. Make super rich feel watched and publicly judged."