Corporate Power

Amazon and Starbucks have just shown their corporate power. They got the Seattle city council to roll back a tax increase that would have cost them tens of millions of dollars. Amazon did it by blunt force. It stopped work on one of two corporate towers it is building there and said it wouldn’t complete the building if the tax went through. It was a naked threat, and council members got the message. They voted to repeal the tax before it took effect. From a PR perspective, it was mixed. The tax was going to shelter and care for the many homeless in the city. On the other hand, it would have greatly increased the cost of doing business in the city and it was punitive. Amazon and Starbucks had a duty to protest. Had either company a bad reputation, there would have been less likelihood the council would have changed its mind.