Small Businesses Demand SBA “Dump Amazon” as Cosponsors of National Small Business Week
The American Booksellers Association and a number of independent business associations, including Shop Local Raleigh, have declared March 20 as “SBA: Dump Amazon Day.” The Day of Action is to protest Amazon’s continued cosponsorship of the Small Business Administration’s annual celebration of small businesses, National Small Business Week. This year’s event is April 28 – May 4.
“National Small Business Week is meant to be about small businesses,” said Jennifer Martin, Executive Director, Shop Local Raleigh. “And yet it is cosponsored by Amazon, a monopoly currently the focus of a lawsuit by the federal government for anticompetitive behavior with the intent to crush small businesses in its quest for market dominance. Needless to say, SBA’s continued relationship with Amazon is extremely troubling and is indicative of a much larger issue – concentrated corporate power.”
For the past several years, Amazon has been cosponsoring National Small Business Week, along with Visa, Google, and other large companies. Last year, Amazon even presented webinars geared to help small businesses succeed, which came across like ads for using Amazon’s platform.
Given that Amazon has spent the past two decades using anticompetitive behavior to run its small business competitors out of business, the Day of Action is focused on National Small Business Week, but it’s also a call to action about corporate power in this country. The fact that a week dedicated to small businesses is dominated by monopolistic corporations points to simply how huge this issue has become – that’s why Amazon’s cosponsorship cannot be ignored.
After complaints to the SBA regarding corporate cosponsorship were summarily dismissed, the American Booksellers Association and a number of Small Business Rising partners are taking matters into their own hand. On March 20, thousands of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders will be making their voices loud, demanding that Administrator Guzman do the right thing and “dump Amazon.”
