Why Some Amazon Workers Aren’t Happy About Their Raise(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Why Some Amazon Workers Aren’t Happy About Their Raise
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/technology/amazon-workers-pay-raise.html
4 comments
I have no doubt that a certain portion of workers benefitted from the new policy while some portion of workers did not. It is too early for anyone to judge the policy without the numbers being published from Amazon. My issue with the article is that it presents a single story of a person who was hurt by the policy and extrapolate that to be the overall tone at Amazon. This article relies on sensational and emotional aspects of one story, rather than facts and statistics.
Obviously, Amazon made this decision as a business and not a charity, so it stands to reason that this benefits the business more than employees.
However... as a full time employee who has his two shares of AMZN, I honestly would rather have had the extra income over the last two years. Maybe I could have put a significant dent into my student loans, or could have actually afforded my own place. As it was, too much of the extra "income" provided by benefits required gambles that low income people really should be required to depend on to make ends meet. Productivity bonuses aren't guaranteed, overtime isn't guaranteed, remaining employed for two years isn't guaranteed.
I see it as the ceiling having come down a bit, but the floor also having come up. And let's be honest... the second it becomes feasible to fully automate picking, stowing and counting, those employees are getting fired on the spot. There is no long term career prospect for the vast majority of Amazon warehouse workers, and they should consider the value of stability of income in the face of an uncertain future.
However... as a full time employee who has his two shares of AMZN, I honestly would rather have had the extra income over the last two years. Maybe I could have put a significant dent into my student loans, or could have actually afforded my own place. As it was, too much of the extra "income" provided by benefits required gambles that low income people really should be required to depend on to make ends meet. Productivity bonuses aren't guaranteed, overtime isn't guaranteed, remaining employed for two years isn't guaranteed.
I see it as the ceiling having come down a bit, but the floor also having come up. And let's be honest... the second it becomes feasible to fully automate picking, stowing and counting, those employees are getting fired on the spot. There is no long term career prospect for the vast majority of Amazon warehouse workers, and they should consider the value of stability of income in the face of an uncertain future.
How about instead of "without the numbers being published from Amazon", we have "without the numbers being published"?
No such thing as a free lunch. Shocker. Why not push for $25/hour and watch Amazon drop health insurance?
>No such thing as a free lunch. Shocker
No, but there's such a thing as making trillions of the backs of hard working peasants. No shocker either.
No, but there's such a thing as making trillions of the backs of hard working peasants. No shocker either.
If a $15/hr wage is apparently a pay decrease for these "peasants" then they were previously making a very livable wage. So what exactly is Amazon doing that every local cafe or retail store isn't?
It was livable because they'd get 2 shares of amazon stock, worth about a 10% boost to their earnings per year and in non holiday seasons, they could make an additional 8% on performance, with that doubling in the holiday seasons. So instead of making an additional 18% to 26%, the bump to long term workers is as stated in the article from $14 to $15, where the previous performance program in the off season was $1.28, before the extra 10% from the stock grant. So amazon just saved ~20% on this holiday's logistics costs.
If you give performance bonuses and people work too hard to meet them people complain about work conditions, and if you just pay everyone more instead, people complain that you took away the performance bonuses.
And they are right in both cases.
How about having regular wages for regular work AND performance bonuses to reward great performance (what they're meant to be)?
As opposed to low wages for regular work, thus making performance "bonuses" a necessity (and thus using them to force people to overworking) OR having regular wages and not compensating those working more.
If I pay you $8/hour, and have "performance bonus" of $16 for those who work their asses off, people will be forced to work 2-3 hours more per day to get those just to get by.
If I then start paying you $10/hour and drop the bonuses, those working regular hours would be ok, but others who are still made to work overtime would still like to be compensated extra for what they do. They might still make the same as before, but now their colleagues who go off a 8 hours or have lower performance get the same too. So what's to compensate for their extra effort?
That's what performance bonuses are about, to compensate for extra effort.
How about having regular wages for regular work AND performance bonuses to reward great performance (what they're meant to be)?
As opposed to low wages for regular work, thus making performance "bonuses" a necessity (and thus using them to force people to overworking) OR having regular wages and not compensating those working more.
If I pay you $8/hour, and have "performance bonus" of $16 for those who work their asses off, people will be forced to work 2-3 hours more per day to get those just to get by.
If I then start paying you $10/hour and drop the bonuses, those working regular hours would be ok, but others who are still made to work overtime would still like to be compensated extra for what they do. They might still make the same as before, but now their colleagues who go off a 8 hours or have lower performance get the same too. So what's to compensate for their extra effort?
That's what performance bonuses are about, to compensate for extra effort.
Who are these extremely productive peasants and where do they live? We could use some at our company.
I would love for a company to offer pay in lieu of subsidized health insurance if it was a dollar for dollar match. If you’re married and both jobs offer partially subsidized insurance that would be a win.
If I remember correctly, they used to offer this at Microsoft. You could waive the benefits you didn't need and get some pay back.
I really thought this was going to be a case of someone who spent years getting raises up to $15 an hour was having a fit because now everyone makes as much.
OK, so the complaint is a little more legitimate than that. But whenever you overhaul a system, some people gain, some people lose. Could amazon afford to raise wages and keep legacy programs around? Probably. Do they have to? No. And if Amazon is crippled by an exodus of workers then we'll learn something. And the way I hear it, unemployment is really low, seems like a workers job market to me.
OK, so the complaint is a little more legitimate than that. But whenever you overhaul a system, some people gain, some people lose. Could amazon afford to raise wages and keep legacy programs around? Probably. Do they have to? No. And if Amazon is crippled by an exodus of workers then we'll learn something. And the way I hear it, unemployment is really low, seems like a workers job market to me.
If it's a worker's market then minimum wage is both pointless and meaningless to begin with.
The people who pulled this PR stunt off probably are laughing at the fact that they get to pander to liberals whining about minimum wage while cutting overall labor costs at the same time.
The people who pulled this PR stunt off probably are laughing at the fact that they get to pander to liberals whining about minimum wage while cutting overall labor costs at the same time.
Oh come on this looks like it was written by corporate shareholder activists from the mid-1990s.
When did the New York Times become so conservative?
When did the New York Times become so conservative?
Care to share a quote from the article that backs up your claim of a conservative bias?
It's seems pretty factual to me.
It's seems pretty factual to me.
Writing a completely factual story that might appeal to a conservative mindset is not the same as a conservative bias. Now, putting aside your emotion for a moment, which part of the story did you feel was reported in a lopsided manner?