Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#131

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #71

i_cant_speel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why any company treats any of their employees well. Google isn't giving their employees all these perks out of the goodness of their heart. They give them to attract the best talent to make the most money. Amazon is doing the same thing.

that's the whole point of the job market. The dysfunction displayed by Amazon is evidence of a supply/demand imbalance in the job market for warehousing roles, because if people have an option to move to another company that does not treat them badly they generally will do. As it stands I'm guessing the ratio of Amazon applicants to positions is way too high meaning they can afford a high turnover rate and focus sole…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#132

Post by zacharytelschow » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

ashelmire wrote: post #101

chrisseaton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I've got no sense of humour, but I think that's unprofessional and something like bullying, rather than funny. Legislation should surely not target one individual by name like that?

I think turning your employees into welfare-dependent wage-slaves is far worse than unprofessional or bullying, but I guess that's just me and most decent people. CEOs of large public companies have to take public heat, by name, quite often. It's a huge part of their job; otherwise they'd be COOs.

> turning your employees into welfare-dependent wage-slaves

I wasn't aware staying with a particular employer was compulsory.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#133

Post by nemo44x » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

agotterer wrote: post #103

Have there been any studies around the length of time increasing wages is actually beneficial for? I assume we’ve been here before and companies eventually increase prices or inflation kicks?

It depends really. It could cause an inflation in prices but not necessarily. It could come out of the profits a company makes as they try and compete by keeping their prices lower while still paying higher wages. This would have an effect on the share price of the company as their bottom line would decrease but could also increase share price if they make it up in volume due to being more competitive. It could also create efficiency in the company since they would incentivized to have fewer employees making more money while producing more efficiently.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#134

Post by watwat1 » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

kork__ wrote: post #88

Socialism has only been tried in third world hell holes like Russia and succeeded so far beyond expectations it ended up being called the second world. A first world country going socialist would be the equivalent of increasing GDP by between 50 to 500%.

Stop spreading stupidities.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#135

Post by ttoinou » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #115

bhupy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can't pay a basic living wage, for fair hours, in safe conditions, with necessary medical benefits, then you don't have a job to offer. Why not let the employees decide if the job is worth taking? If there exists people willing to voluntarily take a job given its wage/conditions, you have a job to offer.

because employees have inherently more power then workers in suchs an example. Workers need wages and money to survive in the economy, and usually have little negotiation power compared to (massive) companies. You could argue we could go back to the 1800's in terms of labour standards, but don't be suprised when workers simply decide to kill their bosses and companies retaliating[1]. Diminishing labour rights is just…

Why would they have more power ? Employees have the power to say no, shop somewhere else, to do a shitty job / not follow orders and let the employer figure it out, quit when they want, leave the employers without the job being done overnight. They also receive something very defined and predictable (money defined in the contract) in exchange for some vague objectives where the employers needs to constantly check if the company mission is being fulfilled, and constantly update this mission.

   Workers need wages and money to survive in the economy

And employers don't need wages and money to "survive in the economy" ?

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#136

Post by beaconstudios » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #124

beaconstudios wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it makes sense, because unionisation will decrease the company's competitiveness, leading to their clients shifting to another (non-unionised) call centre and everyone getting fired. Thus companies in sectors like this end up trying to squeeze every drop out of their employees before they quit, because they are expendable.

We were directly employed by the company for whom we were providing service rather than being a third-party call center.

even in that case, companies are aware of the cost-increasing effect of unionisation so the action is the same, but via direct company action rather than market attrition.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#137

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #15

nebulous1 wrote: post #4

I mean, they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. Good move. They have more to do though. I've went through a few articles on this but I didn't see any of them mention what Amazon's minimum actual pay was before this, just the federal minimum wage. Anybody know?

Did Amazon actually pay any worse or have worse working conditions than any other unskilled warehouse job? If so, why didn’t the employees change jobs? If not, why is so much criticism directed at Amazon specifically, rather than at capitalism itself?

[deleted]

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#138

Post by nebulous1 » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #100

askmike wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. That's because they treat their workers terrible. They're a huge company with a lot of profit and how people at the bottom of the chain are treated is maddening. They're seen as an example of how not to treat workers (and for good reason). They definitely should not be lauded for this: They did some calculations a…

Amazon's profit is not what I would call "a lot." As recently as 2015 they had some negative quarters. This quarter last year less than 1%. 2018 has been higher but not more than about 4%. Compare the top 20 or so corporations average profitability of about 15%, and Apple's over 20%. https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/profit_margin

Isn't that due to their currently loss-making Amazon Studios though?

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#139

Post by mrep » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:40 PM UTC

kbad1000 wrote: post #8

Can they do the same in India?

Highly unlikely. Minimum wage in India is 9,000 rupees a month which is about 0.75$ USD per hour. Even if they normally pay double the minimum wage which is effectively what they are doing in the US now with 15$ an hour minimum wage, paying 10 times that would easily make them un-competitive with every other company.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#140

Post by knightofmars » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 1:40 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #73

School-Cotton wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Amazon actually pay any worse or have worse working conditions than any other unskilled warehouse job? If so, why didn’t the employees change jobs? If not, why is so much criticism directed at Amazon specifically, rather than at capitalism itself?

Did Amazon actually pay any worse or have worse working conditions than any other unskilled warehouse job? I'm not sure, but I think most places are OK with bathroom breaks. I could be wrong, though. If so, why didn't the employees change jobs? See, this is much more difficult. If the Amazon warehouse pays more than other jobs around - even if the pay is still low - it makes it much more difficult to leave the job. Y…

"I'm not sure it is fully capitalism's fault..." I agree. The problem here isn't capitalism. I also don't think it's lack of laws, it might be the opposite. People being abused by corporations who have manipulated laws in order to favor the corporations. Things such as "forced arbitration clauses", "anti-union legislation", and "non-compete clauses" are meant to strip the power away from workers. That we blame any economic system ignores the fact that humans are the root cause of any and all injustices in the systems we implement.