Call me a cynic, but this must mean they are on the verge of needing vastly fewer, but more skilled, folks in their warehouse.
This. I just made the exact same comment[1] before I saw yours
Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
201–210 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
>$15/hour is still not much in the international market where Amazon sells its goods. In large parts of Europe it's less than what a warehouse worker makes. i don't understand this comment. while i'm all for warehouse workers getting a fair wage i don't understand the point of comparing a us wage, being paid in the us, to us workers, to foreign workers in foreign economies? yes USD 15 is not enough to survive in Oslo…
+1 And I'm not sure about the actual numbers, but something like $30K per year basically puts one in a top 10% of the world, and more than $50K, you are already in the 1% of the world, by income. (not sure if that factors in cost of living).
not trying to disparage but this comment is wrongheaded in exactly the same way as the one i'm responding to. us workers don't live in subsaharan africa - so it doesn't matter if 30k is top 10% worldwide because we don't have global wage equilibrium. 30k for a single person is fine - you can eat and rent an apartment and probably drive a crappy car. it is not enough for a family, it is not enough to save for retirement, it is not enough to save for further education, and it is not enough to save for medical emergencies. it's not good enough.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they'll get to look progressive for adopting this wage early, while mitigating their competitive disadvantage by forcing every other company to raise their wages too eventually. That's deeply cynical. In the process, they're actually paying real people more money. Which is sort of critically important if you care about this issue and not just taking pot shots at Amazon on HN.
> In the process, they're actually paying real people more money Except the OP was talking specifically about the company's plan to lobby. Yes, they're actually paying people more money, but if everyone has that same amount of money then you get wage push inflation. Then everyone loses. This is also why minimum wage discussions always spiral out of control...there really is no good long term solution for setting mini…
Unless you are Amazon and people get more spending money. Yes everything else will go up with minimum wage but not right away.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#204partially funded by the removal of RSU stock grants
What was the effective hourly wage before with the RSUs factored in? Did they have a 1-year vesting period? There's so many details missing from this story that it's hard to assess the real impact of the $15/hr wage.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I worked in a call center and I used to always wonder why they'd accept such extreme turnover, given that there were a few weeks of training before they could put you on (the fact that there was a course in touch-typing as part of that training probably gives you an idea where the bar was for hiring). But I'd read some analysis that suggested that in some ways the employers running these systems found that desirable,…
> because it was hard to unionize a workplace where people didn't stick around for a whole year on average.
That's why you want inter-professional union.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point about minimum wage is to prevent labor abuse in crappy week conditions by making sure people are just expensive enough to take their safety seriously.
Do you prefer people out of jobs without being able to sustain their self rather than people taking jobs that you judge yourself are bad for them ?
False dichotomy. I prefer to let people run their own lives instead of dictating it to them.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they'll get to look progressive for adopting this wage early, while mitigating their competitive disadvantage by forcing every other company to raise their wages too eventually. That's deeply cynical. In the process, they're actually paying real people more money. Which is sort of critically important if you care about this issue and not just taking pot shots at Amazon on HN.
> In the process, they're actually paying real people more money Except the OP was talking specifically about the company's plan to lobby. Yes, they're actually paying people more money, but if everyone has that same amount of money then you get wage push inflation. Then everyone loses. This is also why minimum wage discussions always spiral out of control...there really is no good long term solution for setting mini…
This isn't necessarily the case, as shown by countries like Australia with very high minimum wages.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by “labor-driven?”
I'm assuming it relates to the tight labor market giving workers the power to choose where they work at (as opposed to "this is the only job offer I have")
>I'm assuming it relates to the tight labor market giving workers the power to choose where they work at (as opposed to "this is the only job offer I have")
Lol no it's still not like that unless you have a high salary career, and most people don't have those.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
It hasn't crossed a threshold into being a big deal, but singling out an individual does look like bullying and bullying isn't funny. Jeff Bezos has to respect the law or face a series of consequences up to imprisonment. We all know he is going to respect the law like we all do. It is mean spirited to write a (potential) law that disrespects him directly. He can't really respond to that. Sanders should have stuck to…
When the individual is worth more than many nation states, I have no problem with singling them out.
even if that person is the richest man in the world, a US senator singling out a private citizen in formal legislation is still "punching down". you really shouldn't cheer for that.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#210Opponents of the minimum wage argue that it reduces employment by creating an artificial floor on wages, that jobs are lost because employers can't afford to pay the minimum. But if you can't pay the minimum, then you didn't really have a job to offer in the first place! By extension of this logic, employers could argue that they are losing jobs because they can only afford to pay someone who will work 12 hours a day…
> 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.
> Why not let the employees decide if the job is worth taking?
That's the way it should work. And in a functioning market, employees don't make these decisions alone against large corporations, they make those decisoins in large groups like voters or in a union. Thinking that each employer is free to offer and each employee is free to value whether its worth it makes for some kind of "free market" balance for labor is pretty naïve when it comes to individuals vs large corporations.
We wouldn't allow employers to bargain on risk and "letting the employee decide whether the risk is worth taking", I don't see any difference with wages.