I wonder what the actual cost to them was since a change in rate is only a hypothetical to some extent. You have to multiply the delta rate by the number of applicable individuals. What's the `n` for the number of employees who actually worked minimum wage for Amazon? Is it a vast amount of people?
Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
641–650 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense--there is no "legal duty to maximize profits". That concept isn't really meaningful: maximize over what term? In fact Amazon is probably the number one counter-example to that idea, they've never prioritized profits and have plowed everything they can back into infrastructure. There's also no "legal duty to pay employees as little as possible", nor "legal duty to fight unionization" nor a hundred other thing…
> there is no "legal duty to maximize profits". For publicly traded companies, there is: https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/09/articles/series/s...
Again, no, and IMO the cited case (eBay v Craigslist founders) is again more of a counter example. From the court opinion:
> Having chosen a for-profit corporate form, the craigslist directors are bound by the fiduciary duties and standards that accompany that form. Those standards include acting to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of its stockholders.
"Value" yes, but again says nothing about "profit". The court acknowledged different stockholders can and do have different and even conflicting definitions for value, and that a contract (not a law) should be used to resolve those differences. In the end the only thing that the judge ruled against were actions specifically designed to destroy the value of the company's stock by making it harder to buy and sell. He didn't order e.g. that Craigslist raise ad prices even though it's widely believed they hold a ton of pricing power and are deliberately avoiding maximizing profit because they prioritize community.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#643Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why are you comparing 12 weeks with the entire 2017 revenue? They aren't. They're comparing to revenue per hour. It doesn't matter what period of time you calculate revenue per hour with, you always get the same number.
They're comparing 12 weeks of warehouse work to revenue per hour. Why twelve weeks? It still makes no sense.
You have to use some amount of time to get a number measured in dollars. What amount of time do you want to use?
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're saying they shouldn't lobby for an increase in the minimum wage, and that large numbers of workers' wages should languish because they work for small businesses?
No, I'm saying it is in their self interest to lobby for it.
I fail to see why it is bad when economic interest and public interests line up. Would you rather Google not advocate for net neutrality because it benefits them?
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#645Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#646Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since when is "economical" equivalent to "good"? The whole reason children work in coal mines is that others can't fit down the holes, it's simple economics. The reason black slaves work the fields is because white folks don't want to do the work for the going rate, it's simple economics. Economic forces are not guaranteed to produce a just society.
Did I say economical meant good? No, I said it's up to the government to change the requirements if it's decided that a certain pay is required to survive, and market forces won't lead to that amount. Your other two examples are quite the jump though, and not really worth commenting on.
So are you saying social services benefits should be lower? I don't get your point.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#647Opponents 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 Stop right there. What about people who don't need a basic living wage, like students who still live with their parents? Why should they be pushed out of the market? I worked in high school, starting when I was 16. It was minimum wage. Without that job I wouldn't have been able to afford a car (necessary where I lived), travel to Greece and Italy, and have my own spending money.…
So the less fortunate who are forced to rely on these basic jobs should live below poverty, so you can enjoy some extra cash to travel internationally?
The reality is, in modern America the percentage of people relying on these jobs as their sole source of income is much larger than the highschoolers looking to make some extra cash. We shouldn't sacrifice the masses to enable the few to maintain an optional job, in my opinion.
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#648Well I don’t agree with unions politically, the threat of unionization does have a positive effect at times ...
You're against employees of a company banding together under the right of free speech and negotiating with a company as a group?
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#649Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly worth observing: they bring in a ton of gross cash, but their revenue is smaller than a lot of Internet operations because their out-lay is high: physical storage, transportation, etc. are all expenses that Internet companies with similar profits don't have to shoulder. In 2016, they made a profit of $857 million on a revenue of $30.1 billion--- i.e. profit margin of 2%, compared to Alphabet's 9.7% or Facebo…
Profits don't tell the whole story though. Imagine if you are Amazon. Do you take the extra billion dollars you earned this month and throw it into another warehouse and more growth opportunities? Or do you keep your size the same and use that money to raise wages? It's more of question of how they are allocating funds. Either way, the "profit" stays the same. Amazon has been focused on growth at all costs, and that…
That's the strategy that makes a company more flexible to market shocks. If your revenue is tied up in new buildings, you can react to market shock by decreasing your growth rate. If your revenue is tied up in wages, you can't react to market shock by slashing your wage budget, for (obvious) psychological reasons that half-constructed warehouses are utterly immune to. ;)
Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it doesn't make any sense. Amazon doesn't dominate the jobs market.
Depends how you look at it. The fulfillment centers are intentionally built out in the middle of nowhere where land and labour are both plentiful and inexpensive. If you live in such a place and Amazon is your employer, it may well be the case that you don't have a lot of other options, especially if what you came from was being on social assistance.
So now they will have an even stronger foothold in the depressed areas that they provided people with jobs. EMTs, teachers, etc are going to start taking jobs the Amazon because it pays better.