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

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

#681

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

rodrodrod wrote: post #432

pkulak wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, does the top comment always have to be cynical? This is exactly what everyone wanted Amazon to do. Maybe it's time to suck it up and give praise where praise is due? There are also benefits to paying more salary than your competitors (no hiring shortages, best employees, low turnover, etc), so I'm not going to blindly accept that it's now in Amazon's interest to drag the rest of the industry along with them. But…

> Wow, does the top comment always have to be cynical? Middlebrow dismissals are a hacker news staple. http://www.byrnehobart.com/blog/why-are-middlebrow-dismissal...

They're a homo internetus and ultimately a homo sapiens staple. Alas.

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

#682

Post by MrStonedOne » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #663

rubidium wrote: post #491

There's been similar moves in the past. Most famous of which is Ford's $5 / day. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2014/01/03/blogs/post-per... Ford's quote from the time is relevant today: “The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers.…

Yeah, I don't take that explanation at face value because it's describing a perpetual motion machine. Sales to your own employees are only going to be a trivial amount of revenue for any reasonable business. And I'm sure he knew that. But interpreted charitably, it's showmanship. This is a way to show leadership, get a lot of publicity, and hire better workers, so what's not to like?

The point wasn't that paying employees more leads to sells.

Its more of a remark about the overall world. Your employees are somebody's customers, your customers are somebody's employees, You are somebody's customer. If nobody in the world makes enough to be a consumer, nobody consumes, and thus you have no customers.

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

#683

Post by Drybones » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

kidsnow wrote: post #670

smilbandit wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and thus grew the middle class. The middle class is something we truly need to focus on growing again.

Those making $200k-$500k are the new middle class. Are you making that much but only own one house? Are your cars more than 5 years old... Ding... you're in the middle class.

I don't understand why frugality means you're middle class. I also don't understand how $200k-$500k, a very sizable income, even in the SF bay area, is magically the middle class now

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

#684

Post by bhupy » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

fabricexpert wrote: post #616

bhupy wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't using welfare to fill in the gaps the most efficient solution? A well functioning market drives down the cost of goods and services to the minimum possible price, provided there's adequate competition. Commoditization is a good thing. The fact that bread and milk only cost a few dollars is net-good for society. Commoditization of labor should, thus, also be similarly good for society. At the end of the day,…

That's not what actually happens though. The rich avoid the tax and push for tax reduction and the poor don't get the welfare they need.

Are you suggesting that welfare can never work?

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

#685

Post by wuz » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:13 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?

You're ignoring a major component - Warehouse jobs are likely location-dependent and switching incurs other, not obvious costs. Targeting all of capitalism is a good idea, but one that is pretty hard to change.

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

#686

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

myth_buster wrote: post #675

@dang Looks like a bug [0]. The story has been on top of the page for a while now with over 500+ votes. I believe it got merged with a new story that messed up the vote count. 0: https://imgur.com/kYztZ9T

Not a bug, just a manual kludge I did in order to share some karma with the original submitter. The submission that was at #1 before that is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120667.

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

#687

Post by propman » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

Amazon says no more RSUs in exchange for $15 min wage, can anyone say how much the RSUs were for those employees? I’m curious as to what the difference is?

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

#688

Post by HEmanZ » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

jxramos wrote: post #641

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?

A quick search shows the average salary was $13/hr according to Glassdoor, with a range of $10/hr-$19/hr. That makes this on average a 15% pay raise, which isn’t something to scoff at, but isn’t as crazy as the pay raise of 7.50 - 15.00.

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

#689

Post by zuminator » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:14 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?

I imagine one reason Amazon is getting a lot of heat is because its stock is appreciating, Bezos is by far the world's wealthiest man and it's easy to claim that he and his fellow shareholders are getting rich of the backs of the workers. Walmart has gotten a lot of criticism over the years for the same reason. The fact that both retailers have a ton of workers also means there are plenty of hard luck stories to tell. In Amazon's case I know of at least one rather interesting book (Nomadland) to come out of stories about the camper communities that spring up around Amazon fulfillment centers.

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

#690

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

ttoinou wrote: post #285

czep wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All it matters is people interacting voluntarily My point is that it is most certainly not voluntary. There are people in the world who are not as lucky or intelligent or resourceful as you, me, and most others on HN. Try to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of the disadvantaged, they do not know the world as we do, they cannot shop around for high paying jobs, and if they miss a paycheck, they may very well…

Putting myself in their shoes is exactly why I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. What paycheck would they risk loosing if they can't find a job anyway ? Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people Asymmetry and inequalities are everywhere. I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mi…

> I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mine

Societies make a decision to be as they are. If you're trying to say that you prefer an inequitable society, that's fine. If you're trying to say that nature is inequitable, and that society has some responsibility to coordinate with it to preserve that inequity, I'd say 1) that's a weird nature-religion, and 2) property rights protect the weak from the strong.