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Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

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

#771

Post by toomuchtodo »

psychometry wrote: post #760
joezydeco wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 100% "Get out of Bernie Sanders' crosshairs before he regulates us to do this"

No democrat is getting any substantive bill through Congress and signed into law until 2020. I don't think they're afraid of Bernie.

Midterms will be here in a month. "Bernicrats" (Left progressive Democrats) have been doing extremely well in recent elections and polling.

If you're not afraid as a Republican or a corporation, you haven't been paying attention.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-18/internal-... (Internal RNC Poll: Complacent Trump Voters May Cost GOP Control of Congress)

http://time.com/5411948/national-voter-registration-drive-re... (A Record 800,000 People Registered to Vote on National Voter Registration Day)

https://abc13.com/politics/texas-sets-new-voter-registration... (Texas sets new voter registration record, with 15.6 million registered ahead of election)

https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/10/02/ca-voter-registra... (California Voter Registration Tops 19 Million In New Record)

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

#772

Post by baldfat »

meko wrote: post #322
baldfat wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying your salary is based on keeping the working poor? OR are you saying you think corporations and their investors deserve a low wage workforce that the government will take care of with your tax dollars? I find no logical sense other then your mad that people can make money for WORKING. When people make $15 an hour they will need less government assistance. This will take away from corporate's profits, wh…

On hn you should always assume comments are in good faith and try to understand them from the best possible interpretation.

Well I am trying to see the best possible interpretation. What is the best possible interpretation.

I think the poster didn't think of what it meant besides what only affects himself. I have noticed that is where all discussion ends, but it really is implementing that his bottom line is negatively affected if the working poor get higher wages.

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

#773

Post by prolikewh0a »

drawkbox wrote: post #639

Very smart. Amazon and Bezos is one of, if not the, best at reinvesting profits back into the company, mostly for research and development or new products. Increasing employees pay can also boost the machine and the product which many companies have forgotten, wage increases are pro-growth which increase consumer power. Many Amazon employees will probably buy more from Amazon and comparatively Amazon looks good to wo…

I didn't hear anything about improving working conditions. The employees in Seattle making $15/hr already are still being treated like shit.

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

#774

Post by radicaldreamer »

pm90 wrote: post #736
radicaldreamer wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos paying sales tax on his morning coffee is enough for the people looking for an extra dopamine hit by rah rahing Amazon. $15/hour still isn’t enough to live on in many cities and large scale tax evasion by corporations is one of the single most insidious epidemics in our society today.

I agree that corporations are evading taxes on a massive scale, but can we also applaud them for taking steps in the right direction when they do?

You can applaud them for what they actually do without delving into apologism (“who says Amazon doesn’t pay taxes”)

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

#775

Post by brbrodude »

behringer wrote: post #637
genericone wrote: post #327

I suppose there has been some 'breakthrough' in their warehouse automation stack? I suppose in the rest of the USA a doubling of wages will definitely get them through an awkward longshoreman period, "well I'm being paid more unexpectedly, I suppose I can't complain about the robots". Once the robots are well established in operations, they can start to cut labor back some more.

Robots should be replacing workers. If a robot can replace you then the work you could be better spent on something else.

Unless you own means of productions, then you can be a person

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

#776

Post by prolikewh0a »

moftz wrote: post #697
gbear605 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possibility: the economy has a surplus of people who are looking for unskilled warehouse jobs, so even if other places had better quality, it was difficult to switch.

I'm guessing for many people an Amazon warehouse job is stable employment near their small town that might not have many opportunities otherwise. Lots of small towns on this list and I can't imagine all of them had a booming economy before Amazon showed up. I'm not saying it's right to abuse your workers but $10/hr goes a long way in some places. It's not the same as working in a coal mine but it has some similar the…

>I'm guessing for many people an Amazon warehouse job is stable employment near their small town that might not have many opportunities otherwise.

Not with the 2nd highest turnover of all Fortune 500's.

https://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-has-second-highest-employe...

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

#777

Post by chc »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #734
moftz wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you cheat on your wife, it's not like she's going to divorce you that day and be married the next. Not everyone can just pickup and go to the other fulfillment warehouse next door. Amazon has their warehouses in a lot of small towns and I'm sure many of them were not doing so great before they showed up. People like having a job, they don't like having to shop around in a place where there might not be too man…

> People like having a job, they don't like having to shop around in a place where there might not be too many opportunities. But that's the point, isn't it? They put the warehouse there because it's where the cheap labor is. If you shame them into not paying less than $15/hour then the next warehouse they open might as well be in a place where $15/hour is the prevailing wage, or it was $14.75 with low unemployment a…

It's weird to me how we tend to talk about whether worker protections are harmful in hypothetical terms, when we can actually look at history and see that society improved as more protections for workers were implemented, and inequality has gotten worse has gotten worse as worker protections have waned. I love a good philosophical exercise as much as anyone else, but the real world has shown us the answer sheet for this question.

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

#778

Post by prolikewh0a »

jcims wrote: post #650
mikepurvis wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>I'm guessing for many people an Amazon warehouse job is stable employment near their small town that might not have many opportunities otherwise.

If they do their research, they'll realize they probably won't have a job for that long [1] and it would be preferable to stay in a position (that likely pays better with your examples) that is reliable.

[1] https://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-has-second-highest-employe...

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

#779

Post by joezydeco »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #771
psychometry wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No democrat is getting any substantive bill through Congress and signed into law until 2020. I don't think they're afraid of Bernie.

Midterms will be here in a month. "Bernicrats" (Left progressive Democrats) have been doing extremely well in recent elections and polling. If you're not afraid as a Republican or a corporation, you haven't been paying attention. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-18/internal-... (Internal RNC Poll: Complacent Trump Voters May Cost GOP Control of Congress) http://time.com/5411948/national-voter-registrat…

I saw it as an issue that both progressives and conservatives would eventually agree upon. Amazon is an extremely easy target to focus upon when it came to wage issues.

It doesn't really matter who owns the White House in 2020. This issue wasn't going to go away.

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

#780

Post by dv_dt »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #721
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.

> and thus grew the middle class. The middle class is something we truly need to focus on growing again. But that's the problem with things like this. We keep focusing on the top and the bottom but not the middle. So we pass laws purporting to tax the rich (but really anyone with a full time job) and then the rich hire accountants and only the middle class pays. Then we clamor for a higher minimum wage, but the middl…

I submit that we have just focused on the top in terms of systemic gov't policy.
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