841–850 of 1001 posts
What happens to the prices at amazon.com? With a 3.8% profit margin, can they really eat this cost without consumers noticing, and if so, will they elect to?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is going to lay off all of the employees through automation. You can have $150 an hour for warehouse employees as a minimum wage if there is only one of them.
Why would he bother raising wages then? No need for him to raise wages to do that. He isn't doing it for the sake of it. There is some other incentive involved. Automation happens either way and they have been gradually doing it for years without raising wages significantly.
So now that Amazon's worst employee gets $15 per hour, what happens to the salary of a more-skilled, more-motivated employee who busted their ass to get their salary up to $18 per hour when the minimum was under $8? Does it stay the same or increase proportionally? What happens to the prices at amazon.com? With a 3.8% profit margin, can they really eat this cost without consumers noticing, and if so, will they elect…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is going to lay off all of the employees through automation. You can have $150 an hour for warehouse employees as a minimum wage if there is only one of them.
Why would he bother raising wages then? No need for him to raise wages to do that. He isn't doing it for the sake of it. There is some other incentive involved. Automation happens either way and they have been gradually doing it for years without raising wages significantly.
Bezos has shown few, if any, signs of altruism and the one instance I can think of would be roughly the monetary equivalent of me giving a homeless person a penny.
Jeff Bezos in the announcement. “We’re excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us" Is this an attempt to pressure its competition with less money in the bank to do the same, loby for a higher minimum wage and drive them out of business? Maybe it's a reaction to the union organizing taking place a whole foods and they think this will be cheaper in the long run. I don't…
"Bezos wouldn't do this unless he saw a benefit for the business or his hand was being forced somehow." I don't like this type of knee-jerk suspicion towards people running corporations. Don't forget that they have conscience too, and can make decisions for the better or for the worse. In fact, by not giving credit where credit is due, you disincentivize them from trying to do good things. Yes, business people need t…
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?
If the greedy people at the top take too much money for themselves, then the machine stops, no one buys cars, and there company sinks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're against employees of a company banding together under the right of free speech and negotiating with a company as a group?
Woah check out that straw man argument! I think what OP was saying, which you may have missed, is that politically they don’t agree with unions. Neither do I. Unions appear to suppress wages, block people from jobs who are not members of the union, and engage in bullying tactics against those who don’t want to join. On top of the fact they take that money (util recently, forceably) taken from employees and used for p…
And we don't know if the "threat" worked. Let's wait to see the full benefits package before we judge ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly this. I've spent the last year or so studying Ford. His whole point was that if people didn't have the money to buy his product or time to use it (he reduced work hours as well) then your business will never survive. He wasn't banking on employee sales, he was looking at employees as a snapshot of a wider market. Great example is fast food as well. If you are offering the "lowest cost" food option, and provid…
For a profitable company where wages are a major expense, it seems like lower prices with higher wages can only be achieved with higher productivity. I think an economist would attribute this more to Ford's assembly line? But sure, a high-productivity business can lead the way on wage increases. Other businesses might have to raise prices to keep up. I'd like to read more about Ford's effect on wages outside Detroit.…
FWIW productivity has literally exploded in the last few decades.