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Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

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Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#101

Post by barry-cotter »

dboreham wrote: post #96
manigandham wrote: post #78

This is a direct attack on competitors, designed to enlist the help of the federal government to raise payroll and put pressure on arch nemesis Walmart and any other company that has lots of retail other jobs that are not conducive to automation. Remember that Amazon thinks 5 years ahead, and they waited for the perfect PR and political threshold to announce these changes and capitalize on the news.

If you compare the UX at Walmart vs, say, Costco (which pays higher wages) I'm not so sure that paying the lowest is good business. i.e. is 1 Costco employee equal in productivity to 1 Walmart employee? I suspect not.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-08-27/why-walma...

Walmart pays less because it has much lower profit margins. It serves far more customers and the average employee is a great deal less skilled. And it’s cheaper, with greater product choice. The average Walmart employee is definitely worse than the average Costco employee but Walmart is clearly the better business. It has higher gross profits, employs more people and serves more people.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#102

Post by Fomite »

vkou wrote: post #19
xt00 wrote: post #5

This will help with recruitment, but the sentiment that new workers will essentially get paid the same as older workers is going to immediately be a big sticking point. From watching the Boeing union strikes over many years, I get the sense that once a labor force unionizes they setup their own structure for pay and get that signed off -- where they have seniority and things like that. But it also means the company b…

> But it also means the company becomes very adversarial with their work-force and spends most of its time trying to figure out how to get around the demands of the union. Companies don't become more adversarial when they deal with a union - what happens is that the union shines some sunlight on any existing adversarial relationships. When your boss asks you to work an extra hour without pay, and you tell him to poun…

This. It's only "adversarial" because now the workers are capable of being a meaningful adversary.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#103

Post by dominotw »

ravitation wrote: post #14
xt00 wrote: post #5

This will help with recruitment, but the sentiment that new workers will essentially get paid the same as older workers is going to immediately be a big sticking point. From watching the Boeing union strikes over many years, I get the sense that once a labor force unionizes they setup their own structure for pay and get that signed off -- where they have seniority and things like that. But it also means the company b…

A company doesn't become adversarial with its workforce because of unions; a company is forced to treat its workforce more as an equal because of unions. The adversarial nature of the relationship between a workforce and its company is not a result of unions, it exists without unions. It's just that, without unions, companies are free to largely ignore the demands of individual workers. Control over compensation and…

> a company is forced to treat its workforce more as an equal because of unions.

Isn't this dream of every company to treat their workers as 'equal' interchangeable cogs. Union is co conspirator in this scheme, turn all workers into 'equals' of each other.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#104

Post by AmericanChopper »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #60
ComputerGuru wrote: post #51

I’ve always thought the answer to the union “problem” was easy: multiple unions. Mandate that no more than, say, 30% of the workforce may be part of a single union, then let them fight it out. Monopolies suck both when it comes to corporations and the workforce. In my experience corruption sinks in on both sides when people can get away with putting in place policies to protect the status quo. When there are multiple…

the power of a union is the ability of its workers to withhold labor. this would make unions ineffective and I'm not sure what the upside is other than an aversion to monopolies.

The actual true power of unions is to restrict entry to the trade. A union that is adversarial to employers may achieve some insignificant pay increases. But the only truly successful unions when it comes to improving pay and working conditions have exclusively done so through limiting entry to the profession, think the AMA, ALPA, Bar Associations.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#105

Post by aerotwelve »

ekianjo wrote: post #65
empath75 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are guys that my brother would love to promote Manager complains about unions. I’m absolutely stunned.

if unions were not actively trying to sabotage their own companies most of the time, maybe the sentiment would be different. There are several cases when unions actively push to destroy companies just to get short term benefits.

Why would an organized labor force try to sabotage the company they work for? If their company goes bankrupt, they all lose their jobs. I've yet to see a union contract that guarantees the type of golden parachutes that executives routinely line up for themselves (and only for themselves) when their firm goes bust or they start to run for the door.

In general, when a company fails, the rank and file have to find new jobs. Executives, on the other hand, never have to work again. We observe this trend over and over again (unionized workforce or not).

Given this trend, which side is more likely to be the one that blows the whole thing up?

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#106

Post by br3n7 »

okr wrote: post #35
cortesoft wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, can't this argument be made against ALL worker protections? We don't need OSHA, workers should decide for themselves how dangerous they want to be. We don't need minimum wage laws, workers should decide. We don't need overtime laws, let workers decide. We have seen what happens when you remove all restrictions on how employers can treat workers - workers get horribly abused and often times die. If you think t…

It would be nice to hear opinions from the workers at amazon. I find it very compelling to agree with you. But i also like to make my own decision, to negotiate. My ideal, at least. And i expect my elders and seniors to teach me about the dangers in this world. And I also think, its a two way street. I will not risk my life, and Amazon does not want dead people. And is US and Dubai really comparable? Why do people go…

Because they are desperate. That's it. they are trying to survive.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#107

Post by jungturk »

xt00 wrote: post #5

This will help with recruitment, but the sentiment that new workers will essentially get paid the same as older workers is going to immediately be a big sticking point. From watching the Boeing union strikes over many years, I get the sense that once a labor force unionizes they setup their own structure for pay and get that signed off -- where they have seniority and things like that. But it also means the company b…

Codetermination seems to work well in Germany. Employees and shareholders are both represented on the board and perhaps that allows better negotiation and less adversity?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#108

Post by drawkbox »

Isn't it better to get your money and not be hoping for a bonus or stock award?

Most people would take the guaranteed pay raise over the non-guaranteed bonus or profit sharing/stock awards. Let people decide what to do with their money, 'benefits' largely benefit the company not always all individuals.

The problem is real pay/share of GDP to persons has gone down consistently [1] while 'real compensation' [2] has supposedly gone up and supposedly makes up over 30% of everyone's pay on average, that includes bonuses, healthcare, other benefits that most people don't see or use regularly. Even real compensation is dwindling. [3]

As an example of increasing wages over benefits, I'd rather people got paid and then purchased healthcare for instance on their own as it would be a more consumer, rather than employer, focused market.

Raises should be given on the regular and the base way to reward value creating employees, not some might be bonus or stock award tied to the company instead. A bonus oro profit sharing on top of increasing wages is still ok but not in spite of it. What if the employee wants to buy other stock, pay them so they can. Give raises, quit with the 'real compensation' gains that don't put actual money in your accounts, people would always take actual money over benefits.

The velocity of money (domestic money that changes hands) has also fallen off a cliff [4] because pay to persons/raises have been efficiently worked out of the system in favor of 'real compensation' which does not get money in accounts consumers can spend.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB

[3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS85006151

[4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#109

Post by chris11 »

InTheArena wrote: post #49
irrational wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are unions anti universal healthcare? It seems like they would be since it would be one less thing they could negotiate about.

They were in the Obamacare debate. Unions fought like hell against the Cadillac care provisions because it did in fact limit health care.

I thought a complaint was that Obamacare introduced a tax on health care plans that were unusually generous.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#110

Post by Retric »

barry-cotter wrote: post #101
dboreham wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compare the UX at Walmart vs, say, Costco (which pays higher wages) I'm not so sure that paying the lowest is good business. i.e. is 1 Costco employee equal in productivity to 1 Walmart employee? I suspect not.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-08-27/why-walma... Walmart pays less because it has much lower profit margins. It serves far more customers and the average employee is a great deal less skilled. And it’s cheaper, with greater product choice. The average Walmart employee is definitely worse than the average Costco employee but Walmart is clearly the better business. It has higher gross profits, employs mo…

Walmart only really has great profit margins in areas without competition.

So sure when it has a local monopoly it ends up with great margins, but in high competition areas the stores are far less profitable. https://www.businessinsider.com/states-where-people-spend-th...

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