101–110 of 149 posts
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The exact definition of a full time salaried position, as defined by the federal government, is 2087 hours per year, FYI. Why such a weird number? Because it takes leap years into account: 365.24 × 5/7 × 8
Is there no legal minimum number of paid vacation days in the US?
Why does NYT have it out for Amazon? Is it because Mr Bezos owns a rival paper?
Lets Occam's razor this shit. Is Amazon a megacorp with the ability to throw their weight around and have a large impact on the world? Or are they a little mom-and-pop operation that have wondered into the crosshairs of newsmen conspiring against them because Bozos is the owner of a rival paper? In an era where NYT would like nothing more than to stop the bleeding from papers to online, and migration from NYT to Wapo isn't even on their radar?
Why does the article keep comparing warehouse workers at Amazon with salespeople at Sears? Those don't seem like comparable positions (sales comp is often very performance based) and thus, compensation wouldn't be the same. Maybe compare the salespeople at Sears with account managers or some similar position at Amazon?
> “Most of these people retired with a good pension,” said Jon White, who worked at Sears for 38 years, most recently as a manager in a store in Lithonia, Ga., before retiring in 2008. “Most of them are comfortable for the most part — cashiers, clerks, replenishers, all kinds of workers.”
And this statement doesn’t invoke a lot of confidence for me. The article talks about profit-sharing for salespeople, then this quote says “most” retired with a “good” pension. So there were some that didn’t retire with a good pension? Who were they?
And then the quote ends with “most” are “comfortable”. Comfortable is quite different than the prior part about profit-sharing and retiring with the equivalent of a million dollars today.
That quote is just so exceedingly vague it doesn’t answer the question that The NY Times itself poses.
Sears' huge pension liabilities was cited as one of the main reasons that prevented any possible re-structuring that could have saved the company when it was declining and heading to bankruptcy... I mean, let's be realistic here. For how long was Sears in this pitiful state?... Getting all that real estate + semi-established brand was a private equity's wet dream, yet nobody ever contemplated that option. And now tha…
Yup, if you're interested in a recent example look at Mellanox vs Starboard capital. We need to break out of the vice-grip Wall Street has on public companies. The Long Term Stock Exchange is one such initiative but I think co-operatives are another way that should be popularized further. Problem is, it becomes really hard to capitalize without Wall Street money.
There's not going to be a breaking of vice-grips -- sudden and monumental actions -- because the banks would tank the economy just to get political leverage by threatening average Americans' asset values. Then they put the vice grips back on. If you want to do something about that, it's going to take a while.
FWIW capitalism has a lot of things wrong with it in the information age, but if you want to start blowing up major foundations, don't expect the interested parties to take it lying down and give you a fair fight.
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It would be really nice if EVERYONE not in the 1% got a raise of some sort. An extra 1-2 an hour or whatever... However then the prices of everything would go up for everyone, just like they are everywhere. When the 'living wage' 15 USD/whatever minimums are passed don't the prices of everyday living just rise to meet that extra cash in the market? Meanwhile everyone who was previously making a little above minimum w…
One can also argue that rising minimum wages directly benefit the economy as this money will be immediatly consumed. Giving $10 to a poor person will result in $10 more goods and services demand. Giving $10 to a very rich person will probably make 1/10th of a share change hands and have no effect on the real economy whatsoever.
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> Wanna increase salaries and stock grants? Sure, do it. Two quarters later Wall Street will fuck you up because your new shiny compensation model just shaved the company revenue. ... So that 5% of lost revenue is going to cost you 20% or 30% of market value, and now all those stock grants are 30% less valuable. So your great initiative just put you in a negative spiral. This basically, is what people mean when they…
businesses don't seem to have a choice Sure they do. There are plenty of smart, prudent retirement plans for companies to offer to their employees that don't involve crippling liabilities down the road. Defined contribution pensions, tax free retirement accounts, dollar-for-dollar matching (up to a limit) etc. Defined benefit pensions were a bad idea born of a "I'll be retired before then so let's kick the can down t…
My current employer defaults employees to 10% and does dollar-for-dollar matching, but there's people who opt out because they want (possibly even need) all of their salary now, and thus they don't get any contributions in their plan. Yet these are precisely the people who would most need the contributions, because they're least likely to save up money in other vehicles!
Yeah I remember Bernie Sanders praised Amazon's decision in a tweet, but only later did people and the media realize that increasing the minimum wage came at a cost to other things, such as stock compensation. no free lunch guys.
Amazon realized that they kept getting a black eye because of their wages so of course they pivoted. Now some workers are probably worse off. I blame the media for only caring about sensationalist headlines.
However I think Amazon gave raises simply because they needed to recruit and retain. In my area Amazon runs "we're hiring...if you're alive you get a job, no resume no interview" constantly year round, so they clearly have a pressing need. At some point running the ads and constantly hiring is more expensive than just paying a more competitive rate.
Sears' huge pension liabilities was cited as one of the main reasons that prevented any possible re-structuring that could have saved the company when it was declining and heading to bankruptcy... I mean, let's be realistic here. For how long was Sears in this pitiful state?... Getting all that real estate + semi-established brand was a private equity's wet dream, yet nobody ever contemplated that option. And now tha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t necessarily disagree with many of your points, but I think drawing attention to the end of Sears’ lifecycle is an unfair thing. Someday Amazon too will have an end of life, and employees and shareholders will get fucked over then too. The article also draws attention to how workers benefited _in good times_ at Sears, not near the end. And this is where the comparison is most meaningful, where Amazon is more q…
Agreed. I worked at Sears in college (~15 years ago) loading dock/warehouse. It was a great job at the time. Good pay, plenty of hours, and generally good managers. The downfall of Sears had very little to do with wages, but Amazon crushing all brick and mortar stores. We were dependent on foot traffic, and sales flyers in the Sunday paper - things that don't do much today.