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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

#2
Impossible to judge the effect until someone investigates the relative sizes of the lost bonuses and the increased hourly wage.

I did read Amazon's claim in the article that the increase outweighs the decrease. But I would like to see a journalist confirm that and also report on how big the difference is and whether it affects certain types of workers differently than others.

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

#4
post #2

Impossible to judge the effect until someone investigates the relative sizes of the lost bonuses and the increased hourly wage. I did read Amazon's claim in the article that the increase outweighs the decrease. But I would like to see a journalist confirm that and also report on how big the difference is and whether it affects certain types of workers differently than others.

Stop being so pragmatic while riding the Amazon hate train.

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

#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 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.

I feel like the concept of unions needs to be rejiggered for the modern era where its less (But still to some degree) about worker safety and more about control over compensation / days off / healthcare stuff.

Maybe somebody could come up with something that is like a union but meant to be more lightweight and more focused on compensation type things and has some self-imposed restrictions on things like strikes and bargaining hold-outs and things like that.

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

#6

Bonuses for warehouse workers, presumably throughput-based, seem like a way to optimize for maximum output at the expense of worker health. It's good that those are going away.

I thought it was more like required quotas to fulfill or risk getting fired?

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

#8
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…

This is how grocery unions (like UFCW) operate. There isn't a lot of debate about health and safety, mostly thanks to government agencies. Most of what the union does is operate the health insurer, and push for pay raises & fewer pay scale steps.

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

#9
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…

Before you abandon the idea of unions, you should keep in mind that the situation in regards to unions in the US is fucked up in a rather unique way.

So a much less radical approach of simply copying what other countries do, should work just fine much more reliably.

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