111–120 of 158 posts
Why does anyone work there? What a nightmare.
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Canadian minimum wage is relatively high (and your statement is only true for Ontario, btw. In other parts of Canada, Amazon warehouse worker minimum pay is 150% minimum wage). When viewed through the lens of the reality that is the American workforce, things look very differently. In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage. They make, at minimum, more than double the wage of a…
> In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage. And that US federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, $15,080 for a years worth of work. That is not a livable wage in almost any area of the country, especially the population centers the Amazon warehouses are located in. In that sense $15 an hour is nothing to be proud of, from one of the largest and most successful companies in the…
And that's why it's great to hear that Amazon pays more than double that minimum wage, as I noted.
>In that sense $15 an hour is nothing to be proud of
I don't see how it's not. $17/hr is an incredibly high wage for the target audience of these jobs. $17/hr may be pennies for SWEs on HNs who think that anything under $100k/yr is oppression, but $17/hr for someone who was previously homeless, or a 16 year old getting their first job, or someone just looking for some extra cash part time during the holidays, is an amazing wage.
Amazon warehouse work is an amazing stepping stone for people that have no previous work experience or skills, for them to get a wage and benefits way above average. Indeed, Amazon even offers to pay for 95% of tuition costs for warehouse workers that want to get an associates degree, so that the warehouse work truly can be a stepping stone.
The fact that people far beyond their "entry level" stage of their career are stuck working in an Amazon warehouse seems like a problem with society, not Amazon, and there's only so much that Amazon can do there.
>I also would be shocked if your average construction worker or Starbucks is getting federal minimum wage, I have a feeling they are closer to $15 than you would think.
I didn't say they are getting federal minimum wage. And yet a quick Google will show you that Amazon warehouse workers get paid more than these workers.
>One question, do you work for Amazon? Your history consists solely of comments defending Amazon and their labor relations. If you do, it would be nice of you to disclose that before posting about your company.
No. My comment history is such because I use a special account specifically for posting about Amazon, because unfortunately this website has become very vitriolic as of late and I doubt some of the posters here would hesitate to try and ruin my life if I attached my main account and real name to statements defending "the evilest company in the world".
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It wouldn't matter. The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson. Even if we had a strong Federal government right now, it would be interested in aiding Amazon , not it's workforce. As it is I fully expect to hear talking points that "responsible" workers wouldn't strike or try to organize, or that there should be a law against unionization du…
> The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson Is that true? Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs), attempting to tighten immigration, lowering taxes on repatriation of cash. Those are all pro worker.
Lastly, the repatriation of cash was a loss for everyone - companies that skirted tax laws got a gift in being able to reclaim a lot of cash they had been unable to access due to dodging taxes while also paying a much reduced rate... And I think that action happening again so soon is just a clear signal to companies to avoid actually bringing any money into the country until they can get a tax holiday to get it in for free - it's like your kid eating the cookie jar and you saying "Well, I'm going to dock your allowance thirty percent this week... And I will refill the cookie jar but don't do that again!" - we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws by letting them skirt some more tax laws while wagging a finger and saying "Naughty naughty!"
The original article by Recode contains more information than the Ars reblog of it: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/29/21240049/amazon-interna...
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The "top-voted comment" anywhere has no bearing on what is or is not the majority argument.
You made an explicit appeal to the majority of arguments on this forum as referencing pay, I provided a specific counterexample, and you rebutted with more vagaries.
Your original reply to my comment was an overgeneralization, and used that overgeneralization to attack a point that I never made. I'm not engaging in your argument because it was made in bad faith to begin with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Canadian minimum wage is relatively high (and your statement is only true for Ontario, btw. In other parts of Canada, Amazon warehouse worker minimum pay is 150% minimum wage). When viewed through the lens of the reality that is the American workforce, things look very differently. In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage. They make, at minimum, more than double the wage of a…
If that's the case and they're making ~$21 CAD an hour, then Amazon's American warehouse workers are paid considerably more than they are in Canada despite the US having a lower cost of living. At least in my local context, their behaviour doesn't seem to be something worth lauding. It's just another grueling underpaid warehouse job. With a union-busting employer.
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The pay being high is good. It's not a good enough reason to not form a union. Pay is only one piece of worker treatment, and when you're talking about hard manual labour, it's really not the most important piece—workplace health & safety is. Doesn't matter how much you were paid while you worked there if you get killed or crippled because the employer skimped on safety, either in equipment or in allowing you to take…
I fully agree with your comment. I see no reason why these workers shouldn't be unionized. In my comment, I am addressing the pay and benefits argument that is being brought up by many HNers, because your statement "The pay being high is good" is a very rare statement on this website in regards to Amazon. And I am also not wholly convinced that a lot of people aren't conflating the two (I see a lot of arguments that…
Workplace safety is another. Greater autonomy is another; maybe these people want a 45 minute lunch break? Who knows? (Well, the workers know what they want...)
Another thing I've seen a lot, can't remember off the top of my head if this applied to Amazon too, is doing mandated security searches off the clock when people leave the job site. Imagine you're off at 5, but you don't get to leave til 5:30 because you're in a big line waiting to have your bag checked when you leave. Why should you be obligated to give the company that time? If they wanted, they could crunch the numbers and figure out what would cost them less, employee theft or paying for security checks, but they don't, because they can steal the worker's time at no cost to them. (And I guarantee you the security guards are being paid for that security check time, it's just the rank and file who aren't.)
Germany's got another thing I'd like to see here in the states, where the unions have a seat on the board and play a role in higher-level decisions as well. This is something I'd like to see even for high-paid tech workers, especially for morally questionable things like taking contracts with ICE -- there's been walkouts and worker organizing over companies taking contracts with ICE, but better still would be if the workers had a formal lever of power (in the form of a union) to stop that before it started.
Some comments here really had me scratching my head. Remember, it's not just engineers, code monkeys and managers at Amazon. The majority of their employees are unskilled labour. Warehouse workers and delivery drivers. An Amazon warehouse worker in Canada makes just a little more than minimum wage. Even if it might be a nice company to work for if you're in an office, it may be a very different reality for the majori…
Canadian minimum wage is relatively high (and your statement is only true for Ontario, btw. In other parts of Canada, Amazon warehouse worker minimum pay is 150% minimum wage). When viewed through the lens of the reality that is the American workforce, things look very differently. In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage. They make, at minimum, more than double the wage of a…
And what does minimum wage represent? A livable wage? An inflation-adjusted wage? Some random number that has no basis in real-life living and expenses?
If you chose option C, congratulations, you probably won't be basing any arguments on a number that only represents (if it represents anything) the stinginess and or fossilization of American politics.
Some comments here really had me scratching my head. Remember, it's not just engineers, code monkeys and managers at Amazon. The majority of their employees are unskilled labour. Warehouse workers and delivery drivers. An Amazon warehouse worker in Canada makes just a little more than minimum wage. Even if it might be a nice company to work for if you're in an office, it may be a very different reality for the majori…
You're probably running into the contrarian dynamic (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...): an initial wave of comments making objections, followed by a wave of objections to the objections, which the community then upvotes heavily.
What determines the initial wave of comments is not community opinion—it's what's the easiest thing to make reflexive objections to.