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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

#171

Post by ALittleLight »

confounded wrote: post #147
bradleyjg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fallacy in your reasoning is that there is a unitary “interests of those warehouse workers”. Collective decision making and fiduciary duties are directly contrary to each other but unions are supposed to feature both. The way the circle is squared is that unions don’t in fact represent all their members’ interests, only those of 50% + 1.

In my (limited, biased) experience the primary interest of workers is the same everywhere. Hint: it pays off both mortgages and bar tabs.

I think the disagreement is that a new worker who is skilled and hard working wants compensation to be based on output. An older worker who has been there for awhile wants compensation to be based on seniority. Workers with big families and medical problems want better benefits while single healthy folks want more cash. The disagreements are that different people want different things.

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

#172

Post by gaius »

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…

I feel like the concept of unions needs to be rejiggered for the modern era

This is very much a cultural thing. A German union for example ensures that Workers get their fair share but understands that the company must be profitable and successful first - they know not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Whereas unions in the UK immediately try to destroy a company to prove a point about capitalism, union bosses are lavishly paid, and the Workers are mere pawns, in some cases even actively working against their members wishes. That’s why Germany has a strong auto industry and we do not.

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

#173

Post by laurentoget »

Zarel wrote: post #168
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.

If, like Costco, you refuse to sell to poor people, yes, you can get a much better profit margin. But poor people still need food and various other necessities. I'm not convinced it's possible to pay high wages and also serve poor people.

Ever heard of Aldi ?

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

#174

Post by hsdistefa »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #33

Much more detail, with figures, although for UK Amazon workers here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/03/amazon-of... The TL;DR for the UK is they lose over half the pay rise from losing the bonuses. They got one share, worth £1,500 or $1,960 after every year, and an additional share once every five years. That can be tax-free if held for 2 years. They also lose the possibility of cash bonuses for meet…

This doesn't take into account that the stock didn't begin to vest until a worker was at Amazon for one year, and with such high employee turnover few made it to that mark.

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

lovich wrote: post #144
ericd wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the union decide who gets raises, rather than the manager whose job it is to monitor and grade the performance of his employees?

If the management gets to decide who gets raises, why wouldn't they give it to themselves. You've never seen companies do layoffs right before the end of the quarter so management can get raises, and then immediately go on a hiring spree when the new quarter starts so they can get the work done again?

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by rincebrain »

etatoby wrote: post #142
sethammons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'm not convinced. My brother's work has a warehouse. The warehouse unionized (a large push by two folks who are no longer there). Most of the warehouse workers are now making _less_ than they were before due to union dues. There are guys that my brother would lov…

> This union exists to grow itself and for no other reason. This is the case for most unions in Italy, for example, where their existence is protected by law. It's a very sad state of affairs.

Their existence is almost always protected by law in e.g. the US, but de facto and de jure are not the same thing, and as with many relationships involving asymmetric power, the risk/reward and burden of proof may be too high to justify the actual legal case about illegal actions versus quietly settling things for more/less than you would have originally earned, but with much reduced legal fees.

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

#177

Post by angry_octet »

angry_octet wrote: post #164
crooked-v wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who's running the union? Some measure of nonsensicality exists here in the idea of a union composed entirely of warehouse workers that is somehow magically acting against the best interests of those warehouse workers.

Traditionally the way it has played out is that casual workers are screwed in favour of permanents (who are more likely to be union members). The company saves on wages overall but some employees get better wages. And of course corrupt kickbacks to prevent industrial action, aka a protection racket. There can be multiple unions too, and inter-union conflict. Some of the unions are very right wing (hate gays and women…

You can down vote, but I'm just being factual:

https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/huge-pay-rise-for-...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-28/union-accused-of-ties-...

https://amp.smh.com.au/national/why-is-the-union-that-repres...

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

#178

Post by rincebrain »

dominotw wrote: post #103
ravitation wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe the assertion was, rather than equal in the sense of interchangable, that it is a counterweight to the inherent asymmetry of a large body (company or otherwise) and any individual worker trying to negotiate.

In that case, absent other constraints, one party usually has much less reason to accommodate than the other, as not hiring or continuing to employ one worker rarely would deeply impact the company, while the individual is looking at {continuing to commit, committing} a good portion of their available time, along with possibly relocating and however their income is derived, and so has much more to potentially lose by trying to receive even minor concessions.

(Footnote: Not all companies necessarily desire their employees be cogs, as some level of {competition,contention} can result in much better outcomes than any of the parties might have achieved on their own, but there is increasingly a sense that some portion of labor will be ever more readily automated with, indeed, fairly literal interchangeable parts, as well as the historical perception you describe, which can yield incredibly toxic cultures that don't care because they can, more or less, train more people whenever someone burns out or leaves because they find something better. )

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

#179

Post by crdoconnor »

ip26 wrote: post #166
AlexandrB wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When unions are able to, & do, kill the host company through greed & short-term thinking, something is wrong with the structure. I love how this argument gets applied to unions but not to companies. Many companies have killed themselves through greed and short-term thinking, yet you are not arguing that something is wrong with corporate structure. Ultimately every human organization is prone to screwing up - unions…

I guess to me it just seems especially perverse, because the union is supposed to be working in the interest of the worker. The worker even pays the union. Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker. Corporations can sink themselves because they are granted self-determination. That's sort of fundamental, sans bailouts. That said, I would be happy if we could tweak incentives to shift focus away from…

>Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker.

It's not necessarily a big deal. The workers can just go and get another job. It's the owners who are really crying.

It's not especially perverse for unions to be indifferent to the risk of sinking the company if the people they represent hold no stake in it.

Especially since the threats that this will happen from the owners will be overblown.

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

#180

Post by rincebrain »

drawkbox wrote: post #108

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 sup…

AIUI the problem with individual medical insurance, in the US, is that without group bargaining and a requirement that all people must have it, there's both little incentive for insurance providers to compete for business, and the nasty reality that lots of people not having many expensive problems subsidize the few that do, and if you cut the long tail of people with problems that are cheaper than their premiums, you end up with exorbitant costs for the remaining people, and then a death spiral as "more healthy" people continue to opt out of rising costs, and the cost needle keeps moving up.

I'd probably prefer something more like a logical inverse of that - baseline guaranteed coverage for everyone by a government agency, and then if necessary private providers can wrestle over offering various incentives to use them beyond the guaranteed coverage. (Not that I have an incredible amount of faith in most governments acting efficiently, but they almost always have a better record than for-profit agencies, and I'd prefer to avoid a government mandate of a non-government agency.)

(I'm not going near the convoluted structure of compensation types because I don't think I'm informed enough.)

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