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Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

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Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#41

Post by cromwellian »

maym86 wrote: post #36
beat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy this argument. The problem usually isn't that robots are too expensive to do the human jobs, it's that robots can't do the human jobs, period. If something can be done by machine, it is done by machine, and that's been true since the beginning of the industrial era. Entire job classifications get wiped out by new automation, all the time. At this point, the jobs that are still done by humans are jobs that…

Exactly, and Amazon is still growing so even as some jobs are gradually replaced by machines the total number of workers is still increasing.

But they are being replaced with engineers, salesmen, and customer support, not with warehouse employees. Different skill sets and likely, a net loss of jobs for the poorest and a net increase of white collar positions.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#42

Post by moate »

docker_up wrote: post #27

This is the problem with media. It starts with the media focusing on how many Amazon workers aren't making enough money. Political pressure mounts and Amazon increases everyone's salary to minimum $15/hr. The media then changes focus to those that feel slighted by their loss in bonus. They stop focusing on the people who are now happy and keep focusing on the small percentage of people who are unhappy, and seem to re…

Unbiased point: Amazon can raise wages to $15/hr (or higher!) and STILL do something wrong related to how they compensate their workers. Pay/compensation structures for many workers are more complex than just "how many dollars are you given gross by your employer". If their compensation isn't actually better, then there's reason to draw attention to it.

As someone below said: If past(bonus + base pay) = current (base pay + bonus) it doesn't matter what the numbers are for base and bonus, they're still the same. And if things are still the same, there will still be people who are upset with their compensation.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#43

Post by dreamache »

"Bezos is no fool. He will reduce his headcount, and step up his automation effort to eliminate as many low-skilled jobs from Amazon. Then he will lobby Congress to increase the minimum wage for his competitors that still employ lower-skilled workers. As these competitors will lack the resources to automate, they will be driven out of business, and all their workers will lose their jobs. Less competition will make it easier for Amazon to raise prices." - Peter Schiff

I'm all for voluntarily raising wages for your employees; that's a great thing. But if we see that Amazon is backing efforts to raise the minimum wage, we'll know Schiff was right.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#44

Post by rdtsc »

Not sure what to think about Bernie needing too go as far as naming the bill "Stop BEZOS"

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/the-stop-bezos-act-s...

It was a political move, and it worked it got Amazon do respond. But seems a bit childish.

Remembering when I was making $7.50 / hour, bump in salary would have been better than bonuses or RSUs. I think in that salary range, this is still a good move.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#45

Post by ThetaOneOne »

docker_up wrote: post #27

This is the problem with media. It starts with the media focusing on how many Amazon workers aren't making enough money. Political pressure mounts and Amazon increases everyone's salary to minimum $15/hr. The media then changes focus to those that feel slighted by their loss in bonus. They stop focusing on the people who are now happy and keep focusing on the small percentage of people who are unhappy, and seem to re…

I don’t know if I would call it “fake news,” but it is certainly derived from the 24 hour news cycle. When a new story is constantly needs recycling a old one is cheaper than finding a new one. This is’nt fake just a rehashing with a different attitude.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#46

Post by maym86 »

cromwellian wrote: post #41
maym86 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and Amazon is still growing so even as some jobs are gradually replaced by machines the total number of workers is still increasing.

But they are being replaced with engineers, salesmen, and customer support, not with warehouse employees. Different skill sets and likely, a net loss of jobs for the poorest and a net increase of white collar positions.

I specifically mean wearhouse workers. The automotation technology isn't good enough and whether or not they implement it has little to do with these wage changes.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#47

Post by maym86 »

thoughtexplorer wrote: post #23

This sort of hand wringing seems like a distraction from the likelihood that Amazon has moved up the date* in which these jobs will be eliminated. Whether employees are netting out the same or not is going to be moot. If it's similar though then that really doesn't seem like a good deal longer term. *Robots will be able to do the jobs for $15 hour sooner than they'll be able to for $7 an hour. The math will accelerat…

> Robots will be able to do the jobs for $15 hour sooner than they'll be able to for $7 an hour

This doesn't make sense. Increasing workers wages doesn't change the rate a which automation technology becomes available. The bottle neck is the availablity of capable automation systems which is unrelated to workers wages.

Even if there was a technology available that cost $15 an hour and worker wages were $7, increasing the workers wages doesn't decrease cost of the technology.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#48

Post by ThetaOneOne »

rdtsc wrote: post #44

Not sure what to think about Bernie needing too go as far as naming the bill "Stop BEZOS" https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/the-stop-bezos-act-s... It was a political move, and it worked it got Amazon do respond. But seems a bit childish. Remembering when I was making $7.50 / hour, bump in salary would have been better than bonuses or RSUs. I think in that salary range, this is still a good move.

While it is targeted at bezos I think the name is more of a joke if anything. After all even in the document that you linked it lists several other countries.

With that said I don’t think Bezos’ move is based on Bernie. In the current political climate there is no way a bill like that would ever pass. I would guess this is based off of public pressure but I’m not 100% sure what this move if for.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#49

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

staticassertion wrote: post #33
docker_up wrote: post #27

This is the problem with media. It starts with the media focusing on how many Amazon workers aren't making enough money. Political pressure mounts and Amazon increases everyone's salary to minimum $15/hr. The media then changes focus to those that feel slighted by their loss in bonus. They stop focusing on the people who are now happy and keep focusing on the small percentage of people who are unhappy, and seem to re…

What part of this is 'fake'? Why should the media be cutting Amazon slack?

God, please, agreed, can we please stop using the term "fake news" for anything we disagree with and leave it for stories that are actually factually untrue?

There is nothing in this story that is false. It's fine to point out that the media likes to focus on outrage-inducing features, but that doesn't make the news fake.

Re: Amazon says wage hike ‘more than compensates’ for loss of bonuses

#50

Post by Eleopteryx »

docker_up wrote: post #27

This is the problem with media. It starts with the media focusing on how many Amazon workers aren't making enough money. Political pressure mounts and Amazon increases everyone's salary to minimum $15/hr. The media then changes focus to those that feel slighted by their loss in bonus. They stop focusing on the people who are now happy and keep focusing on the small percentage of people who are unhappy, and seem to re…

>This is the fake news culture

OK slow the heck down here. I'm not convinced that what you're describing is a new phenomenon or just a natural outcome of the fact that the news needs ad revenue and thrives on clicks/views.

There was a point in time where "fake news" meant news that was completely invented and had no grounding in reality at all with the express purpose of misinforming people. I think it's really important that we don't (continue to) conflate this concept with the concept of clickbait.

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