Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

Post by alttab » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

askmike wrote: post #30

nebulous1 wrote: post #4

I mean, they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. Good move. They have more to do though. I've went through a few articles on this but I didn't see any of them mention what Amazon's minimum actual pay was before this, just the federal minimum wage. Anybody know?

> they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. That's because they treat their workers terrible. They're a huge company with a lot of profit and how people at the bottom of the chain are treated is maddening. They're seen as an example of how not to treat workers (and for good reason). They definitely should not be lauded for this: They did some calculations a…

Post by saudioger » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #218

swebs wrote: post #17

>In addition, the company also pledges its public policy team will lobby for an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — it doesn’t identify a specific wage that it’s targeting, but instead says, “We believe $7.25 is too low. We would look to Congress to decide the parameters of a new, higher federal minimum wage.” I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it will be $15/hour. That way they'll get to look pr…

Wow, does the top comment always have to be cynical? This is exactly what everyone wanted Amazon to do. Maybe it's time to suck it up and give praise where praise is due? There are also benefits to paying more salary than your competitors (no hiring shortages, best employees, low turnover, etc), so I'm not going to blindly accept that it's now in Amazon's interest to drag the rest of the industry along with them. But…

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

ashelmire wrote: post #101

chrisseaton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I've got no sense of humour, but I think that's unprofessional and something like bullying, rather than funny. Legislation should surely not target one individual by name like that?

I think turning your employees into welfare-dependent wage-slaves is far worse than unprofessional or bullying, but I guess that's just me and most decent people. CEOs of large public companies have to take public heat, by name, quite often. It's a huge part of their job; otherwise they'd be COOs.

Post by hannasanarion » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

andrekandre wrote: post #543

johnchristopher wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their legal duty is to maximize profits I am not nit-picking, asking in good faith: is that enacted into a law ? Or is that part of a contract between shareholders and the board of executives ? I have heard about that walmart competitor run like a family business and that gives every employees a voice (a cooperative ?).

there is such a thing as “fedicuary duty” [1] which could be sometimes interpreted as “maximize profits” i suppose... according to this ny times article [2] it states: `There is a common belief that corporate directors have a legal duty to maximize corporate profits and “shareholder value” — even if this means skirting ethical rules, damaging the environment or harming employees. But this belief is utterly false. To…

Post by habosa » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

itamarst wrote: post #26

The blog post says "employees". No reporter I've seen has bothered to ask if it applies to contractors.