Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#921

Post by ttoinou » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:08 AM UTC

joh6nn wrote: post #880

ttoinou wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this company buys products from others company so ultimately an increase in wages will feed through almost all inputs, hence output. Your calculation is wrong

Yes, you already said that. You asked what would happen if their supply chain raised payroll (and therefore prices) by $1M/mo. And I answered that question.

No my question is setting the minimum wage to 1 million USD per month (per employee obviously). Of course 1 million USD / month more in cost is nothing

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#922

Post by maym86 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:09 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #811

maym86 wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would he bother raising wages then? No need for him to raise wages to do that. He isn't doing it for the sake of it. There is some other incentive involved. Automation happens either way and they have been gradually doing it for years without raising wages significantly.

To stop a union from being formed. Unions often institute work rules that contractually forbid automation.

This would be bargained between management and the union and is not automatic. Maybe it's a threat but not necessarily an issue Amazon would face even with the formation of a union if this is something Amazon really wanted to keep out of a contract.

At the end of the day both the company and the workers/union have to agree on the terms and people may not be willing to strike over this single issue if the rest of the deal was good.

There are plenty of other reasons for Amazon to want to prevent a union from forming including increased pay, benefits and time off but a union's ability to prevent automation may not be huge issue as Amazon is still growing and hiring workers faster than the jobs are being automated.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#923

Post by ttoinou » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:14 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #733

ttoinou wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you create a race to the bottom But this is true for everything where you can apply supply and demand, and there's always a balance between the two. you end up with people willing to flip burgers or work a cash register for $2/hour But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ? Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? Or does the rate…

> But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ? ....yes? Considering that's what we have right now? You don't need to imagine this scenario. We're in it right now. In Oregon, the minimum wage is $10.75/hour. > Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? [...] What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ? Obviously not. I knew s…

  ....yes? Considering that's what we have right now?

So if you have a magic law that force businesses to pay 5 times the normal productivity for free, then you must have a law that force businesses to pay 5000 times the normal productivity ? There must be something wrong

   You're forgetting that the people

Yes I agree but then we need to look at new prices for consumers goods and services that will be lower. I don't think talking about median wage is very meaningful without comparing what you can buy with it

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#924

Post by mrhackerpoland » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:17 AM UTC

My friend who was goint to quit the warehouse job and become AI researcher is now not going to quit because the wage increased.

So what's the net effect? A low income trap.

If these people would be layed off instead and goveement offers a minimum wage + housing. They could as well be acquiring skills like programming, AI etc... And making millions.

But Bezos will not let them be millionaires or billionaires.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#925

Post by maym86 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #906

go_blue_13 wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't automation eliminate the need for negotiating with a union?

> Doesn't automation eliminate the need for negotiating with a union? Not if the union literally forbids you from introducing automation in the first place. This is how the Transit Workers Union prevents the MTA from using technology that's been standard across the industry for decades. An alternate strategy is to require the employer to pay the union when new technology is introduced. This drives up the cost of tech…

Why did MTA agree to it? They were involved in writing and bargaining the contract too.

I doubt a private sector union at Amazon would have the power to get such a deal.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#926

Post by maeln » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #437

maeln wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it doesn't work like this. Employment is not an unlimited supply, and when you have the choice between starving (yes some people do not have any money saved) and working for $7.25, you choose to work for $7.25. Almost nobody who goes to work for a minimum wage job can afford to say "it's okay, I will find a better, high paying job later". "Basic economy" is not an argument.

And if someone is incapable of producing more than $15/hr worth of value with their labor, should they remain perpetually unemployed and dependent on welfare? Or should they earn what they can and allow for public benefits to top them up to a survivable standard of living?

Oh I completely agree that welfare should be there to help you to have at least a survivable standard of living.

But I don't think it is in anyway moral that a company pay their employee so less that they need public benefit to be able to survive.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#927

Post by fabricexpert » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:31 AM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #684

fabricexpert wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what actually happens though. The rich avoid the tax and push for tax reduction and the poor don't get the welfare they need.

Are you suggesting that welfare can never work?

Not on it's own. You can't rely on free market + welfare and everything is fine. You need a number of levers to support those that might be marginalized by your system, defense in depth.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#928

Post by BuckRogers » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 9:00 AM UTC

kidsnow wrote: post #797

refurb wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not middle class. If you recently bought a $1M plus condo in SF, you are most certainly upper class. I don’t care if it was a 2 bedroom apartment.

It's not about dollars. It's about your behaviors. Behaviors of the middle class. Middle class people typically do things like own one home, work two jobs, save for their kids' college, keep their cars for a while, etc.

The whole lower vs middle vs upper class split is mostly a fraud. People I've had discussions with about their class in that respect are usually trying hard to make an already meaningless definition make them look great. People who work jobs like mine are always "upper middle class" in their mind.

I wanted to back you up in that you are right that it's behavior that defines classes. But it's more the part that matters, your means of producing wealth. If your money works for you or employs others to work for you, you're investment class or capitalist class. Punching a clock, or picking up a salary check means you're working class. The third class are those who slip below maintaining employment, I call them "capitalism's reserve army" but there's probably a better term for the unemployed.

These little ego boosting distinctions people come up with "upper working class" are meaningless.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#929

Post by Rescis » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

specialist wrote: post #915

WalterBright wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA has always had a middle class. It never decided to create it, it just naturally happens in a free market.

Is the middle class currently growing, shrinking, or neither?

It's shrinking by your definition, growing by others (the poor of today are the middle class of history if you look at poverty levels, purchasing power, or class mobility).

Further, we are in a noticeable amount of ways not a free market. If I took my car engine (the free market) to a mechanic and said "It's not working after I just made a couple of random small changes to it", the mechanic would rightfully laugh me out the door because me just meddling with a complex system, even if its only a small amount, can have disastrous side effects.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#930

Post by _khau » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 9:08 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #595

_khau wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point being that Capitalism has only been a thing for less 300 years, and what we have now isn't even capitalism. It's a warped perversion of it thanks to the inflated influence of ideologues like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, and the politicians that bought into their narrow-minded dogma hook, line and sinker. The worst damage they and their ilk did was to convince the entire political spectrum from the ce…

If your criticism of capitalism is that it's not pure and not perfect, it's a non-sequitur since there are no pure and perfect ideologies, not in economics and not in government. I'm reminded of that comic with the cats on trial. Capitalism sucks in many ways, but it sucks a hell of a lot less than the alternatives we've tried. Same with democracy.

I'm not going to stop criticising something just because I don't have a tried and tested alternative ready to go. That makes no sense.

> Capitalism sucks in many ways, but it sucks a hell of a lot less than the alternatives we've tried. Same with democracy.

And that's fine, but I'm not so narrow-minded as to accept that there are no alternatives. History is replete with people patching up broken systems in futility; all because they could see no other way than the status quo.