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

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

#981

Post by catach » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

taysic wrote: post #852

khawkins wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bezos wouldn't do this unless he saw a benefit for the business or his hand was being forced somehow." I don't like this type of knee-jerk suspicion towards people running corporations. Don't forget that they have conscience too, and can make decisions for the better or for the worse. In fact, by not giving credit where credit is due, you disincentivize them from trying to do good things. Yes, business people need t…

We've seen that its easier to act altruistically once you're a billionaire. I think there can be an element of that - but why lobby to force other companies to do the same?

If you think that conditions in your group would be substantially better off if everyone in the group did a certain thing, you're likely to both do that thing and advocate that others in your group do that thing.

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

#982

Post by criddell » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:51 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #967

criddell wrote: post #964

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a monopoly isn't the problem. It's when monopoly power is abused that the government steps in.

So my original question was. Once the competition is gone... what happens? This a government regulation problem not a monopoly problem.

What happens? Are you asking what the government would do if Amazon gains a monopoly and abuses that power?

If so, there are lots of possibilities, including the break of Amazon into baby-Amazons like AT&T in 1984 or Standard Oil in 1911. They could install overseers like they did when Microsoft was found guilty of abusing their monopoly. It wouldn't be an unprecedented situation.

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

#983

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

eximius wrote: post #602

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are warehouse workers entitled to anywhere near the share the creator and owner makes?

The natural counterpoint is, well, why aren't they? But that conversation is mostly opinions and hand waving on what is 'fair'. Assuming they aren't entitled to equal or near equal shares though, we can certainly ask how much is too unequal? A single man having more wealth than 300k people earning in nearly a lifetime seems like it is probably too much.

I think that conversation is actually rather straight forward. You can replace warehouse workers with pretty much any able bodied person in America, and Amazon would operate exactly the same, with no loss in revenue.

Who could you replace Jeff Bezos with? Do you think Amazon could just survive indefinitely without making any major changes and continue to be worth what they are?

AWS alone proves to me he deserves as much as he gets. An eretailer also runs the largest (and pretty much first) cloud computing company in the world. I don't there's a lot of CEOs who would have chosen to branch out in that way, but it's extremely likely that AWS will end up surpassing Amazon itself.

The warehouse workers had no impact on that decision, and that decision is a very, very large reason why they're worth as much as they are today.

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

#984

Post by e12e » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:12 PM UTC

The article states the minimum will apply to seasonal and part time employees - but AFAIK Amazon employs a lot of people on so called 1099 contracts - the nyt coverage seems to imply those will be unaffected:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/business/amazon-minimum-w...

Only example I've on hand is this ft article from 2013:

https://www.ft.com/content/ed6a985c-70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab...

"A global employment agency called Randstad, which had handled the recruitment process for Amazon, was also to arrange his shifts, manage him on the warehouse floor and pay him his near-minimum wage. After three months, if he had performed well, he could apply to be an Amazon employee, though there was no guarantee he would succeed."

Still, I seem to recall reading about extensive use of similar contracts at Amazon, more recently too.

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

#985

Post by alttab » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #932

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect other companies will have to match Amazon's wages. Walmart's employees are looking at Amazon and wondering why they don't get the same wages. This will become the de facto minimum wage at least in retail. This is good news overall.

What Amazon is doing is building a moat to protect themselves from competition. Amazon has achieved a scale where they have driven down their cost of business per product sold as low as they can. Only other companies operating at a similar scale can compete. By increasing the cost of doing business for smaller competitors that don't have their scale, they are dramatically increasing the cost of anyone else doing what…

It's truly surprising to me how many people took this announcement at face value. I personally recognized the ruthlessness of it almost immediately. It was seared into Jeff Bezos' quote - "We're excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us."

Says everything right there.

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

#986

Post by shimon_e » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:50 PM UTC

ralmidani wrote: post #532

shimon_e wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is minimum. It should apply to people with no experience, in training, or living in the middle of no where. There is no reason to live in an expensive city if you can make the exact same amount of money in a cheap city.

People don't always choose which city they live in. Family, college, etc. might dictate where they live.

Those people should be earning more than minimum.

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

#987

Post by L_Rahman » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #286

L_Rahman wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the topic in question is how one of the most powerful companies on Earth chooses to use its power we should strive to always be this cynical. Skepticism of concentrated power is the ur-American political belief. We seem to have forgotten that lately.

If you're willing to shame a company for behavior you don't like, I think you should be prepared to give praise when they do exactly what you just asked for. When you constantly move the goal posts just so that you never have to abandon your righteous anger for even one day, what kind of incentive does that give companies to change their behavior?

Genuinely curious what the /u/pulak thinks of this outcome:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/3/17934194/amazon-minimum-w...

Was our skepticism perhaps reasonable?

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

#988

Post by wallace_f » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 1:46 AM UTC

notfromhere wrote: post #977

wallace_f wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without population growth, big parts of many national economies become unsustainable. They're like MLM, Ponzi Schemes, or other pyramid schemes in this way.

That's not true. Population growth and economic growth are related, but can happen without the other.

An introduction: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/05/02/two-solut...

>Aging populations pose a challenge to the fiscal and macroeconomic stability of many societies

Entitlements, leveraged risk-taking, investment. All these things depend on the next generation.

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

#989

Post by mac01021 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 4:00 AM UTC

notfromhere wrote: post #977

wallace_f wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without population growth, big parts of many national economies become unsustainable. They're like MLM, Ponzi Schemes, or other pyramid schemes in this way.

That's not true. Population growth and economic growth are related, but can happen without the other.

I'm not sure that's ever been demonstrated empirically.

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

#990

Post by kingofhdds » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 7:17 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #938

tomcam wrote: post #935

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I honestly think that there's something deeply damaged at the heart of the American psyche. Why is it the #1 destination country for immigrants?

Not because of the American psyche, because the US is better at marketing an idealized (and false) version of its culture to the world than other countries. Nevertheless, the US is a country that considers guns an inalienable right, but not healthcare, education or a living wage. Most of the rest of the world would consider that a pathologically insane set of priorities.

because the US is better at marketing an idealized (and false) version of its culture to the world than other countries

Of course, not. US became a top destination in a very simple fashion which doesn't involve neither culture, no marketing: your cousin/friend goes to US, and writes back that there are jobs, and food/clothing is relatively cheap, and you think "aha!", and you are the next. And at some moment the whole community comes to the same realization, and now parents prepare their kids for emigration for better life. And it works even in countries where governments are very hostile to Americans, and promote the idea that US is the capitalist hell :-)