If a $15/hr wage is apparently a pay decrease for these "peasants" then they were previously making a very livable wage. So what exactly is Amazon doing that every local cafe or retail store isn't?
It was livable because they'd get 2 shares of amazon stock, worth about a 10% boost to their earnings per year and in non holiday seasons, they could make an additional 8% on performance, with that doubling in the holiday seasons. So instead of making an additional 18% to 26%, the bump to long term workers is as stated in the article from $14 to $15, where the previous performance program in the off season was $1.28, before the extra 10% from the stock grant. So amazon just saved ~20% on this holiday's logistics costs.
If you give performance bonuses and people work too hard to meet them people complain about work conditions, and if you just pay everyone more instead, people complain that you took away the performance bonuses.
How about having regular wages for regular work AND performance bonuses to reward great performance (what they're meant to be)?
As opposed to low wages for regular work, thus making performance "bonuses" a necessity (and thus using them to force people to overworking) OR having regular wages and not compensating those working more.
If I pay you $8/hour, and have "performance bonus" of $16 for those who work their asses off, people will be forced to work 2-3 hours more per day to get those just to get by.
If I then start paying you $10/hour and drop the bonuses, those working regular hours would be ok, but others who are still made to work overtime would still like to be compensated extra for what they do. They might still make the same as before, but now their colleagues who go off a 8 hours or have lower performance get the same too. So what's to compensate for their extra effort?
That's what performance bonuses are about, to compensate for extra effort.
I would love for a company to offer pay in lieu of subsidized health insurance if it was a dollar for dollar match. If you’re married and both jobs offer partially subsidized insurance that would be a win.
The only reason the US doesn’t have universal healthcare is that folks wouldn’t need to work in an Amazon warehouse then.
The history of the country is built on kowtowing to the rich. This forum could stand to read a bit more of the political chicanery that developed here and less of the economic theory
Writing a completely factual story that might appeal to a conservative mindset is not the same as a conservative bias. Now, putting aside your emotion for a moment, which part of the story did you feel was reported in a lopsided manner?
I have no doubt that a certain portion of workers benefitted from the new policy while some portion of workers did not. It is too early for anyone to judge the policy without the numbers being published from Amazon. My issue with the article is that it presents a single story of a person who was hurt by the policy and extrapolate that to be the overall tone at Amazon. This article relies on sensational and emotional aspects of one story, rather than facts and statistics.
I really thought this was going to be a case of someone who spent years getting raises up to $15 an hour was having a fit because now everyone makes as much.
OK, so the complaint is a little more legitimate than that. But whenever you overhaul a system, some people gain, some people lose. Could amazon afford to raise wages and keep legacy programs around? Probably. Do they have to? No. And if Amazon is crippled by an exodus of workers then we'll learn something. And the way I hear it, unemployment is really low, seems like a workers job market to me.
If it's a worker's market then minimum wage is both pointless and meaningless to begin with.
The people who pulled this PR stunt off probably are laughing at the fact that they get to pander to liberals whining about minimum wage while cutting overall labor costs at the same time.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 39.8 ms ] threadNo, but there's such a thing as making trillions of the backs of hard working peasants. No shocker either.
How about having regular wages for regular work AND performance bonuses to reward great performance (what they're meant to be)?
As opposed to low wages for regular work, thus making performance "bonuses" a necessity (and thus using them to force people to overworking) OR having regular wages and not compensating those working more.
If I pay you $8/hour, and have "performance bonus" of $16 for those who work their asses off, people will be forced to work 2-3 hours more per day to get those just to get by.
If I then start paying you $10/hour and drop the bonuses, those working regular hours would be ok, but others who are still made to work overtime would still like to be compensated extra for what they do. They might still make the same as before, but now their colleagues who go off a 8 hours or have lower performance get the same too. So what's to compensate for their extra effort?
That's what performance bonuses are about, to compensate for extra effort.
They got from barely "livable" after working to the bone (and not being able to take bathroom breaks) to almost "livable" with caveats elsewhere.
The magnanimity of Amazon (and the local cafe -- who at least allows tips and is less mind numbing) is truly great.
Besides they could always just starve so this is clearly better.
The history of the country is built on kowtowing to the rich. This forum could stand to read a bit more of the political chicanery that developed here and less of the economic theory
When did the New York Times become so conservative?
It's seems pretty factual to me.
...just like every single campaign for minimum wage.
OK, so the complaint is a little more legitimate than that. But whenever you overhaul a system, some people gain, some people lose. Could amazon afford to raise wages and keep legacy programs around? Probably. Do they have to? No. And if Amazon is crippled by an exodus of workers then we'll learn something. And the way I hear it, unemployment is really low, seems like a workers job market to me.
The people who pulled this PR stunt off probably are laughing at the fact that they get to pander to liberals whining about minimum wage while cutting overall labor costs at the same time.