“Amazon isn’t giving its employees a raise, they’re taking money from us,”

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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/many-amazon-workers-dont-trust-jeff-bezos/

Many Amazon workers aren’t sure that the company’s decision to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour will actually result in more overall pay. The company will be getting rid of performance bonuses and its stock program, and employees had previously been expecting higher bonuses during the holiday season. Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the richest person in the world.

The policy change will begin Nov. 1 and affect 250,000 employees and 100,000 seasonal workers. Contractors will not be included. This policy change also does not address previous employee concerns such as having to work on holidays, productivity goals so high there is no time for bathroom breaks, and intense surveillance during the workday.

While independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders praised Bezos, many concerned workers did the paycheck calculations for themselves.

“I feel hugely disrespected,” a Maryland warehouse worker told The Associated Press about the so-called raise. “The ones who are loyal should be rewarded for loyalty, not smacked in the face.”

“Amazon isn’t giving its employees a raise, they’re taking money from us,” one Arizona worker told Yahoo. “It only looks good if folks don’t know the truth.” He said his hourly wage was being increased from $15.25 to $16.25, but that he had expected to earn a few thousand dollars from the now-cancelled incentive programs.

One Pennsylvania warehouse worker told The Associated Press she expects to make $3,000 a year less without the bonus. A worker who spoke with Wired said he expects to see a loss of $1,400 a year.

During the holiday season, Amazon workers could previously expect bigger, incentive-based payments.

“The timing of this; I don’t think it’s that much of a coincidence,” the Amazon worker told Wired. “November and December were the months where they would double the attendance and productivity bonuses.”

Amazon said in a statement: “We can confirm that all hourly Operations and Customer Service employees will see an increase in their total compensation as a result of this announcement. In addition, because it’s no longer incentive-based, the compensation will be more immediate and predictable.” The company also said that they will introduce a program next year for employees to buy stock.

Sanders, who pushed Bezos to enact the policy and even introduced legislation last month called the Stop BEZOS Act, said that the point should be to result in higher net pay for workers. “Our understanding is that the vast majority of Amazon workers are going to see wage increases,” he said. “I would hope that as a result of Amazon’s new policy, no worker, especially long-time employees, sees a reduction in total compensation. Amazon can afford to make all workers whole and should do that.”

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Type: Discussion • Score: 11 • Views: 6,859 • Replies: 86

What exactly is the complaint here?

If the incentive programs were better than the $15 minimum wage that workers were already getting... then what was the point of the $15 minimum wage?

It seems like Amazon can't win either way.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

I thought the point of the article was that Amazon did win?

Mind you, the journalist could also be using a very small sample - one which may not be reflective of the overall labour cost to Amazon.

1 Reply

@vikorr,

I think Amazon has already made a goodwill gesture... saying that no one would make less then they made before the new policy.

Rabid anti-corporate fever is blind. The facts don't matter.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

saying that no one would make less then they made before the new policy.

Apparently, that's not the case. Why would any employee care to lie about such, if they are making the same as before? Possibly they are bad at maths, or managing their money. But otherwise, there is no reason to do so.

Further, as CEO's, answerable to their share-holders, it is quite expected that CEO's, or their direct underlings / marketing executive, would say something like that, no matter the reality. You don't want your company to bee seen as a pariah, or abusive etc.

The likelihood, when looking at possible motives, is that the people complaining are making accurate complaints - even if the journalist may be trying to paint a misleading picture, or not.

Quote:

Rabid anti-corporate fever is blind. The facts don't matter.

The facts would only show up if they published non-executive wages costs, before and after.

Pre-determination of views, for or against, is just as bad as 'rabid anti-corporation'.

1 Reply

@vikorr,

Outrage is the name of the game.

The rabid anti-corporate left is going to be outraged no matter what Amazon does. Finding a few disgruntled employees doesn't seem that difficult. This is really silly, given that Amazon made this policy shift voluntarily. They are cooperating with workers groups.

I think the extreme left is full of **** in this case.

1 Reply

An average worker at Amazon makes $13.85 to start. Raising to $15 hr calculates to about $2400 extra a year with no bonuses or incentives.

According to Glass door:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Benefits/Amazon-Performance-Bonus-US-BNFT17_E6036_N1.htm

It depends on the facility. I'm at RNO4, we have maxed the bonus 8 out of the last 9 months. But every FC is its own beast. It's 4% for the facility and 4% for attendance. If you use UPT, it takes 2% each occurrence. Oct, Nov, and Dec it doubles. 16% total 8%/8%. Last year I didn't use any UPT and my bonuses we're about $480 after tax. Lots of overtime durring peak so it's actually 16% of pay which durring peak is about 110 hours every 2 weeks (about) so not only is there a 16% VCP, but it's 16% of a 30% increase in hours at time and a half. Last year I was making base wage because I just started. And I've heard from some people who've been there a couple of years that at max payout it can easily be upwards of $800. But...like I said, it depends on the FC. But it's 3 months of increase, I think when I got $480 we hit 14%. So if you add it all up..roughly $2600 in pay, plus $400 in VCP is $3000 for the month of December. Of course it comes on the last check in the following month.

They're getting ripped off.

1 Reply

@neptuneblue,

This outrage isn't logical.

The request was to raise employees to a rate of $15/hour. If they were doing better than that before the policy change... what is the big deal? Amazon did what people asked them to do, and people are upset about it because they were already doing better than that?

This is silly. You can't have it both ways.

1 Reply

We need Amazon... they are without question providing a few useful services in retail, distribution and internet infrastructure.

We need big corporations. Without them you couldn't be reading this right now, there is no way for anything bug huge corporations to make the routers, the browser, the mother board, the cpu or any number of things you are relying on right now.

Exactly what would Amazon, or any other corporation need to do to this silly outrage?

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

Quote:

Finding a few disgruntled employees doesn't seem that difficult.

Disgruntled employees who are losing money? Or disgruntled for other reasons? How are you to tell?

Quote:

This is really silly, given that Amazon made this policy shift voluntarily.

Why would it be really silly? Perhaps amazon worked out it can save overall wages this way - that's certainly a reason to do so voluntarily. Or perhaps they did give their employees, overall, a payrise. It's certainly in the interests of Amazon's shareholders to cut its wages bill. Then again, maybe they have ethics, and the best consideration of their employees at heart.

Again, you aren't going to know unless you see a before and after wages bill.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

Amazon did what people asked them to do

Did the people ask them to cut their bonuses?

0 Replies

@vikorr,

How can I say this any simpler.

If they are losing money in total when Amazon gives them $15/hour, then they were making more than $15/hour before the change.

Were they doing better before, or doing better after? They can't both be false.

I don't have the real numbers. Neither do you. But getting a partisan political group to find a few employees to complain isn't much proof. There is a benefit for some employees to complain even if they are benefiting from a change, it puts pressure on the company whether it is valid or not.

This is ridiculous. These complaints are rote now. Outrage is what we are all about.

1 Reply

By the way... many of these low wage workers are about to get screwed out of a job.

As labor costs rise, the incentive to replace them with robots increases. There are far fewer warehouse workers needed to run a warehouse now then there were 10 years ago. I know, because my last job was writing software for warehouse automation.

0 Replies

The typical Amazon employee makes less than you think
by Seth Fiegerman @sfiegerman
April 23, 2018: 9:57 AM ET

Amazon (AMZN) disclosed in a filing Wednesday that the median pay for its employees was just $28,446 in 2017. Put another way: half of Amazon's employees earned less than that amount.

The underwhelming figure was made public as part of a new rule put into effect this year by the Securities and Exchange Commission requiring companies to disclose the pay ratio between their CEOs and overall employees.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO and the world's richest man, received a total compensation of about $1.68 million last year -- or 59 times the median Amazon employee compensation.

Call it a tale of two Amazons: those who work in technical roles and those who work in warehouses and grocery stores.

Amazon said in a statement provided to CNN that the median pay includes "part-time, full-time, and seasonal jobs in over 50 countries."

"In the U.S., the average hourly wage for a full-time associate in our fulfillment centers, including cash, stock, and incentive bonuses, is over $15/hour before overtime," the company said.

Amazon also stressed additional benefits like health plans, job training and "generous parental leave."

Amazon now has more than half a million employees worldwide, thanks in large part to a heavy investment in fulfillment centers and its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods, which had about 87,000 employees when the deal was announced.

Bezos said in a letter to shareholders Wednesday that Amazon created more than 130,000 jobs last year alone, not counting acquisitions. Those new jobs "cover a wide range of professions, from artificial intelligence scientists to packaging specialists to fulfillment center associates," he wrote.

But the artificial intelligence scientists are bound to make substantially more than the fulfillment center workers.

The average salary for software engineers at Amazon is north of $100,000, according to data from PayScale, a salary comparison service.

By comparison, a full-time warehouse associate at one of Amazon's fulfillment centers in New Jersey could make as much as $13.85 per hour, according to a current job posting. That would come out to about the same as last year's median pay.

1 Reply

Obviously the answer would have been to increase the base pay to $15, while retaining the incentive bonuses.

That's not having it both ways.

People aren't stupid, and their math skills when it comes to their paychecks are almost always excellent.

Looks like amazon gave with one hand, and took away with the other, only taking away a little more.

Obviously employees didn't ask to have the base pay increased, but take away incentives.

If it's true that incentives were taken away, that was damn stupid. nothing like a little stretching to exceed goals, which would put more money in your pocket to produce results.

1 Reply

@neptuneblue,

Quote:

Amazon (AMZN) disclosed in a filing Wednesday that the median pay for its employees was just $28,446 in 2017. Put another way: half of Amazon's employees earned less than that amount.

This is an another example of starting with a conclusion and then finding facts to match. That median income is worldwide.... and it is a pretty generous income for most of the world.

You pay people based on the market.

- American engineers make well over $100,000.
- American warehouse workers make about $30,000.
- Indonesian warehouse workers make considerably less than that.

That is reality. There is a basic denial of reality if anyone thinks that warehouse workers are going to be paid anything close to what software engineers are paid.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

Quote:

If they are losing money in total when Amazon gives them $15/hour, then they were making more than $15/hour (total) before the change.

I don't see anyone disputing this.

Quote:

Outrage is what we are all about.

Apparently, outrage is what you are about. Everything I have said has been balanced - amazon may be, it may not be, the employees may be, they may not be, the journalist may be, or may not be...with likely motives weighed....while you are apparently outraged at the anti-corporation stance.

Quote:

This is ridiculous. These complaints are rote now.

It's ridiculous because others have previously complained? I would have said it was ridiculous to dismiss a complaint because others have previously complained.

The only thing that will ever determine whether this was right or wrong, is the figures. Certainly complaining that you've heard it all before, and people are just rabid anti-corporation, doesn't say one way or another, if their complaint is valid, or not.

Do you think Amazon will ever publish the figures?

1 Reply

@chai2,

Chai,

There is a limit to labor cost. When you buy from Amazon, or Whole Foods, or Walmart or anywhere else you buy... you are benefiting from the work these companies do to limit the cost of labor.

Any company big or small tries to limit labor costs, if I remember you have some experience with this.

The request was for Amazon to raise their salary to $15/hour. It appears that for these employees Amazon was already paying them better than that rate.

0 Replies

@vikorr,

If you owned a company, I am going to guess that you would act the same way that Amazon is acting. There are very few companies who publish internal Human Resources data.

These are private company. I am pretty sure that Amazon will do fine... they understand that these political attacks are part of the cost of doing business and they are planning for them to continue.

If you sincerely want to raise the standard of living for workers... you should praise corporations when they do something good. Somehow this never happens.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Well, you did say people ignore the facts...while making statements that ignore the facts.

The facts, which are in absence, mean there is no way to know if this is a good, or bad move for it's workers. Why then would I praise them, when it may actually be bad for their workers?

Quote:

If you owned a company, I am going to guess that you would act the same way that Amazon is acting.

Actually, no, I would not, and for a very good reason.

In any system, the culture, and peoples behaviour, is reflective of the reward structure. If the system rewards yes man mentallity, it moves towards that. If it rewards stabbing others in the back, it moves towards that. If it rewards innovation etc, it moves towards that.

Were I to run a corporation, I would put a very careful reward system in place, that rewards certain behaviours, and allows everyone to buy in / feel ownership....and I would cap those rewards at a percentage of the companies profits.

One of the great drawbacks, as I see it, of management, is they usually only reward the managers / highly skilled personnel / sales. Others often don't feel valued by their organisation, have little sense of ownership, and don't feel any true desire to help the company / corporation succeed.

Management experts all talk about recognition, job satisfaction etc, but generally only pay lip service to the things that truly make an employee want the company to succeed, to be motivated to go the extra mile, etc.

This can change with the proper reward structures.

In any event - that is a very, very short version.

1 Reply

“Amazon isn’t giving its employees a raise, they’re taking money from us,”

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