After a month of public criticism by members of US Congress over wages, Amazon increased their minimum wage nationwide to $15 an hour at a time when similar companies were fighting tooth and nail on neoliberal principle.
This also resulted in employees in the most populace/high cost of living areas to take a pay cut compared to the old bonus incentives while smothering competition in the low cost of living areas by being the best paid warehouse positions.
It’s hard for me to ascribe much genuine altruism to Bezos’ thought processes, they deliberately make the warehouse positions punishing because newer employees are likely to work harder. I almost never went a day without seeing someone limping out the door.
Oh 100%. This shit has all the same issues of that bygone era. The company always wins and is just coming up with what can be presented as a solution without having to actually give up dominance. Some already better treated workers get screwed and the company becomes even stronger in regions they weren’t forced by law to treat their workers well. The entire point is to prevent the government from stepping in and making systemic change with force of law or revolutionary actions like labor organizing happening among the workforce.
This also resulted in employees in the most populace/high cost of living areas to take a pay cut compared to the old bonus incentives while smothering competition in the low cost of living areas by being the best paid warehouse positions.
It’s hard for me to ascribe much genuine altruism to Bezos’ thought processes, they deliberately make the warehouse positions punishing because newer employees are likely to work harder. I almost never went a day without seeing someone limping out the door.
Oh 100%. This shit has all the same issues of that bygone era. The company always wins and is just coming up with what can be presented as a solution without having to actually give up dominance. Some already better treated workers get screwed and the company becomes even stronger in regions they weren’t forced by law to treat their workers well. The entire point is to prevent the government from stepping in and making systemic change with force of law or revolutionary actions like labor organizing happening among the workforce.