5 ms·

No company is paying people below minimum wage... it's literally the minimum wage.

by normand1 11y ago

LoSboccacc 11y ago
Isn't the whole point of outsourcing paying below minimum wage? (Also I guess more lenient pollution laws)
- RijilV 11y ago
  These positions were in Western Washington outside of Seattle. Standard minimum wages apply and Amazon has a history of paying above min wage.
- Arnt 11y ago
  No, the main point is to get labour at a lower total cost, even though you can't predict very well how much you'll need. Sign up to a call center, and they'll say "we'll answer your calls and bill you per call. If you want to do it yourself you can, but in order to cover the peaks you'll have to hire so many people that most are idle during the troughs... we know how to plan this and scale and things and more things, and you don't so why don't you just let us do it?" Getting around irritating minimum wages and other laws is a fringe benefit. Scaling the headcount is the big one.
belorn 11y ago
To make the term "minimum wage" useful, it must have a bunch of qualifier like "minimum wage as set by the law for a set amount of work hours, under the condition that they don't earn other wages". Otherwise special conditions like symbolic wages will ruin the term for everyone.
specialist 11y ago
There are plenty of exceptions to minimum wage. Training, interns, students, restaurant servers, etc. YMMV per jurisdiction. Not to mention wage theft, not paying overtime, pretending your workers are not employees, etc.
x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
Restaurant wait-staff are often paid minimum wage with the expectation they will make it up with tips. It's a travesty.
- MichaelBurge 11y ago
  If they work N hours and receive fewer than $7.25 * N, then the employer is required to make up the difference. I understand there are some accounting tricks involving another $2.13/hour floor and tips, but regardless of those tricks they can't be paid less than minimum wage without the restaurant violating labor law.

No company is paying people below minimum wage... it's literally the minimum wage.

LoSboccacc 11y ago

Isn't the whole point of outsourcing paying below minimum wage? (Also I guess more lenient pollution laws)

RijilV 11y ago
These positions were in Western Washington outside of Seattle. Standard minimum wages apply and Amazon has a history of paying above min wage.
Arnt 11y ago
No, the main point is to get labour at a lower total cost, even though you can't predict very well how much you'll need. Sign up to a call center, and they'll say "we'll answer your calls and bill you per call. If you want to do it yourself you can, but in order to cover the peaks you'll have to hire so many people that most are idle during the troughs... we know how to plan this and scale and things and more things, and you don't so why don't you just let us do it?" Getting around irritating minimum wages and other laws is a fringe benefit. Scaling the headcount is the big one.

belorn 11y ago

To make the term "minimum wage" useful, it must have a bunch of qualifier like "minimum wage as set by the law for a set amount of work hours, under the condition that they don't earn other wages". Otherwise special conditions like symbolic wages will ruin the term for everyone.

specialist 11y ago

There are plenty of exceptions to minimum wage. Training, interns, students, restaurant servers, etc. YMMV per jurisdiction. Not to mention wage theft, not paying overtime, pretending your workers are not employees, etc.

x3n0ph3n3 11y ago

Restaurant wait-staff are often paid minimum wage with the expectation they will make it up with tips. It's a travesty.

MichaelBurge 11y ago
If they work N hours and receive fewer than $7.25 * N, then the employer is required to make up the difference. I understand there are some accounting tricks involving another $2.13/hour floor and tips, but regardless of those tricks they can't be paid less than minimum wage without the restaurant violating labor law.