If each employee was paid the same to pick half the items, then they’re effectively being paid twice as much to do the same amount of work. Amazon would have to

If each employee was paid the same to pick half the items, then they’re effectively being paid twice as much to do the same amount of work. Amazon would have to hire twice the workers (if not more) to fulfill their order volume, which means shipping items becomes more expensive. So the real question is: Who is going to pay the bill? And the problem I see here is, whoever you ask this, the answer is always “not me!” Everyone wants to reap the benefits of cheap labor (e.g. cheap, fast shipping), while proclaiming they want to treat the labor force well, but without a willingness to actually “put their money where their mouth is” and pay for it when it actually comes down to it. For example: If you could willingly add 50% to the cost of every Amazon purchase if it gave workers better conditions, would you? If your first reaction to that is “Hey, that’s not my problem! The [government/market/unions/etc.] should have to solve that!” ... then yeah, we’ll the thing is that’s what everybody says when asked these sorts of problems.