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Amazon warehouse workers get $17/hr starting wage (and a full 2x ($34/hr!!) overtime), with no experience/education needed and almost no barrier to getting the

Amazon warehouse workers get $17/hr starting wage (and a full 2x ($34/hr!!) overtime), with no experience/education needed and almost no barrier to getting the job (except physical capability to lift a box), as well as the best health insurance I've ever heard of entry-level manual laborers getting, as well as education budgets to be used on any higher level education they want. Obviously warehouse work isn't glamorous and they are under a lot of pressure and there's nothing wrong with increased scrutiny on how they are treated, but it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are treated like slaves.

dbg31415 6y ago
Spot on. Amazon was able to hire over 100k employees in the last month. They did that by providing the best possible choice for those people -- the people wanted to work there. Sure, all for transparency, but let's be real. This job is a lot better than flipping burgers or mowing a road ditch. People are still lining up to work at Amazon. It's easy to be like, "Hey look at the big evil company!" but the truth of the matter is Amazon is one of the best places for low-skilled workers to find employment.
- 908087 6y ago
  "Sure, the bread I'm handing out is moldy.. but these people who have been starving to death are still lining up to eat it!"
elliekelly 6y ago
IMO it isn’t really relevant how much they’re paid or what the educational requirements. It’s never okay to treat people the way Amazon treats warehouse workers. If you (and the government) consider your business “essential” you simply have to take appropriate precautions to protect the health and safety of those people who are carrying out essential duties. I understand there are supply shortages around the world but Amazon isn’t even trying to make a good faith effort to protect their people. They’re doing the opposite, it seems. Fighting their employees every step of the way.
- txcwpalpha 6y ago
  I don't know where you're getting your news, but yea they are. Amazon FCs around the world have been implementing mandatory distancing protocols, mandatory usage of hand sanitizer and masks (which Amazon provides where there aren't shortages), mandatory temperature checks before entering the warehouse, increased PTO, unlimited unpaid time off if you're having symptoms, and more. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say it's getting exhausting. There is an incredible amount of misinformation/hyperbole going around about how these employees are treated. Again, warehouse work isn't glamorous and they're definitely not in as good of a situation as your average SWE sitting at home sipping beer while Zooming, but if you read past the clickbait headlines, Amazon is doing all of the things you just accused them of not doing.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  I guess Amazon is the McDonald of 2019/2020, a nice easy target for all. Day doesn't go by without some article about that horrible exploiting Amazon. Where were/are you when discussing about nurses, truck drivers, waiters, mom&pop stores earning below minimum (or nothing these days), uber drivers and gazillions of other examples. Plus various the other warehouses as well. Or chinese factory workers, manufacturing your branded clothing, iphones and whatnot 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. I could go on and on for quite some time. Everybody likes to kick Amazon these days, such an easy target, almost fashionable. Did you ever order anything from them, thus supporting the business? Ebay/aliexpress? They are not saints, its a brutal capitalism and race to the bottom... just like every other successful company out there. Folks work there because other options they have are worse, if there are any. Don't like exploitation like that? Well try to change labor laws in your country instead of cherry-picking single target. As for covid measures, other poster described them well enough, no point adding anything.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > its a brutal capitalism and race to the bottom This "race to the bottom" argument is so tired. The only way you can make that argument is if you don't consider the welfare of all 7.6 billion people on this planet as worth improving. Generally people live more comfortable leisurely lives now than at any point in human history. This is largely thanks to capitalism. I understand that not everyone's life is great yet, but for the most part the number of people in poverty or extreme poverty keeps decreasing. For the most part, the overwhelming majority of people's whose lives are worse today than in the past, it is because they are competing with others who are willing to do it for less because even doing it for less, it's a lot better than their alternatives. Those who are worse off now are almost invariably still better off than those that were at the bottom of the barrel that are now doing better. Basically capitalism is a rising tide that has for the most part raised all boats. That is far from a race towards the bottom.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hckr_news 6y ago
> they are under a lot of pressure Quite the understatement
pmiller2 6y ago
> it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are treated like slaves. Try saying that when you're the one who's not even given time to attend to bodily functions during the workday.
- michaelsitver 6y ago
  Obviously anecdotal, but when I toured an Amazon fulfillment center there were plenty of bathrooms and no shortage of workers using them...
julesqs 6y ago
lol imagine being a simp online for the actual richest man in the world. Amazon consistently resists unionization efforts, makes workers work at a furious pace, offers almost zero benefits beyond the wages that they always resist raising, and they didn't offer any sick leave during a pandemic until about a week ago. I can't emphasize this enough: Jeff Bezos is the worlds richest man. He is worth at least $140 billion or more, and has gotten richer during the pandemic. And you're on here saying Amazon workers without health insurance should be happy with $17/hour?
deeblering4 6y ago
Their workers are treated like robots, not slaves. And the "good wages for low qualifications" argument is equally exhausting. Money shouldn't be some universal justification for overlooking poor workplace conditions and unethical treatment of human beings.
- txcwpalpha 6y ago
  I never said that good wages is justification for anything. Please don't put words in my mouth. I do a lot of work with AWS, and I care where my money goes, so I spend a lot of time researching this whenever an article accusing Amazon comes up. I have not seen anything outside a few edge cases that qualifies as "unethical treatment". This is exactly what I'm referring to in my original comment. A story about an FC worker peeing in a bottle doesn't mean they're being treated unethically. I've seen stories about Google SWEs peeing in bottles and sleeping under their desk because they were under a tight deadline, and yet I don't see people boycotting Google over their treatment of SWEs (coincidentally, one of the ways I do see people justifying these tight deadlines for SWEs is that they make lots of money, so it seems at least some people do think that good wages is justification for tough working conditions). If you want a better manual labor comparison, oilfield workers work in grueling conditions, are forced to sleep in tiny bunks, and sometimes come out of the job with a missing limb, but I don't see posts on HN every day about how we should boycott oil companies over their treatment of workers (and again, lot's of people justify the grueling conditions of oilfield workers by pointing out they make a lot of money, so...). I only have a certain amount of processing power in my brain and can only be outraged at so many things at any given time. If Amazon workers truly were being treated terribly, I would care. But a handful of workers (out of nearly 1 million) saying that they got stressed out at work because their boss asked them to work faster just doesn't make the cut for me. Could it be better? Sure, and with my nearly-unlimited supply of online social media slacktivism, I'll advocate for things to be better. But in the real world where resources aren't unlimited, there are many companies that I'll boycott over working conditions before Amazon.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    It is intense, hard labor with a lot of performance pressure squeezed out of people who are the most desperate for work. When it comes down to it nobody can put the pressure on a software engineer to do that kind of every second counts work which forces people to go beyond their limits and ruin their bodies because they need to put food on the table and have few other options.
sct202 6y ago
The pay rate and benefits that Amazon is touting thru all these shills is not higher than most other large retail companies with warehouse positions. Amazon: Avg $15/hr https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Amazon-Warehouse-Associate-Hourly-Pay-E6036_D_KO7,26.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Amazon-Warehouse-Associ... Walmart: Avg $17/hr https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Walmart-Warehouse-Associate-Hourly-Pay-E715_D_KO8,27.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Walmart-Warehouse-Assoc... Target: Avg $21/hr https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Target-Warehouse-Worker-Hourly-Pay-E194_D_KO7,23.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Target-Warehouse-Worker...
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Amazon is not paying an average of $15/hour. They are paying a MINIMUM of that. Glassdoor is not a good source for compensation figures.
refurb 6y ago
I worked in a warehouse picking and packing orders when I was in college. It was a fantastic job relative to my other options. I got paid 2x minimum wage and lots of overtime. The job rocked compared to the retail jobs that were my other option. It's pretty easy to shit on a job like that, and the pay, when you're making well into 6 figures and have a comfy office job with free snacks.
- bigbob2 6y ago
  I knew several employees at the Lexington, KY facility and none described the job as fantastic relative to other options. Proof is that all of them have moved on to other jobs, some of which pay less, because the conditions are better. I've heard packing is the worst job, mainly because of ~100 degree indoor temperatures in the Summer months. Another commonly cited issue was that there were many meth addicts working there, presumably because it did not show up on a drug test. Not sure if conditions have changed since then, or if they're different at each warehouse; just another anecdotal data point.
  - refurb 6y ago
    I can't speak to the conditions at Amazon warehouses since I don't know anyone who works there, but warehouse jobs are hard physical labor. Add on top shitty management and I can see why they'd look for alternatives. The warehouse I worked in doesn't sounds that different. I worked the night shift, so had the joy of working in temperatures of 100F because the tar roof would radiate heat all night and there was minimal ventilation. Dust gets everywhere so you have a nice coating of sweat and dirt after a shift. Once time the warehouse was flood, but product needed to go out, so it was 100F and 90% humidity. Still a better job than the alternatives I had!
- claudeganon 6y ago
  This is just bait-and-switch nonsense. People aren’t shitting on the jobs themselves or the people doing them. They don’t like how Amazon, the company, is treating these workers and the HQ employees acting in solidarity with them.
wpietri 6y ago
What's your direct knowledge of the situation? As far as I can tell, Amazon PR and actual reports from warehouse workers, especially contract workers, diverge greatly.

dbg31415 6y ago

Spot on. Amazon was able to hire over 100k employees in the last month. They did that by providing the best possible choice for those people -- the people wanted to work there. Sure, all for transparency, but let's be real. This job is a lot better than flipping burgers or mowing a road ditch. People are still lining up to work at Amazon. It's easy to be like, "Hey look at the big evil company!" but the truth of the matter is Amazon is one of the best places for low-skilled workers to find employment.

908087 6y ago
"Sure, the bread I'm handing out is moldy.. but these people who have been starving to death are still lining up to eat it!"

elliekelly 6y ago

IMO it isn’t really relevant how much they’re paid or what the educational requirements. It’s never okay to treat people the way Amazon treats warehouse workers. If you (and the government) consider your business “essential” you simply have to take appropriate precautions to protect the health and safety of those people who are carrying out essential duties. I understand there are supply shortages around the world but Amazon isn’t even trying to make a good faith effort to protect their people. They’re doing the opposite, it seems. Fighting their employees every step of the way.

txcwpalpha 6y ago
I don't know where you're getting your news, but yea they are. Amazon FCs around the world have been implementing mandatory distancing protocols, mandatory usage of hand sanitizer and masks (which Amazon provides where there aren't shortages), mandatory temperature checks before entering the warehouse, increased PTO, unlimited unpaid time off if you're having symptoms, and more. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say it's getting exhausting. There is an incredible amount of misinformation/hyperbole going around about how these employees are treated. Again, warehouse work isn't glamorous and they're definitely not in as good of a situation as your average SWE sitting at home sipping beer while Zooming, but if you read past the clickbait headlines, Amazon is doing all of the things you just accused them of not doing.
saiya-jin 6y ago
I guess Amazon is the McDonald of 2019/2020, a nice easy target for all. Day doesn't go by without some article about that horrible exploiting Amazon. Where were/are you when discussing about nurses, truck drivers, waiters, mom&pop stores earning below minimum (or nothing these days), uber drivers and gazillions of other examples. Plus various the other warehouses as well. Or chinese factory workers, manufacturing your branded clothing, iphones and whatnot 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. I could go on and on for quite some time. Everybody likes to kick Amazon these days, such an easy target, almost fashionable. Did you ever order anything from them, thus supporting the business? Ebay/aliexpress? They are not saints, its a brutal capitalism and race to the bottom... just like every other successful company out there. Folks work there because other options they have are worse, if there are any. Don't like exploitation like that? Well try to change labor laws in your country instead of cherry-picking single target. As for covid measures, other poster described them well enough, no point adding anything.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > its a brutal capitalism and race to the bottom This "race to the bottom" argument is so tired. The only way you can make that argument is if you don't consider the welfare of all 7.6 billion people on this planet as worth improving. Generally people live more comfortable leisurely lives now than at any point in human history. This is largely thanks to capitalism. I understand that not everyone's life is great yet, but for the most part the number of people in poverty or extreme poverty keeps decreasing. For the most part, the overwhelming majority of people's whose lives are worse today than in the past, it is because they are competing with others who are willing to do it for less because even doing it for less, it's a lot better than their alternatives. Those who are worse off now are almost invariably still better off than those that were at the bottom of the barrel that are now doing better. Basically capitalism is a rising tide that has for the most part raised all boats. That is far from a race towards the bottom.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hckr_news 6y ago

> they are under a lot of pressure Quite the understatement

pmiller2 6y ago

> it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are treated like slaves. Try saying that when you're the one who's not even given time to attend to bodily functions during the workday.

michaelsitver 6y ago
Obviously anecdotal, but when I toured an Amazon fulfillment center there were plenty of bathrooms and no shortage of workers using them...

julesqs 6y ago

lol imagine being a simp online for the actual richest man in the world. Amazon consistently resists unionization efforts, makes workers work at a furious pace, offers almost zero benefits beyond the wages that they always resist raising, and they didn't offer any sick leave during a pandemic until about a week ago. I can't emphasize this enough: Jeff Bezos is the worlds richest man. He is worth at least $140 billion or more, and has gotten richer during the pandemic. And you're on here saying Amazon workers without health insurance should be happy with $17/hour?

deeblering4 6y ago

Their workers are treated like robots, not slaves. And the "good wages for low qualifications" argument is equally exhausting. Money shouldn't be some universal justification for overlooking poor workplace conditions and unethical treatment of human beings.

txcwpalpha 6y ago
I never said that good wages is justification for anything. Please don't put words in my mouth. I do a lot of work with AWS, and I care where my money goes, so I spend a lot of time researching this whenever an article accusing Amazon comes up. I have not seen anything outside a few edge cases that qualifies as "unethical treatment". This is exactly what I'm referring to in my original comment. A story about an FC worker peeing in a bottle doesn't mean they're being treated unethically. I've seen stories about Google SWEs peeing in bottles and sleeping under their desk because they were under a tight deadline, and yet I don't see people boycotting Google over their treatment of SWEs (coincidentally, one of the ways I do see people justifying these tight deadlines for SWEs is that they make lots of money, so it seems at least some people do think that good wages is justification for tough working conditions). If you want a better manual labor comparison, oilfield workers work in grueling conditions, are forced to sleep in tiny bunks, and sometimes come out of the job with a missing limb, but I don't see posts on HN every day about how we should boycott oil companies over their treatment of workers (and again, lot's of people justify the grueling conditions of oilfield workers by pointing out they make a lot of money, so...). I only have a certain amount of processing power in my brain and can only be outraged at so many things at any given time. If Amazon workers truly were being treated terribly, I would care. But a handful of workers (out of nearly 1 million) saying that they got stressed out at work because their boss asked them to work faster just doesn't make the cut for me. Could it be better? Sure, and with my nearly-unlimited supply of online social media slacktivism, I'll advocate for things to be better. But in the real world where resources aren't unlimited, there are many companies that I'll boycott over working conditions before Amazon.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  It is intense, hard labor with a lot of performance pressure squeezed out of people who are the most desperate for work. When it comes down to it nobody can put the pressure on a software engineer to do that kind of every second counts work which forces people to go beyond their limits and ruin their bodies because they need to put food on the table and have few other options.

sct202 6y ago

The pay rate and benefits that Amazon is touting thru all these shills is not higher than most other large retail companies with warehouse positions. Amazon: Avg $15/hr https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Amazon-Warehouse-Associate-Hourly-Pay-E6036_D_KO7,26.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Amazon-Warehouse-Associ... Walmart: Avg $17/hr https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Walmart-Warehouse-Associate-Hourly-Pay-E715_D_KO8,27.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Walmart-Warehouse-Assoc... Target: Avg $21/hr https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Target-Warehouse-Worker-Hourly-Pay-E194_D_KO7,23.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Target-Warehouse-Worker...

throwawaysea 6y ago
Amazon is not paying an average of $15/hour. They are paying a MINIMUM of that. Glassdoor is not a good source for compensation figures.

refurb 6y ago

I worked in a warehouse picking and packing orders when I was in college. It was a fantastic job relative to my other options. I got paid 2x minimum wage and lots of overtime. The job rocked compared to the retail jobs that were my other option. It's pretty easy to shit on a job like that, and the pay, when you're making well into 6 figures and have a comfy office job with free snacks.

bigbob2 6y ago
I knew several employees at the Lexington, KY facility and none described the job as fantastic relative to other options. Proof is that all of them have moved on to other jobs, some of which pay less, because the conditions are better. I've heard packing is the worst job, mainly because of ~100 degree indoor temperatures in the Summer months. Another commonly cited issue was that there were many meth addicts working there, presumably because it did not show up on a drug test. Not sure if conditions have changed since then, or if they're different at each warehouse; just another anecdotal data point.
- refurb 6y ago
  I can't speak to the conditions at Amazon warehouses since I don't know anyone who works there, but warehouse jobs are hard physical labor. Add on top shitty management and I can see why they'd look for alternatives. The warehouse I worked in doesn't sounds that different. I worked the night shift, so had the joy of working in temperatures of 100F because the tar roof would radiate heat all night and there was minimal ventilation. Dust gets everywhere so you have a nice coating of sweat and dirt after a shift. Once time the warehouse was flood, but product needed to go out, so it was 100F and 90% humidity. Still a better job than the alternatives I had!
claudeganon 6y ago
This is just bait-and-switch nonsense. People aren’t shitting on the jobs themselves or the people doing them. They don’t like how Amazon, the company, is treating these workers and the HQ employees acting in solidarity with them.

wpietri 6y ago

What's your direct knowledge of the situation? As far as I can tell, Amazon PR and actual reports from warehouse workers, especially contract workers, diverge greatly.