7 ms·
Amazon and Walmrt not sharing extra profits made during pandemic with employees
- onetimemanytime 6y agowell, barely sharing...but title didn't fit
- moistly 6y agoYou can’t become the world’s first trillionaire by sharing extra profits, silly rabbit!
- smegma2 6y agoI don't see why this would be a meaningful comparison. Employees make wages, not profits. They do not expect to share profit with their employer. If the company made a loss, they would rightfully not share the loss either.
- supertrope 6y agoSharing the loss usually comes in the form of layoffs and reduced hours.
- Anon1096 6y agoThis year Amazon went on a hiring spree to fill the extra demand. Does that count as sharing the profit to you then?
- gbanfalvi 6y agoNo. When they hire employees they (at least expect to) increase their own profit. Losses are shared between a company and the employee losing their job, income is (unevenly) shared between an employer and the employee, profit is exclusively for the employer.
- defertoreptar 6y agoWages and the costs of hiring/employing are a cash outflow. Losses mean that outflow is greater than inflow, so wages can be related to losses, but they are not mutually exclusive. Cuts to jobs and reduced hours can be because of losses, or they could also be due to efficiency gains, in which they could be related to profits instead. Divisions and jobs can be cut because they make neither profit or loss. Employee's don't share in losses or profits unless their compensation is somehow tied to profits.
- aaron-santos 6y agoWhy do you think the authors would want to promote a view where employers are expected to share profit?
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoCome on. This is an unusual circumstance. Employees are taking risks to support the public in a time of need. It would be very reasonable to think, a public-spirited non-selfish board would take more steps to support their employees, up to and including some share of the windfall profits.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 908B64B197 6y ago...Except all Engineers at Amazon saw their stock appreciate in value. Clickbait tittle.
- foogazi 6y agoStill shareholders sharing in the profits increase, not employees
- 908B64B197 6y agoMaybe the takeaway is that employees should negotiate a stock component in their compensation package?
- smabie 6y agoI assume many/most employees are also shareholders, no?
- cercatrova 6y agoYeah not sure what the parent is saying, Amazon (software) employees at least have substantial equity packages.
- foogazi 6y agoWhat I meant is that not all employees are shareholders But, since all shareholders benefit from increased stock valuation, those employees that don’t receive stock as comp can still buy shares and participate in the company’s growth
- crb002 6y agoNot true. Amazon created thousands more jobs and Walmart is paying $5 more base than local grocery chains. Thousands of unemployed small retail/restaurant paid $10 now have at least $15/h jobs.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- foogazi 6y agoThe awesome thing about Amazon shares (or public equity) is you can be a B&N, McDonald’s, government employee or even unemployed, and still share in the profits
- djbebs 6y agoGiven that amazon does not pay dividends or conduct share buybacks, thats not really the case
- corkill 6y agoShareholders benefit from the profits via a rising stock price even if they don't pay out a dividend.
- chrismcb 6y agoProfit isn't directly correlated to share price.
- cercatrova 6y agoThey meant profit via sell - buy price, ie personal profit, not company profits.
- rualca 6y ago> Shareholders benefit from the profits via a rising stock price (...) They really don't. That's not how stock works. Paying dividends is the only way the company's profits get to the pockets of shareholders. The rest is just speculation which nowadays is largely unrelated with performance.
- cercatrova 6y agoThey meant profit via sell - buy price, ie personal profit, not company profits.
- underseacables 6y agoHave they ever shared extra profits with employees?
- drewcoo 6y agoThere's a weather report every day. It's something notable. There has never in history been a day without weather.
- chrisgd 6y agoInterest in public benefit corporations will only increase from here.
- loraa 6y agoHard to run a business without the socialists going all Twitter on you.
- ars 6y agoThis article confuses stock price with profits. Additionally in a single year Amazon almost doubled the number of employees they have. Does that not count as sharing profits with people? With companies going bust left and right, Amazon has been one bright spot to give people jobs. Yes, I know they are warehouse jobs, but when over a million people accepted such jobs I think reports of how bad they are are overblown.
- mimikatz 6y agoThe Brookings Institute who published this have $435,964,000 in net assets. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-annual-report.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-an... Couldn't they pay their people more?
- aaron-santos 6y agoWhat if they did. Would it change the argument?
- mimikatz 6y agoThey did. It is not in dispute. It would at least be hypocritical. It's up to each person what that means.
- aaron-santos 6y agoI'm trying to follow this argument. > Couldn't they pay their people more? > What if they did. > They did. Am I missing something?
- mimikatz 6y agoSorry, I misunderstood your question. I thought you asked did they really have that much, not did they pay their people more. I assume they did not because they still have a huge bankroll.
- renewiltord 6y agoWell, that depends on the argument, but presumably if at some point you state "the moral thing to do is to reduce surplus so that other people may have increased surplus" and no one is really doing that, you have to question the moral argumentation somewhere. For instance, were I to make that argument, and were you to ask me "During the pandemic, did you Doordash any food? How much did you tip? How much money do you have in your bank account?" and it turns out I tipped a very small fraction of the money in my bank account despite "the delivery driver risking his life to deliver nutrition you require to survive" then you might be well within your rights to ask me to justify this behaviour of mine contradictory to my stated morals and see if the argument extends.
- smabie 6y agoIt's almost like they think that people get primarily paid based on the dollar amount of revenue they generate. The salary of employees is conditioned on a multitude of factors, mostly relating to supply and demand, industry norms, the quality of their work, how much better they are than the median employee, etc etc. Profits made are obviously a factor, but less so when there's a high supply of potential workers. tl;dr: You get paid based on what you can demand. Money and power are never given, they are only taken. I have been both in a position as an employer and an employee and people who worked for me didn't get raises unless a couple things were true: they were good at their job (i.e I valued and needed their labor) and they went to me to demand more money. If you don't demand more money (or are not in a position to demand more money, like many low-skilled employees), you're (probably) not going to be paid more.
- tssva 6y ago> It's almost like they think that people get primarily paid based on the dollar amount of revenue they generate. The salary of employees is conditioned on a multitude of factors, mostly relating to supply and demand, industry norms, the quality of their work, how much better they are than the median employee, etc etc. Profits made are obviously a factor, but less so when there's a high supply of potential workers. > tl;dr: You get paid based on what you can demand. Money and power are never given, they are only taken. I have been both in a position as an employer and an employee and people who worked for me didn't get raises unless a couple things were true: they were good at their job (i.e I valued and needed their labor) and they went to me to demand more money. If you don't demand more money (or are not in a position to demand more money, like many low-skilled employees), you're (probably) not going to be paid more. If you are a low-skilled worker or any worker not in position to demand more money then you organize with others in the same position until as a group you are. It's called a union and Amazon employees have until now failed to form one through in some circumstances a lack of action and others through actively voting not to. If they have failed to benefit through these circumstances as their employers have the fault is their own.
- cercatrova 6y agoThere is also union busting but of course a company can do that since it's legal to bust unions.
- syndacks 6y agoEdtech companies have faired well in the pandemic (in theory and in stock price), should the students receive a cut of the profit? Teachers? Not trolling, simply restatong the problem in another domain, which has actually left me feeling even more unsure of the answer.
- LatteLazy 6y agoAmazon has hired 400k new employees this year. 400k. Plus overtime for existing workers. [1] They also paid covid bonuses until (I think) June. Oh, and they raised their minimum wage from 11 to 15usd/h. [2] Oh, and they are paying Christmas bonuses of 500mUSD [3] That sounds like a company making real strides and helping a shit tonne of it's employees exactly at a time it could just yawn and not do anything. [1]. https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazons-hires-248500-people-q3-jeff-bezos-challenges-large-employers-raise-minimum-wage/amp/ https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazons-hires-248500-people-q3... [2]. https://www.wired.com/story/why-amazon-really-raised-minimum-wage/ https://www.wired.com/story/why-amazon-really-raised-minimum... [3]. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55093821 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55093821
- onetimemanytime 6y ago>>That sounds like a company making real strides and helping a shit tonne of it's employees exactly at a time it could just yawn and not do anything. so Amazon is paying 400K employees even they don't need them or what? How many jobs has Amazon cost, directly (driving competitors out of business) or indirectly (people buying online?) Amazon hires because it needs employees. And fires them the minute it doesn't. A few hundred dollars when your chance of getting Covid is increased by orders of magnitude doesn't look like much of a bonus, but people have no choice.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LatteLazy 6y agoCovid might have killed a lot of retail jobs this year, but I don't think you can blame amazon for that...
- Vanit 6y agoThis is the wrong conversation. Their govt should be supporting them, and the profits should be taxed appropriately to pay for it.