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Realistically an Amazon-wide union is the only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsour

Realistically an Amazon-wide union is the only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China, without having any cross-border capital flow penalities (neoliberal globalism in a nutshell), then the major employers like Amazon and Walmart are going to have to double their wages. Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.

rapnie 4y ago
> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Unrealistic, in neoliberalism.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  This doesn’t mean anything. Markets mature and margins decline. All firms have to compete for labor, and the market for labor has tightened. However during an inflationary environment it’s pretty easy to raise prices. They’ll eventually build higher labor costs into their financial projects and pass along some of the costs. Shareholders probably won’t care much, because Amazon is still a good investment.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Based on retail business profit margins, it would mean higher prices for customers. Not that that is a bad thing, less consumption would be great.
- Retric 4y ago
  Competition limits how much they could raise prices, automation and efficiency increases are needed to compete.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Who is more efficient than Amazon/Walmart/Target/Home Depot/Staples/Costco/etc? They set the bottom price, and if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins, then their costs increases will have to end up in either prices increases or them no longer selling the product. The funny thing is that it is Amazon coming along and greatly increasing demand for labor (in conjunction with reduced supply of that type of labor) that caused all the other warehouse jobs and retailers to increase pay. And I hope the labor continues making gains in their quality of life at work and pay, but I do not see this happening without an increase in prices for products (like we have already seen).
    - Retric 4y ago
      That’s assuming they keep their margins the same. The thing is Amazon isn’t manufacturing anything so their “thin” margins aren’t as sensitive to increased labor costs as 2-4% suggests. Paying 18$ for something your selling for 20$ is a 10% margin, taxes and CC processing fees are similarly inflexible. So if 2-4% of the final price is profit then they could raise their internal costs by 10% and still be profitable.
    - danaris 4y ago
      > if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins They're not (depending on the product). My wife used to work in Halloween costume design for a wholesaler (and some of her costumes did end up in Target and Walmart, which was cool to see), and the retailers' margins on those were at least 50%. As I said, the margin does depend heavily on the product, but do not assume that across-the-board average margins are anywhere near that razor-thin.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        That is irrelevant because the entire organization’s profit margins are where increased wages would come from.
        danaris 4y ago
- Spooky23 4y ago
  In the Metro NY and upstate regions, there is a supermarket chain called Shoprite that is unionized. Where I live, none of the other chains are union shops. The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes. Prices are no different than anywhere else.
  - danaris 4y ago
    > The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes. ...Really? That's a straight detriment in my book, as a customer. I would generally prefer to support a union shop, but I'm extremely fond of self-checkout—and, in fact, further upstate, Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you can use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the way out to pay. One of the worst things unions can do is try to "protect jobs" at the expense of technological advancement, customer service, or improved product.
    - salawat 4y ago
      Does Wegman's pay you for providing them free labor? You're subsidizing them at your own cost with self-checkout. After all, you are: -Updating their inventory tracking system -engaging with the regulatory framework of purchasing on their behalf -being subject to their annoying "loss prevention hot days" where they turn the merchandise scales on. I've started to take a different view toward these jobs over time. Being an employer is a high bar in the U.S., and if we (the taxpayers proxied through the markets/Federal Reserve) have an objective to have people participating in the workforce, then these "automated" checkouts cost workforce participation. Which also means fewer training opportunities for low skill workers, fewer jobs of last resort, etc. Not everything is necessarily $$$. Be a hell of an economics project to really suss out the difference in flow of money in grocers who took different approaches.
      - danaris 4y ago
        I could not care less that doing the scanning myself saves Wegman's money. It saves me mental energy and time because I don't need to deal with a human cashier, and I don't need to spend 10 minutes emptying a full cart, scanning every item, then packing them all back into bags and fitting those back into the cart.
Varqu 4y ago
Perhaps you should consider that maybe some of those shareholders are your parents whose retirement future depends on those investments?
- mantas 4y ago
  How much of that money is made by externalising costs to the society? Limiting cross-borders money flow is a very good way to keep social contract intact.
  - Varqu 4y ago
    So basically, let's keep buying our average quality cars for more money, than allow free trade & importing better quality vehicles from a country that specializes with it? For some reason, it was the growth of global trade that coincided with the growth of global GDP & the increase of the life quality of the earth population.
    - mantas 4y ago
      Tax the shit out of imported cars and make sure that local makers actually compete. It's funny how people cry about CO2 and whatnot. But when it's about trade, suddenly transporting stuff thousands of kilometers is fiiiine.
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    Globalism is coming from the same people that also want open borders for immigration. Should borders be open or closed? (European here, I have no stance on that, Amazon has no retail presence in my country and immigration is almost zero here)
    - mantas 4y ago
      Closed, of course (european too). It destroys capitalist job market by kicking out floor from workers. People ain't willing to do a job for peanuts? How about raising a salary (and automation becoming feasible)? Nah, let's important people who will work for less.
jaclaz 4y ago
I may be wrong, but besides and before the wage increases, it seems to me like the priority would be for decent working conditions, if what is published from time to time on media is actually true, the biggest issues are about lack of (normal, decent) pauses or rest periods, continuous summoning for increases in productivity, total control on the workers, etc.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  All that becomes a lot more tolerable if you're getting double your previous pay.
  - abirch 4y ago
    The pay is why the employees don't quit en mass.
    - azemetre 4y ago
      Is this the same Amazon that is convinced they will run out of employees in a few years because they quit so often? https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...
      - abirch 4y ago
        Jeff Bezos wanted high turnover by design: this is why the starting pay is so high and doesn't grow. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...
  - macintux 4y ago
    Only until you’re injured.
- q1w2 4y ago
  > if what is published from time to time on media is actually true That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions in industrial settings where worker's dying was common. OSHA did away with all that. The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is around getting adequate bathroom breaks.
nxmnxm99 4y ago
[flagged]
- Retric 4y ago
  Competition means higher prices aren’t an easy fix.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    Competition also means non-union employers will dominate the market. You can’t have it both ways.
    - Retric 4y ago
      It doesn’t need to be. Giant companies that threat their workers worse than average face much stronger unionization efforts. Which pushes markets to increased efficiency rather forcing working conditions into a race to the bottom.
- closewith 4y ago
  Higher prices in exchange for basic labour rights. Seems like a price worth paying to me.
  - gruez 4y ago
    That's easy for someone making 6 figures to say, but what about someone making close to minimum wage?
    - closewith 4y ago
      It's hard to believe this comment is for real? Labour rights - including the right to a living wage and civil working conditions - benefit those on the minimum wage more than high-earners. It's not a zero-sum game.
      - 4y ago
ekianjo 4y ago
> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.
- Jiejeing 4y ago
  Prices in Switzerland are somewhat similar to or a bit higher (and certainly not 10 times) than the US, except for meat.
  - danans 4y ago
    Interesting, do the swiss eat less meat as a consequence?
  - 9dev 4y ago
    Try saying that again after paying 16€ for a kebab in Basel compared to 5€ in Germany, a few kilometres to the east. There is definitely a difference.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    This not accurate. Eating out, for example, is very expensive there, even compared to major cities in the US.
    - Jiejeing 4y ago
      I am not really a restaurant person, but when eating in LA or SF, while the prices were cheaper than Swiss prices, the difference was not huge after factoring in the "mandatory" tipping common in the US.
- somehnguy 4y ago
  1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level? 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help. What a strange comment imo. I can’t take the ‘everything will go up!’ stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10 houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious. By the way, Switzerland’s GDP is 748 billion vs the United States’ 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is meaningless and silly.
jupp0r 4y ago
I don’t think you are taking the price increases and inefficiencies that a nationally isolated economy would produce into account. People with less disposable income would suffer most from this. If you don’t like supply chain issues and inflation right now, you won’t like the model you propose.
- Retric 4y ago
  How much do you think Amazon can actually raise prices before people just shop elsewhere? The simple truth is warehouse employee salaries aren’t significant because of throughput. Someone making 30$/hour vs 15$/hour sounds huge but when people are picking 300+ items an hour that’s 5 cents a pop. But, more realistic unionized job would be 17$/hour but only 250 items a sub 2 cents increase.
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    100% agreed. My comment was referring to the part of OPs comment where they criticized globalization and proposed capital controls.
GuB-42 4y ago
> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Is it what usually happens when workers unionize? It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well. Sure. So the customer buys less product, the company makes less profit, and the shareholders eject the executives. But there are huge delays in these chains of causation, which provide opportunities for arbitrage.
  - makomk 4y ago
    The trouble with that argument is that you haven't justified why it should only cause downward pressure on prices when companies have to increase pay due to unions demanding more cash. The exact same process should drive down prices and the amount executives make all the time, which means that the price will already be near the optimum given a particular level of costs and that increasing the costs will increase that optimum price. (This is particularly clear in scenarios where this works so well at pushing prices down that the increased wage demands would lead to losing money on every unit sold at the original price. Obviously in this scenario the price must increase.)
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      Well, I don't think I said it caused downward pressure on prices! So I don't have to explain why that might happen. Obviously, if workers can negotiate more effectively by being unionised, that exerts upward pressure on costs. Those additional costs can be met out of profits (i.e. shareholders pay, and execs get sacked) or "efficiencies" (e.g. automation, reducing headcount). If you can figure out how to make a better product that you can charge more for, then everyone's happy. If you can't, then perhaps your competitor can, even if he's unionised too. Unions can contribute at least as much to product and process improvement as management can. In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
bufferoverflow 4y ago
Or Amazon will push for more automation and they will all lose their jobs. Right now these workers work at Amazon, because that's the best paying job they can find.
- kolinko 4y ago
  Amazon will push for more automation regardless.
  - bufferoverflow 4y ago
    If the costs of labor go up fast, they have much more incentive to automate. When right now they may think it's cheaper to hire humans.
    - kolinko 4y ago
      This would only be true if there was a technology to automate and it was just too expensive. For jobs that Amazon hires people there isn’t a technology to automate right now. Such technology is being developed (better AI and better robotics), but increasing the budget wouldn’t necessarily speed things up.
      - bufferoverflow 4y ago
        You're confusing the absence of the off-the-shelf product with the absence of the technology.
        kolinko 4y ago
        I'm not. Did you ever work on AI or robotics?
      - yazaddaruvala 4y ago
        Amazon’s Kiva robots, also https://youtu.be/d7J2_vr0ra4 https://youtu.be/d7J2_vr0ra4, are not installed in every FC. They are not willing to pay to upgrade all the old FCs, new international FCs, etc. i.e. “it’s too expensive”. This is also clear in how Amazon waited till the pandemic to add self checkout counters to many Whole Foods. They spent “$4 BB on safety measures for employees” and called self checkout a safety measure to reduce employee to employee density and employee to customer contact. Again it was previously “too expensive to do in mass” even if only for the terrible press it would have brought out side the pandemic. Not saying “they will never get to it.” They will. Or that it’s not worth it. But the other commenter is also right that unions and hire wages could drive a larger investment in automation earlier than it would have otherwise.
dcolkitt 4y ago
> If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China What? You think overseas manufacturers are paying $30 an hour? It wasn't high-skilled manufacturing that was outsourced. Welders and machinists still have near zero unemployment and make about as much as a software engineer. It was low skilled manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to China. Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
- hedora 4y ago
  If the jobs were to come back to the US, they'd need to pay $18+/hour, since they're worse than a warehouse job, and Amazon pays so well. At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or machinists make).
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > since they're worse than a warehouse job, and Amazon pays so well Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
    - formerkrogemp 4y ago
      > Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions. I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse. It's easy for someone working as a developer to maintain that warehouse jobs aren't all "equally terrible." They mostly are terrible. The majority of warehouse workers would rather be working another job, especially Amazon workers. In many of their labor markets, Amazon is chewing through the available labor supply faster than it can be replenished. By the end of this year and especially by the end of 2024 in many markets Amazon will no longer have fresh workers. I wonder where you prime delivery will be then. Further, Amazon might pay higher than average wages for the industry, but the high turnover creates an oversupply of warehouse skilled labor and actually depresses wages. They offer slight incentives for staying but then overwork their employees to encourage their resignations to hire newer, minimum starting pay employees. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-amzn-job-pay-rate-leaves-some-warehouse-employees-homeless https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-am...
SnowHill9902 4y ago
$30 is 3 days worth of payment in some countries.
smugma 4y ago
Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage, more than double the federal minimum wage. I think at the time Walmart was at $10 or $11. I live in very liberal SF but outside of my bubble, I hear people complain that it’s not possible to hire Nannies/housecleaners/employees anymore when Amazon and Starbucks pay $18/hr. Seems like the answer is easy: pay them more or make the job more desirable. Amazon working conditions are challenging, and they have been super anti-union. But they’ve also done more to increase wages in the US than anyone in Washington in the past 15 years, arguably second biggest in past 40 [1]. [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
- rubyn00bie 4y ago
  You’re saying conflicting things, Amazon “leads raising wages” to you but then “it’s not possible to hire X at rate Y so people have to pay more.” Amazon has to pay more because their jobs are shit. They aren’t doing anything to raise wages they’re just trying to get people’s asses in the door. I’m sort of shocked you linked to the department of labor’s historical page as some sort of proof of your idea. I can guarantee that wage is the minimum they can pay to get people in the door for the level of work required by them calculated by a legion of economists. The fact you think Amazon jobs are competing with “Nannies/house cleaners/employees” is equally strange. Like somehow these jobs are related?! Why do you only compare those jobs to Amazon factory jobs?
  - hedora 4y ago
    Amazon rose wages and have some the highest warehouse worker wages around, to the point where they are creating upward pressure on wages in other industries. Their jobs also are super stressful and burn people out. These things are not contradictory. Anecdotally, in support of the comment you are replying to, Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here, and $100-$150 a night isn't anywhere near enough to screw with her sleep schedule. She works $18/hr morning shifts and now owns a car.
    - 4y ago
xhkkffbf 4y ago
Why do you think it means less for executives? It could be that they pass the costs on to consumers. So everything at Amazon will be more expensive just to pay the premium.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  This effect would only really exist for monopolies.
jmyeet 4y ago
This. A lot of people, even economists, conflate the freedom of trade with the free movement of capital. They are not the same and not equivalent. I like to point people to this comic [1] that someone made when the TPP was hot news as it accurately describes this in a very accessible way. Neoliberalism serves the interests of the capital-owning class. [1]: https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  There isn't a distinction. How is free trade possible if one isn't free to exchange one form of capital for another? Exchange requires movement.

rapnie 4y ago

> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Unrealistic, in neoliberalism.

ch4s3 4y ago
This doesn’t mean anything. Markets mature and margins decline. All firms have to compete for labor, and the market for labor has tightened. However during an inflationary environment it’s pretty easy to raise prices. They’ll eventually build higher labor costs into their financial projects and pass along some of the costs. Shareholders probably won’t care much, because Amazon is still a good investment.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Based on retail business profit margins, it would mean higher prices for customers. Not that that is a bad thing, less consumption would be great.

Retric 4y ago
Competition limits how much they could raise prices, automation and efficiency increases are needed to compete.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Who is more efficient than Amazon/Walmart/Target/Home Depot/Staples/Costco/etc? They set the bottom price, and if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins, then their costs increases will have to end up in either prices increases or them no longer selling the product. The funny thing is that it is Amazon coming along and greatly increasing demand for labor (in conjunction with reduced supply of that type of labor) that caused all the other warehouse jobs and retailers to increase pay. And I hope the labor continues making gains in their quality of life at work and pay, but I do not see this happening without an increase in prices for products (like we have already seen).
  - Retric 4y ago
    That’s assuming they keep their margins the same. The thing is Amazon isn’t manufacturing anything so their “thin” margins aren’t as sensitive to increased labor costs as 2-4% suggests. Paying 18$ for something your selling for 20$ is a 10% margin, taxes and CC processing fees are similarly inflexible. So if 2-4% of the final price is profit then they could raise their internal costs by 10% and still be profitable.
  - danaris 4y ago
    > if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins They're not (depending on the product). My wife used to work in Halloween costume design for a wholesaler (and some of her costumes did end up in Target and Walmart, which was cool to see), and the retailers' margins on those were at least 50%. As I said, the margin does depend heavily on the product, but do not assume that across-the-board average margins are anywhere near that razor-thin.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      That is irrelevant because the entire organization’s profit margins are where increased wages would come from.
      - danaris 4y ago
Spooky23 4y ago
In the Metro NY and upstate regions, there is a supermarket chain called Shoprite that is unionized. Where I live, none of the other chains are union shops. The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes. Prices are no different than anywhere else.
- danaris 4y ago
  > The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes. ...Really? That's a straight detriment in my book, as a customer. I would generally prefer to support a union shop, but I'm extremely fond of self-checkout—and, in fact, further upstate, Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you can use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the way out to pay. One of the worst things unions can do is try to "protect jobs" at the expense of technological advancement, customer service, or improved product.
  - salawat 4y ago
    Does Wegman's pay you for providing them free labor? You're subsidizing them at your own cost with self-checkout. After all, you are: -Updating their inventory tracking system -engaging with the regulatory framework of purchasing on their behalf -being subject to their annoying "loss prevention hot days" where they turn the merchandise scales on. I've started to take a different view toward these jobs over time. Being an employer is a high bar in the U.S., and if we (the taxpayers proxied through the markets/Federal Reserve) have an objective to have people participating in the workforce, then these "automated" checkouts cost workforce participation. Which also means fewer training opportunities for low skill workers, fewer jobs of last resort, etc. Not everything is necessarily $$$. Be a hell of an economics project to really suss out the difference in flow of money in grocers who took different approaches.
    - danaris 4y ago
      I could not care less that doing the scanning myself saves Wegman's money. It saves me mental energy and time because I don't need to deal with a human cashier, and I don't need to spend 10 minutes emptying a full cart, scanning every item, then packing them all back into bags and fitting those back into the cart.

Varqu 4y ago

Perhaps you should consider that maybe some of those shareholders are your parents whose retirement future depends on those investments?

mantas 4y ago
How much of that money is made by externalising costs to the society? Limiting cross-borders money flow is a very good way to keep social contract intact.
- Varqu 4y ago
  So basically, let's keep buying our average quality cars for more money, than allow free trade & importing better quality vehicles from a country that specializes with it? For some reason, it was the growth of global trade that coincided with the growth of global GDP & the increase of the life quality of the earth population.
  - mantas 4y ago
    Tax the shit out of imported cars and make sure that local makers actually compete. It's funny how people cry about CO2 and whatnot. But when it's about trade, suddenly transporting stuff thousands of kilometers is fiiiine.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  Globalism is coming from the same people that also want open borders for immigration. Should borders be open or closed? (European here, I have no stance on that, Amazon has no retail presence in my country and immigration is almost zero here)
  - mantas 4y ago
    Closed, of course (european too). It destroys capitalist job market by kicking out floor from workers. People ain't willing to do a job for peanuts? How about raising a salary (and automation becoming feasible)? Nah, let's important people who will work for less.

jaclaz 4y ago

I may be wrong, but besides and before the wage increases, it seems to me like the priority would be for decent working conditions, if what is published from time to time on media is actually true, the biggest issues are about lack of (normal, decent) pauses or rest periods, continuous summoning for increases in productivity, total control on the workers, etc.

photochemsyn 4y ago
All that becomes a lot more tolerable if you're getting double your previous pay.
- abirch 4y ago
  The pay is why the employees don't quit en mass.
  - azemetre 4y ago
    Is this the same Amazon that is convinced they will run out of employees in a few years because they quit so often? https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...
    - abirch 4y ago
      Jeff Bezos wanted high turnover by design: this is why the starting pay is so high and doesn't grow. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...
- macintux 4y ago
  Only until you’re injured.
q1w2 4y ago
> if what is published from time to time on media is actually true That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions in industrial settings where worker's dying was common. OSHA did away with all that. The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is around getting adequate bathroom breaks.

nxmnxm99 4y ago

[flagged]

Retric 4y ago
Competition means higher prices aren’t an easy fix.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Competition also means non-union employers will dominate the market. You can’t have it both ways.
  - Retric 4y ago
    It doesn’t need to be. Giant companies that threat their workers worse than average face much stronger unionization efforts. Which pushes markets to increased efficiency rather forcing working conditions into a race to the bottom.
closewith 4y ago
Higher prices in exchange for basic labour rights. Seems like a price worth paying to me.
- gruez 4y ago
  That's easy for someone making 6 figures to say, but what about someone making close to minimum wage?
  - closewith 4y ago
    It's hard to believe this comment is for real? Labour rights - including the right to a living wage and civil working conditions - benefit those on the minimum wage more than high-earners. It's not a zero-sum game.
    - 4y ago

ekianjo 4y ago

> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.

Jiejeing 4y ago
Prices in Switzerland are somewhat similar to or a bit higher (and certainly not 10 times) than the US, except for meat.
- danans 4y ago
  Interesting, do the swiss eat less meat as a consequence?
- 9dev 4y ago
  Try saying that again after paying 16€ for a kebab in Basel compared to 5€ in Germany, a few kilometres to the east. There is definitely a difference.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  This not accurate. Eating out, for example, is very expensive there, even compared to major cities in the US.
  - Jiejeing 4y ago
    I am not really a restaurant person, but when eating in LA or SF, while the prices were cheaper than Swiss prices, the difference was not huge after factoring in the "mandatory" tipping common in the US.
somehnguy 4y ago
1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level? 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help. What a strange comment imo. I can’t take the ‘everything will go up!’ stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10 houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious. By the way, Switzerland’s GDP is 748 billion vs the United States’ 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is meaningless and silly.

jupp0r 4y ago

I don’t think you are taking the price increases and inefficiencies that a nationally isolated economy would produce into account. People with less disposable income would suffer most from this. If you don’t like supply chain issues and inflation right now, you won’t like the model you propose.

Retric 4y ago
How much do you think Amazon can actually raise prices before people just shop elsewhere? The simple truth is warehouse employee salaries aren’t significant because of throughput. Someone making 30$/hour vs 15$/hour sounds huge but when people are picking 300+ items an hour that’s 5 cents a pop. But, more realistic unionized job would be 17$/hour but only 250 items a sub 2 cents increase.
- jupp0r 4y ago
  100% agreed. My comment was referring to the part of OPs comment where they criticized globalization and proposed capital controls.

GuB-42 4y ago

> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Is it what usually happens when workers unionize? It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well. Sure. So the customer buys less product, the company makes less profit, and the shareholders eject the executives. But there are huge delays in these chains of causation, which provide opportunities for arbitrage.
- makomk 4y ago
  The trouble with that argument is that you haven't justified why it should only cause downward pressure on prices when companies have to increase pay due to unions demanding more cash. The exact same process should drive down prices and the amount executives make all the time, which means that the price will already be near the optimum given a particular level of costs and that increasing the costs will increase that optimum price. (This is particularly clear in scenarios where this works so well at pushing prices down that the increased wage demands would lead to losing money on every unit sold at the original price. Obviously in this scenario the price must increase.)
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    Well, I don't think I said it caused downward pressure on prices! So I don't have to explain why that might happen. Obviously, if workers can negotiate more effectively by being unionised, that exerts upward pressure on costs. Those additional costs can be met out of profits (i.e. shareholders pay, and execs get sacked) or "efficiencies" (e.g. automation, reducing headcount). If you can figure out how to make a better product that you can charge more for, then everyone's happy. If you can't, then perhaps your competitor can, even if he's unionised too. Unions can contribute at least as much to product and process improvement as management can. In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.

bufferoverflow 4y ago

Or Amazon will push for more automation and they will all lose their jobs. Right now these workers work at Amazon, because that's the best paying job they can find.

kolinko 4y ago
Amazon will push for more automation regardless.
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  If the costs of labor go up fast, they have much more incentive to automate. When right now they may think it's cheaper to hire humans.
  - kolinko 4y ago
    This would only be true if there was a technology to automate and it was just too expensive. For jobs that Amazon hires people there isn’t a technology to automate right now. Such technology is being developed (better AI and better robotics), but increasing the budget wouldn’t necessarily speed things up.
    - bufferoverflow 4y ago
      You're confusing the absence of the off-the-shelf product with the absence of the technology.
      - kolinko 4y ago
        I'm not. Did you ever work on AI or robotics?
    - yazaddaruvala 4y ago
      Amazon’s Kiva robots, also https://youtu.be/d7J2_vr0ra4 https://youtu.be/d7J2_vr0ra4, are not installed in every FC. They are not willing to pay to upgrade all the old FCs, new international FCs, etc. i.e. “it’s too expensive”. This is also clear in how Amazon waited till the pandemic to add self checkout counters to many Whole Foods. They spent “$4 BB on safety measures for employees” and called self checkout a safety measure to reduce employee to employee density and employee to customer contact. Again it was previously “too expensive to do in mass” even if only for the terrible press it would have brought out side the pandemic. Not saying “they will never get to it.” They will. Or that it’s not worth it. But the other commenter is also right that unions and hire wages could drive a larger investment in automation earlier than it would have otherwise.

dcolkitt 4y ago

> If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China What? You think overseas manufacturers are paying $30 an hour? It wasn't high-skilled manufacturing that was outsourced. Welders and machinists still have near zero unemployment and make about as much as a software engineer. It was low skilled manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to China. Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.

hedora 4y ago
If the jobs were to come back to the US, they'd need to pay $18+/hour, since they're worse than a warehouse job, and Amazon pays so well. At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or machinists make).
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > since they're worse than a warehouse job, and Amazon pays so well Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    > Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions. I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse. It's easy for someone working as a developer to maintain that warehouse jobs aren't all "equally terrible." They mostly are terrible. The majority of warehouse workers would rather be working another job, especially Amazon workers. In many of their labor markets, Amazon is chewing through the available labor supply faster than it can be replenished. By the end of this year and especially by the end of 2024 in many markets Amazon will no longer have fresh workers. I wonder where you prime delivery will be then. Further, Amazon might pay higher than average wages for the industry, but the high turnover creates an oversupply of warehouse skilled labor and actually depresses wages. They offer slight incentives for staying but then overwork their employees to encourage their resignations to hire newer, minimum starting pay employees. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-amzn-job-pay-rate-leaves-some-warehouse-employees-homeless https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-am...

SnowHill9902 4y ago

$30 is 3 days worth of payment in some countries.

smugma 4y ago

Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage, more than double the federal minimum wage. I think at the time Walmart was at $10 or $11. I live in very liberal SF but outside of my bubble, I hear people complain that it’s not possible to hire Nannies/housecleaners/employees anymore when Amazon and Starbucks pay $18/hr. Seems like the answer is easy: pay them more or make the job more desirable. Amazon working conditions are challenging, and they have been super anti-union. But they’ve also done more to increase wages in the US than anyone in Washington in the past 15 years, arguably second biggest in past 40 [1]. [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart

rubyn00bie 4y ago
You’re saying conflicting things, Amazon “leads raising wages” to you but then “it’s not possible to hire X at rate Y so people have to pay more.” Amazon has to pay more because their jobs are shit. They aren’t doing anything to raise wages they’re just trying to get people’s asses in the door. I’m sort of shocked you linked to the department of labor’s historical page as some sort of proof of your idea. I can guarantee that wage is the minimum they can pay to get people in the door for the level of work required by them calculated by a legion of economists. The fact you think Amazon jobs are competing with “Nannies/house cleaners/employees” is equally strange. Like somehow these jobs are related?! Why do you only compare those jobs to Amazon factory jobs?
- hedora 4y ago
  Amazon rose wages and have some the highest warehouse worker wages around, to the point where they are creating upward pressure on wages in other industries. Their jobs also are super stressful and burn people out. These things are not contradictory. Anecdotally, in support of the comment you are replying to, Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here, and $100-$150 a night isn't anywhere near enough to screw with her sleep schedule. She works $18/hr morning shifts and now owns a car.
  - 4y ago

xhkkffbf 4y ago

Why do you think it means less for executives? It could be that they pass the costs on to consumers. So everything at Amazon will be more expensive just to pay the premium.

whimsicalism 4y ago
This effect would only really exist for monopolies.

jmyeet 4y ago

This. A lot of people, even economists, conflate the freedom of trade with the free movement of capital. They are not the same and not equivalent. I like to point people to this comic [1] that someone made when the TPP was hot news as it accurately describes this in a very accessible way. Neoliberalism serves the interests of the capital-owning class. [1]: https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/

Dracophoenix 4y ago
There isn't a distinction. How is free trade possible if one isn't free to exchange one form of capital for another? Exchange requires movement.