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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

by 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.
  - galleywest200 4y ago
    This seems like a poor comparison. Your babysitter left a part time job (100/25 = 4 hours of work per day) for a full time one and can now afford a car.
    - hedora 4y ago
      Yeah; good for her. The point is that Starbucks and Amazon have created an ever raising floor for the price of labor. They're low-skill/training jobs, so no skilled job is able to pay less than that. (Also, the Starbucks thing is part time, and she had babysat for other people too -- babysitting probably made sense at 2x the hourly rate of a part time job, but $25 isn't 2x anymore.)
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here Seems like $25/hour was the market rate.
    - hedora 4y ago
      I get the impression the dollar amount didn't change. Instead, the existence of the market did. (None of the other parents we know have been able to find babysitters either.) Presumably, it'll even out after the labor shortages subside.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Have you tried offering $2,500 per hour? The market exists. There are babies that need babysitting, and people capable of babysitting. What does not exist is an intersection of the supply and demand curves of people willing and able to pay what people capable of babysitting want to get paid for babysitting.
        feet 4y ago
- mightyham 4y ago
  >their jobs are shit I have a couple friends that have worked at Amazon warehouses and also worked at shipping centers for UPS and FedEx and they both told me that Amazon not only paid better but had better working conditions. Not saying that's the case universally, but I don't think it's right to uniquely criticize Amazon and not the industry at large, especially if Amazon really is a better employer than their competition.
baron816 4y ago
Yes, a big chunk of the labor shortages in hospitality, child care, etc. we’ve seen the last two years is a direct result of Amazon hiring lots and lots of people. And as shitty as the conditions of those jobs may be, they’re often still better than where they’re coming from. Sticking labels to boxes and moving them around a warehouse all day may still be better than dealing with handsy bar hounds or screaming children. I’m not here to say that Amazon is doing a great job and we should all be singing Jeff Bezos’s good graces. But I will say that unionization does come with a cost that is borne not by Amazon’s executives or their shareholders, but on everyone who could want to work at Amazon but can’t because their jobs are more scarce, and by everyone who buys things from retailers (Amazon or not) in the form of higher prices. Unionists like to talk about how the labor movement provided a lot of basic protections for workers and the 40 hour work week. What they like to talk less about is American unions’ frequent associations with organized crime, it’s history of racism and sexism, all of the environmental bills it has fought against. I could go on. A union-free Amazon has driven up wages for workers throughout the economy. And it has helped keep prices low for everyone else so that even if you don’t earn as much as a Amazon warehouse worker nor shop at Amazon, you can still afford many basic necessities. So yes, I’m saying we should be singing the good graces of competition.
- xhkkffbf 4y ago
  While I like the idea of unions, I can say that they've been a disappointment in my career. One of my colleagues desperately needed the protection of the union at work when he got caught up in office politics. Some of his rivals for a big promotion got him accused of something that had nothing to do with work. It was all cancel culture. The union, though, didn't back him up at all. They make a big show about somehow fighting management for the workers, but in this case they were happy to help the management screw the guy over and end his career. Sure they're a union, but they're humans and sometimes they'll be aligned against you.
  - kqr 4y ago
    This is not a problem with unions as a concept, but rather with the huge, centralised, bureaucratic, political entities they have become in practise. That type of organisation has some benefits, but I believe federations of highly local unions would be more effective for helping individual people deal with specific pickles.
enraged_camel 4y ago
You are right that Amazon has raised wages, but only by a fraction of what they will have to if their workers unionize.
smugma 4y ago
Additional context: it wasn’t until 2015 that Walmart raised its minimum wage from the federal minimum to $9/hr. It’s now $12.
- Garlef 4y ago
  The federal minimum is not really something that should be taken as a point of reference (from the employees side). A better metric: "How much do jobs pay that are easily available to me?" (And so in this sense, the wages of Wallmart and Amazon seem to be very much relevant for many.) Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)".
  - feet 4y ago
    >Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)". In my opinion, this is the only valid metric. If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the business should not exist. Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.
    - TimeBearingDown 4y ago
      So, you would have the government step in and deny the right of an individual to earn what they may need at that moment, in their specific circumstance, to form a contract with another person - a business owner? The bureaucracy knows better, and if the individual can’t find another job at a level to even scrape by then the bureaucracy steps in again, but is this a path to a solid job in 20 years? The higher the wage, especially federally, the more dramatic and onerous the effect. It feels deeply infantilizing to me, and will absolutely cut off the bottom rung of society and hasten the unprepared and unskilled towards the coming AI cliff in my opinion. I personally did not have my own shit together enough to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.
naasking 4y ago
> Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage Warehouse workers before Amazon were making over $20/hr. Amazon seriously depressed wages for that kind of work. How do you think they got so profitable and outcompeted everyone else in that space?
- ppsreejith 4y ago
  Could you share a source for this? Couldn't find much after a bit of googling.
  - naasking 4y ago
    https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/01/20/what-amazon-does-to-wages https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/01/20/what-amaz...
- brianwawok 4y ago
  Only been in a few rando warehouses, and I think the reason is most rando warehouses are inefficient. One worker may ship 15 packages an hour. I bet the Amazon packages per worker per hour is multiple times higher.

by smugma 4y ago

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.
- galleywest200 4y ago
  This seems like a poor comparison. Your babysitter left a part time job (100/25 = 4 hours of work per day) for a full time one and can now afford a car.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Yeah; good for her. The point is that Starbucks and Amazon have created an ever raising floor for the price of labor. They're low-skill/training jobs, so no skilled job is able to pay less than that. (Also, the Starbucks thing is part time, and she had babysat for other people too -- babysitting probably made sense at 2x the hourly rate of a part time job, but $25 isn't 2x anymore.)
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here Seems like $25/hour was the market rate.
  - hedora 4y ago
    I get the impression the dollar amount didn't change. Instead, the existence of the market did. (None of the other parents we know have been able to find babysitters either.) Presumably, it'll even out after the labor shortages subside.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Have you tried offering $2,500 per hour? The market exists. There are babies that need babysitting, and people capable of babysitting. What does not exist is an intersection of the supply and demand curves of people willing and able to pay what people capable of babysitting want to get paid for babysitting.
      - feet 4y ago
mightyham 4y ago
>their jobs are shit I have a couple friends that have worked at Amazon warehouses and also worked at shipping centers for UPS and FedEx and they both told me that Amazon not only paid better but had better working conditions. Not saying that's the case universally, but I don't think it's right to uniquely criticize Amazon and not the industry at large, especially if Amazon really is a better employer than their competition.

baron816 4y ago

Yes, a big chunk of the labor shortages in hospitality, child care, etc. we’ve seen the last two years is a direct result of Amazon hiring lots and lots of people. And as shitty as the conditions of those jobs may be, they’re often still better than where they’re coming from. Sticking labels to boxes and moving them around a warehouse all day may still be better than dealing with handsy bar hounds or screaming children. I’m not here to say that Amazon is doing a great job and we should all be singing Jeff Bezos’s good graces. But I will say that unionization does come with a cost that is borne not by Amazon’s executives or their shareholders, but on everyone who could want to work at Amazon but can’t because their jobs are more scarce, and by everyone who buys things from retailers (Amazon or not) in the form of higher prices. Unionists like to talk about how the labor movement provided a lot of basic protections for workers and the 40 hour work week. What they like to talk less about is American unions’ frequent associations with organized crime, it’s history of racism and sexism, all of the environmental bills it has fought against. I could go on. A union-free Amazon has driven up wages for workers throughout the economy. And it has helped keep prices low for everyone else so that even if you don’t earn as much as a Amazon warehouse worker nor shop at Amazon, you can still afford many basic necessities. So yes, I’m saying we should be singing the good graces of competition.

xhkkffbf 4y ago
While I like the idea of unions, I can say that they've been a disappointment in my career. One of my colleagues desperately needed the protection of the union at work when he got caught up in office politics. Some of his rivals for a big promotion got him accused of something that had nothing to do with work. It was all cancel culture. The union, though, didn't back him up at all. They make a big show about somehow fighting management for the workers, but in this case they were happy to help the management screw the guy over and end his career. Sure they're a union, but they're humans and sometimes they'll be aligned against you.
- kqr 4y ago
  This is not a problem with unions as a concept, but rather with the huge, centralised, bureaucratic, political entities they have become in practise. That type of organisation has some benefits, but I believe federations of highly local unions would be more effective for helping individual people deal with specific pickles.

enraged_camel 4y ago

You are right that Amazon has raised wages, but only by a fraction of what they will have to if their workers unionize.

smugma 4y ago

Additional context: it wasn’t until 2015 that Walmart raised its minimum wage from the federal minimum to $9/hr. It’s now $12.

Garlef 4y ago
The federal minimum is not really something that should be taken as a point of reference (from the employees side). A better metric: "How much do jobs pay that are easily available to me?" (And so in this sense, the wages of Wallmart and Amazon seem to be very much relevant for many.) Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)".
- feet 4y ago
  >Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)". In my opinion, this is the only valid metric. If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the business should not exist. Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.
  - TimeBearingDown 4y ago
    So, you would have the government step in and deny the right of an individual to earn what they may need at that moment, in their specific circumstance, to form a contract with another person - a business owner? The bureaucracy knows better, and if the individual can’t find another job at a level to even scrape by then the bureaucracy steps in again, but is this a path to a solid job in 20 years? The higher the wage, especially federally, the more dramatic and onerous the effect. It feels deeply infantilizing to me, and will absolutely cut off the bottom rung of society and hasten the unprepared and unskilled towards the coming AI cliff in my opinion. I personally did not have my own shit together enough to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.

naasking 4y ago

> Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage Warehouse workers before Amazon were making over $20/hr. Amazon seriously depressed wages for that kind of work. How do you think they got so profitable and outcompeted everyone else in that space?

ppsreejith 4y ago
Could you share a source for this? Couldn't find much after a bit of googling.
- naasking 4y ago
  https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/01/20/what-amazon-does-to-wages https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/01/20/what-amaz...
brianwawok 4y ago
Only been in a few rando warehouses, and I think the reason is most rando warehouses are inefficient. One worker may ship 15 packages an hour. I bet the Amazon packages per worker per hour is multiple times higher.