https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-workers-plan-global-black-215300182.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall Amazon workers plan global Black Friday protests for better wages, tax accountability Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY Tue, November 23, 2021, 4:53 PM·2 min read
Locally to me, Amazon's wages look pretty good IMO. An unskilled laboror with no experience can start off making close to $20, with an attractive benefits package and tuition reimbursement. I'm sure it's very hard work, especially during the holiday rush, but dang I wish I had something like that for myself 20 years ago when I was scrubbing poop off of toilets and vomit off of carpets full time for $6/hr with no benefits. Some of the demands make sense. Everyone wants to be paid more, and I have no doubt that there are many Amazon employees that deserve more in return for what they contribute. But zero carbon emissions by 2030 is a stretch, and demanding that they voluntarily pay more taxes than they actually owe sounds like parody.
An article I read said that a big part of the problem was that there was very little promotion from within the company. They hired management from the outside, rather than from within, for example.
Look deeper… even with their wage structure and highly marketed benefits package, their individual DC turnover rates are in the unbelievable range. There’s a lot of articles out there on how their gamification of productivity have led to colossal failures of moral, safety, and even basic dignity and decency. Even Bezos had to backtrack and admit that his employees were forced to relieve themselves in bottles to meet their gameified metrics. Also lots of reports on the inhuman nature of their employee compensation and evaluation software for DC workers. When you also add in the employee espionage, such as occurred with the centers that were looking at unionization… and their package has different optics. There’s been a recent journal article on the labor markets, I’ll try to find, which basically stated these e-commerce DCs have not lived up to the promises made and effectively that their turnover is so high, because they’re simply horrible places to work and that statistically no one (at the laborer level) lasts at them.
Sort of looks like the people who supposedly will be "striking" aren't even Amazon employees : / I worked at a couple of Amazon distribution sites for a couple of years, including a couple of holiday seasons. I worked pick, stow, receiving, and outbound dock. Mostly on PITs, and a little on forklifts. Had rates I was expected to meet, quality numbers, etc. Think I have about 15 years of warehouse experience (10 or more of that as a supervisor or manager), plus many years of construction/remodeling as a worker and boss. Of all those, Amazon was the least challenging by far. Wouldn't say EASY, but for warehouse work I thought it was cake. As for folks pissing in a bottle, meh. As a supervisor, I had a handful of guys who actually pissed on themselves during shifts. Maybe they should have tried the bottle option. Ya know, it's not for everyone. Entry is a cinch. A drug test (I think marijuana is excluded now), maybe high school diploma needed, and I'm not sure what criminal background kicks out but I know of several warehouse workers who did prison time. Not just jail- prison. No resume. I don't think applications have a spot for work history- they don't care. Seems to me they'll hire just about ANYBODY. I think that's a big reason for the high turnover. Plus, yeah, DC management really sucks. They do pay managers more who come in from outside. If you move up from warehouse associate to process assistant to operations manager, you generally won't make as much as a college grad who comes in direct as an operations manager. Still, I would say the pay is ok. A while back I was a supervisor at a major grocer DC and made something like $50k. I'd say it was comparable work to what an Amazon operations manager does, and they make a good bit more.
