[Update]Amazon institutes $15 minimum wage for all US employees AND eliminates monthly bonuses and Stock Grants

[Trik'Stari]

12 hours ago, NowakVulpix said:

If a company can increase wages to $15/hour across the board without any major issues propping up from doing so, then perhaps there's no reason to not increase the minimum wage to $15/hour after all.

Inflation as companies raise prices across the board to offset the loss in profit margin.

 

Also that negatively impacts smaller businesses whereas larger ones can easily absorb the hit. We need a more eloquent solution.

[Stefan Payne]

11 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Throughout the industry it's been known that ex-Amazon employees tell horror stories of what it's like to work at Amazon with everything from being forced to pee in plastic bottles to all kinds of other stuff.

If it is so bad, why has nobody sued Amazon?
Don#t they have any evidence about that??

[Deli]

8 hours ago, Razor Blade said:

If people want a living wage, they need to not make a career out of a minimum wage job.

 

If labor costs go up, something must be adjusted to balance. Whether it is eliminating positions, eliminating employee benefits, discontinuing services, raising prices, or some other way it must balance so the business is still profitable.

Wages isn't the only expenses of businesses. Depends on what kind of busness. Labour costs isn't always the biggest expense for a business. Like for transportation, fuels is the biggest one.

 

What happens if petroleum price goes up to $100+ like a decade ago? The cost for transport, the energy bills will go up, the prices of products from distribution will go up. How do you deal with that? If minimum wage increases is enough to close a business. Other factors like increase of energy prices, rent and the upcoming increase of interest rate will definitely kill the business. I mean, if a business is surviving on such thin margin that can't handle a increase of minimum wage. It's such a bad business model. It'll go out of business very soon one way or another.

[Stefan Payne]

7 hours ago, Clanscorpia said:

Of course 7.25 is too low

Depends on the Job.

What people don't seem to get is the "worth of a job". 

And what happens if you increase the payment of a job, although it isn't worth it.

There are two things happening:

a) Inflation

b) getting fired

 

That is what will happen!

 

You can also call a) "cost of living", so in regions with high minimum wages, you will high prices for everything, including toilet paper. Or Rent.

Because you devalue the worth of the money!! In the beginning of the 20th century, people earned like 50 Cents an Hour. If they were lucky. But the Prices of the Rest was according to the hourly wage.

 

So for low skilled work, it means that they will loose their Job!

The Automation of for example McDonalds is a consequence of the feared 15$/h Wage.
Because the work of the cashier (or the people in the kitchen is not worth 15$/h). 

 

So buttom line is:
The higher the wages, the more viable is a Robot.

The lower the wage, the less likely it is to use a Robot because its too expensive and not worth it...

 

[Trixanity]

8 hours ago, imreloadin said:

They were in the Fort Lauderdale area when I was there and I always went to them. Now only if I could get a machine to make them for me...

The thing that kills me is when people that are for a higher minimum wage say crap like "Well if they can't provide a "living wage" then they shouldn't be in business"...because you know what is worse than making a low wage? Not making one at all because your employer went under due to having to pay people double the amount for menial labor that middle schoolers could do. I honestly have no words for people who think they're arguing for the "little guy" when all they're doing is screwing them over. Do they honestly think that forcing everyone to pay double the amount as a minimum will help people that have managed to somehow not develop any marketable skills their entire lives?

 

And don't give me any shit about how they're "disenfranchised" and can't get ahead because they're too poor to afford to go college or whatever. Nearly every town has some kind of public library with things full of useful information called books as well as internet access and it's all for FREE! I used to work in a call center making $10 an hour, I didn't like the lifestyle it gave me so I started messing around with computers and LEARNED something useful which got me switched to a different department in that call center doing a level one help desk role which gave me a whopping $4 raise. I continued to learn more and got hired by a different company as a desktop technician making $22.50 an hour. I have never stopped learning and won't ever stop. That's the only way you can get ahead in life. When I go out to lunch and see adults working at the local Wendy's I can't help but wonder how they've managed to stay in that position.

Survivorship bias.

[Noctus]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I'm confused.

 

If minimum wage isn't designed to be a living wage then what the hell are they doing? Many people have to live off of minimum wage whether a state has a higher one than the federal government or not.

Semantics imo. minimum wage is what "they" decide is the lowest wage someone can get paid to live, in general. A Living wage is exactly that, least amount you should be paid to rent/buy etc and live (in a certain geological location)

 

Is how i see it i guess.

[Drak3]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I'm confused.

 

If minimum wage isn't designed to be a living wage then what the hell are they doing? Many people have to live off of minimum wage whether a state has a higher one than the federal government or not.

When introduced, minimum wage was 'living wage,' which was the wage which one could live in a reasonable amount of comfort.

 

Now, minimum wage is just the absolute minimum required to survive.

[imreloadin]

4 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Survivorship bias.

When did having bias against the uninitied become a bad thing

You make your own choices in life and one of those is how you choose advance in it or the lack thereof.

[Trixanity]

12 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

When did having bias against the uninitied become a bad thing

You make your own choices in life and one of those is how you choose advance in it or the lack thereof.

You look at success stories (including your own) to essentially argue anyone and everyone can succeed. That ignores why people fail.

[Podo]

Raising the Minimum wage in my belief will have negative affects on low skilled workers.  Why should a business pay someone $15/hr($31,200/yr) to print tickets at the movie theater?  Say they Spend $50,000 on a kiosk to print those tickets.  They just broke even on their investment after 1.5yr.  

I acknowledge minimum wage jobs aren't all filled by 15 and 16yr olds.  There are also plenty of jobs out there where you don't need a college level education to achieve $15-20/hr starting and $20-30/hr after a few experience. Sure those jobs may involve manual labor, landscaping, construction, etc.  But they offer good pay and some even offer pretty good benefits.  The fact people are upset Amazon is/wasn't paying their employees "well" I find absurd.  Those employees were never forced to take that job.  Maybe they felt they needed to, I acknowledge individuals do not always look outside their social or ecosphere.  I personally had a 4-yr degree but was lazy about looking for work and presenting myself in a positive way to employers.  Hell I lived in my parent's basement (classic millennial) for 3 years until I personally made the decision to stop playing video games and actually work on my employment and learn some applicable skills (Lynda.com and hours of Microsoft office training helped a ton).  Got myself a good paying job and moved out of the parents' place.  As some have said before, with the access to a near infinite supply of knowledge on the internet, an individual has little excuse in the modern age to allow him/herself to stagnate in their growth.  Minimum wage jobs are more to simply show a potential employer, "hey I can show up on time, do the job I'm asked to do, and keep on coming back." once that is established someone should either seek more responsibilities and thus become more valuable to their current employer (shift lead, manager, store manager, etc.) or find better employment opportunities.

 

By increasing the minimum wage you reduce wage competition between employers.  If all employers are locked into a base wage level it is now ILLEGAL for an employee to ask for a lower wage to simply gain experience.  How is a 16yr kid with zero experience supposed to convince an employer he is worth the higher minimum wage.  Lets talk about a person who did something dumb which got them thrown in jail (something non-violent, like drug possession) now they have a mark on their record and can't get employment because of it.  Even if they were willing to work for below the minimum wage to just show they are a good citizen now and are responsible, they can't because it is ILLEGAL to be paid under the minimum wage, which the employee is WILLING to take.  I'm not going to say the minimum wage hurts the poor because that is a straw man argument.  I will say it reduces the marketability of unskilled/non-skilled workers.  Why does Wal-mart have to pay their greeters (someone who literally stands at the front and says "Hi") $15/hr?  What if that person is willing to do it for $5/hr?  That would be ILLEGAL for Wal-mart to pay them so low.

I am not ignoring there are people who currently try to live off of a minimum wage job.  I acknowledge this fact.  Yet I believe for the majority of those doing so, they can get themselves out of that position.  And I acknowledge there are those with medical issues which hinders their marketable skills which can stunt their potential wage growth.  But they are the exceptions to the overall rule, and you shouldn't make laws and regulations because of the exceptions.

[Misanthrope]

People's gut reaction it's going to be "But I used to make as much or more with the bonuses instead!"

 

But I must tell most people: That's bullshit. You were given more but it was completely arbitrary and subject to change under silly, made up bullshit rules Amazon can change at any moment to screw people out of bonuses. They're a nice way for them to claim they pay a certain amount but still be able to fuck people out of their paycheck legally because you only make very little and the rest is all these bullshit bonuses.

 

Real issue is 15 per hour was a demand I know goes back at least 10 years if not more yet US employees and population has been so ineffective in organizing to demand this that they should have adjusted this number to keep up with 10 years of inflation already on the books so the demand should be 18 or 19 bucks per hour in 2018.

 

Amazon giving in is just a sign of how fucking outdated 15 bucks is by now.

[dtaflorida]

The removal of stock benefits and bonuses... kinda inevitable. With or without, people still scream 'raise minimum wage!' and never factor those other benefits in on their quest for higher pay. So, if those benefits aren't helping to placate the demand for higher wages, then they can just disappear. Those benefits are in the actual wage now. Probably made next to no difference to Amazon's bottom line. 

[imreloadin]

44 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

You look at success stories (including your own) to essentially argue anyone and everyone can succeed. That ignores why people fail.

So you're saying some people are perpetually fucked and can never get ahead in life?

[Trixanity]

1 minute ago, imreloadin said:

So you're saying some people are perpetually fucked and can never get ahead in life?

Some are. Some totally, some to various degrees. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps isn't really a thing for a lot of people. Being able to do that hinges on the idea (which you put forth) that you are merely lazy and otherwise have all the skills, knowledge and capabilities to move forward. Unless, of course, counting moving from $7 to $9 being enough to be considered as moving up in the world but then the goals are very small and should be achievable through seniority alone.

[AlTech]

34 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

So you're saying some people are perpetually fucked and can never get ahead in life?

Basically yes. 

[Podo]

7 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Basically yes. 

So Business owners are forced to eat the cost of those who can't help themselves.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Podo said:

So Business owners are forced to eat the cost of those who can't help themselves.

Capitalism needs to balance the worker with the business. Don’t let companies and corporate officers make billions while their workers are largely ignored and destitute. 

[Podo]

41 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Capitalism needs to balance the worker with the business. Don’t let companies and corporate officers make billions while their workers are largely ignored and destitute. 

Agreed, but it is the workers' responsibility to value their time according to the market.  A company is only allowed to pay what the workforce is willing to take, if the workforce is willing to take $5/hr the company will pay $5/hr.

 

I believe in the original ideals of Unions as they are to help the worker, but history has shown unions have destroyed competitive industries and allowed for corruption.  The US Car manufacturers at the last recession is a prime example.  Michigan Unionized autoworkers inflated the payroll costs enormously inflating the cost of domestic vehicles.  So when Asian and European Car companies opened Non-Union plants to sell cars domestically circumnavigating the stupid import tariffs of automobiles, the importers were now able to offer competitive cars which showed how inflated the domestic car market was.   And the Domestic Auto Manufacturers didn't have the flexibility due to the strangle hold the Unions had on them which finally came to a head when Oil prices skyrocketed and the recession hit.  It took the Government (stupidly) to bail out the auto companies to "save the jobs."  It sounds heartless to say thousands of people should lose their jobs but if their jobs are secured by corrupt corporate/governmental dealing then I think the burnt hands teaches best.

 

People are too engrossed in their reality-TV, let's plays, streamers, pro sports, etc. to pay attention to the things which ACTUALLY affect their lives until it is too late and then get upset because they did anything until the problem is at a head.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

15 hours ago, Razor Blade said:

So are you saying we need to keep the individual down for the good of the populous? 

Wow, that sounds almost exactly, literally what I said, no doubt about it, I mean, who could possibly interpret anything else from my words, right? Thank god we have you to explain it even to the extremely few that may, surprisingly, not see it by themselves.

 

Just give me a call when you finish debating him:

[imreloadin]

3 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Being able to do that hinges on the idea (which you put forth) that you are merely lazy and otherwise have all the skills, knowledge and capabilities to move forward.

Nobody is just born with the skills, knowledge, and capabilities that it takes to be something like a Network Administrator, that stuff is learned. If you don't take the time and make the effort to learn and develop those qualities then you won't get them. Just like working in a fast food place, you still need to learn how to do the damn job. I'm not sure what you're arguing here as nobody is just born with the knowledge and qualities needed to do a specific job.

2 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Basically yes. 

And why is that?

[Deli]

2 hours ago, Podo said:

Agreed, but it is the workers' responsibility to value their time according to the market.  A company is only allowed to pay what the workforce is willing to take, if the workforce is willing to take $5/hr the company will pay $5/hr.

 

I believe in the original ideals of Unions as they are to help the worker, but history has shown unions have destroyed competitive industries and allowed for corruption.  The US Car manufacturers at the last recession is a prime example.  Michigan Unionized autoworkers inflated the payroll costs enormously inflating the cost of domestic vehicles.  So when Asian and European Car companies opened Non-Union plants to sell cars domestically circumnavigating the stupid import tariffs of automobiles, the importers were now able to offer competitive cars which showed how inflated the domestic car market was.   And the Domestic Auto Manufacturers didn't have the flexibility due to the strangle hold the Unions had on them which finally came to a head when Oil prices skyrocketed and the recession hit.  It took the Government (stupidly) to bail out the auto companies to "save the jobs."  It sounds heartless to say thousands of people should lose their jobs but if their jobs are secured by corrupt corporate/governmental dealing then I think the burnt hands teaches best.

 

People are too engrossed in their reality-TV, let's plays, streamers, pro sports, etc. to pay attention to the things which ACTUALLY affect their lives until it is too late and then get upset because they did anything until the problem is at a head.

Many people take things as only black and white. Workers unions do have their place. Before the movement of union, workers had much less rights and suffered horrible working conditions. However when they become corrupted and too influential, like the example you gave, it did more harm than good. Like everything, too much is just as bad as too little. The key is to find a right balance. Minimum wage is similar, it gives a baseline for both the employee and employer. However if setting it too low, it means very little. If setting too high, it will hurt more than help.

[Trixanity]

19 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

Nobody is just born with the skills, knowledge, and capabilities that it takes to be something like a Network Administrator, that stuff is learned. If you don't take the time and make the effort to learn and develop those qualities then you won't get them. Just like working in a fast food place, you still need to learn how to do the damn job. I'm not sure what you're arguing here as nobody is just born with the knowledge and qualities needed to do a specific job.

And why is that?

No but without the right circumstances any given person can't become a network administrator either. That's the whole point. You call it choices and choices are certainly a factor but the choices you have are often based on circumstances out of people's control.

 

Say you grow up lower class, you're a reasonably smart kid yet you're struggling in school. Parents have trouble helping you and same goes for your teachers. You don't understand why you're struggling as you excel in other areas. You want to become a lawyer but you can't because your academic performance is lacking. You're now 30 with three kids. You have either no education or a very short degree. You have a hard time finding employment due competing against people with better degrees. You talk to some people. You take a test. You find out you're dyslexic and because you didn't get proper help you needed your path in life has taken a drastic turn and you don't have the time to get help with your dyslexia and even if you did the result wouldn't be the same as if you got help when you were 7. At best you can take a few courses to improve your resume but you're still fucked in some capacity and don't reach your potential.

 

Let's take another example.

You're 19. You've finished high school, everything's going great. You've been accepted into university and will have the career of your dreams. You're out grocery shopping in your car. You're waiting at a stop sign. Some dude is texting and don't see you or the stop sign. He rams into your car. You're hospitalized. You now live with whiplash, chronic pain and chronic fatigue for the rest of your life. You drop out of university because your cognitive functions are severely impaired. You can't hold a decent job. You're totally fucked.

 

These aren't hypotheticals by the way but I altered the stories a little bit. Other than that they're real examples.

 

I'll admit a bit cherry picked but if we went with the more standard fare like drug addiction, poor upbringing and other social issues; I kinda have a feeling you'd dismiss those.

 

Some can succeed despite a bad lot in life while others can't. Likewise some have everything they could wish for, yet they end up a failure. 

 

I recall reading something about genetics wherein they found out that your genes have a huge say in whether you could finish a marathon. Apparently even with training and coaching not everyone have it in them to achieve such a feat. Granted, I think it was a decade ago that I read the article so bear with me if I'm misremembering it.

 

The point being sometimes it's not all about choices and/or being lazy. Sometimes circumstances conspired against you. 

 

There could be plenty of reasons you're working minimum wage jobs. Some may be reasonable, some may not be. It doesn't change the fact that you can't just dismiss all minimum wage workers as being lazy or not wanting to apply themselves to improve their life.

We may have equal rights, but not equality of outcome and we certainly do not have equality of resources. The resources available to you could mean the difference between working at McDonald's or at Google.

[AlTech]

57 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

And why is that?

Some people don't have the qualifications. Some people don't have the experience. Some lack the motivation. Some lack the opportunities . Some lack the connections. Some just are content with being at that position.

[ARikozuM]

3 hours ago, Podo said:

Agreed, but it is the workers' responsibility to value their time according to the market.  A company is only allowed to pay what the workforce is willing to take, if the workforce is willing to take $5/hr the company will pay $5/hr.

It took a huge uproar to get just this to take effect. Imagine not having a voice against someone's bottom line when it means your living over their excess. Some of us live by what we get; we can't afford to spend time doing something that keeps us from making ends meet. Amazon's training had an anti-union section and that brings subterfuge to their workforce. This isn't a matter of value, it's a matter of who speaks. A small group can't enact change. Look at the civil rights movement. Lincoln did very little to stop slavery. It took vastly more battles to abolish it completely. MLK had to gather more than enough support to enact change. I feel sorry for the moment riots start in our streets; it'll be the 60's all over again.

[Taf the Ghost]

5 hours ago, imreloadin said:

So you're saying some people are perpetually fucked and can never get ahead in life?

Welcome to Reality. 

 

On Minimum Wage Laws: when below the local functional wage floor, all they do is make people pay under the table for very simple things. But people can think "we're helping!" when the law actually does nothing.

 

When a minimum wage goes above the local functional wage floor, it's a massively discriminatory Law that crushes those without the ability to subsidize the acquisition of skills. The Laws cause discrimination against the low socio-economic standing (homogeneous society) and/or minority racial groups (heterogeneous societies). 

 

The mechanics of the uses for minimum wage laws are well understood, which is why they keep pushing them. They're a brilliant way to cause resentment in those on the left-side of the economic distribution scale while further making it harder for them to succeed. But the campaigns are a great way to abuse the people that think they're getting help from the new laws. Need to produce those cannon fodder for the socialist revolution, somehow.