[FC_Associate]

I'm not exactly sure how much better Amazon pays, if at all better, here in SoCal starting pay is around $12-$14 per hour for L1 associates, but anecdotally I feel like this is on the higher end when compared to similar jobs, at least compared to the jobs I've held. I can't speak to the insurance coverage provided since I'm a part time worker but from what I've heard, while pay isn't great, the insurance seems to be pretty good once you're eligible.

I will say that from what I've seen my station managers take safety very seriously. Some of this must extend up the corporate ladder because I had a friend who was injured on the job here and Amazon did a very good job of making sure he got the care he required. He actually wanted to come back to work much earlier than Amazon would allow, he missed his coworkers, but they wanted to make sure he was completely healed and made it clear that he shouldn't rush things. He was being paid worker's comp during this time. This certainly made a good impression on me.

I also really appreciated how straight forward the hiring process was. I was unemployed and homeless, I actually lived on an empty lot behind our warehouse for a while, when I was hired and out of all the jobs I applied to Amazon had the most streamlined hiring process. This might not seem like a huge deal but when you're already struggling it was nice to not have too many hoops to jump through to try and land a job.

Obviously due to my background I'm probably viewing my work overly positively, it feels pretty great to finally have a little bit of savings, I've saved up around $1500 over the past year and this is the most money I've had in my entire life, but overall I've enjoyed my time at Amazon. But again, from the reporting I've seen there are still some pretty glaring systemic problems within the company.

Edit: I saw a poster comment under this post asserting that I was being paid to post here in defense of Amazon, the post has since been deleted after receiving some downvotes, for the record I did not downvote the poster, but I will address their concerns. I can certainly understand why my post might raise suspicions. To give some background I have another account on HN that I've been active on for approximately three years and have a bit over 2000 karma. I post a few times a month, and by post I mean I usually just ask tons of questions about topics I have a limited understanding of and the kind people here try their best to explain things to me. I wanted to keep this account separate form that one since I don't post anything Amazon related using my normal account. I hope I don't sound like too much of a shill but I'm somewhat excited to finally be able to contribute to a topic I have some understanding of.

[wool_gather]

> He was being paid worker's comp during this time. This certainly made a good impression on me.

Just to be clear here: this is required by law, not something that the company is doing out of the goodness of its heart. It's also a fraction of what one's normal wages would be, which I would say is a more likely explanation for the injured person's eagerness to return than that "he missed his coworkers".

> they wanted to make sure he was completely healed and made it clear that he shouldn't rush things

I won't fault them for this, as I don't have details like what/how serious the injury was. But often a better alternative to no work at all is to temporarily reassign the person to another role where their injury is not an issue (desk job of some kind, generally). This way the employee continues to get full or near-full wages.

EDIT: Also, forgot to point out that work restrictions are defined by a doctor who treated the injured person, not by the employer. They can get in serious trouble for forcing someone to work in excess of those restrictions. So again, not really a sign of benevolence.

[FC_Associate]

I appreciate you taking the time to explain this in more detail for me, I'm admittedly not clear on how this worker's comp stuff is supposed to be handled, thankfully I've never suffered any type of work related injury.

While I didn't mention it in my post my coworker was reassigned to less labor intensive duties once he returned to work. And from my understanding the doctor who treated him ok'd him to return to his normal duties but our direct manager had no problem with him taking longer in this less physical role.

I'm just adding this detail to paint a better picture but I think you've done a good job illustrating that this is the minimum that Amazon in required to do and they shouldn't be praised for doing what the law requires. I'm certainly not here to try and do PR for Amazon, just sharing my personal experiences.

[JoeAltmaier]

Right, worker's compensation benefits are paid by an insurance company, not by the employer.

[ams6110]

It is, but the cost of worker's comp insurance coverage for an employer is very closely tied to claims experience. If an employer has a track record of a lot of claims, their worker's comp insurance is going to be very expensive. So there's still an incentive for the employer to operate safely and minimize employee injuries.

[wool_gather]

Good points both, thanks for adding those details!

[brennebeck]

Actually, is it? Isn’t that a state by state thing? For the record I’m not positive but coming from an at-will State like FL that is also heavily favored to corporations, I am not certain.

[wool_gather]

Yes, I'm sure it varies from state to state, but the story specified CA, which does indeed have a legal requirement.

[tonyedgecombe]

I hope I don't sound like too much of a shill but I'm somewhat excited to finally be able to contribute to a topic I have some understanding of.

I must admit the first thing I did was look at your comment history as your post sounded suspicious. If it was mixed in with other posts I'd have been inclined to take it more seriously than I can now.

[FC_Associate]

I'd certainly say it's wise to be suspicious of any posts praising a company by current employees, and my posts are no exception. It would probably add more wight to my comments if I posted from my normal account but I don't feel comfortable doing that when talking about my employer, the potential risk for me isn't worth it. With that being said hopefully my comments don't come off quite as unashamedly positive and corporate as those Twitter accounts, which sound pretty over the top to me.

[bkor]

In response to you mentioning saving 1500 USD: You commented in another post that you lived out of your car (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15790455). There still seems to be something wrong. Maybe not Amazon, maybe all the companies around there. People with a fulltime job should earn enough not to be living out of a car!

[FC_Associate]

Just to clarify that post was from quite a while ago and at that time I was living out of my car, I'm actually now sharing a room in an apartment. But I certainly agree it's not a good thing when people who are working are living out of their cars or worse.

[nerdponx]

People working a full-time job should also be able to afford their own room. It's no knock on you and your lifestyle, but I think we can do better than the standards of the 1920s.

[FC_Associate]

No offense taken, and I'll be the last person to argue that anyone working in a country as wealthy as the USA shouldn't be able to afford a modest home, good healthcare, access to education, and some wiggle room for savings, at a minimum.

[rockarage]

You write well, I can help you find online work to add to your amazon associate income, send an email to [e-mail]

[bachbach]

I think a lot of people have forgotten or never experience the satisfaction of doing work - especially after being out of work for a while. Keep it up! :)

On Amazon worker treatment generally it's hard to tell whether it is propaganda or maltreatment. Jeff Bezos is obviously a powerful man with a lot of people under him and that attracts all sorts of interest/enemies. It is also not unusual for companies to treat workers poorly - but my instinct is skeptical of media because it's difficult not to notice some Californians are notorious for drama development. I've done a lot of not-by-the-book stuff on building sites - we just didn't keep records and convert them into issues because we used common sense to be safe and it's good work but we could have easily made it sound dire and hit our employer with all sorts of costs that ultimately would have made us less valuable.

[ams6110]

Right, for someone who sits behind a keyboard all day, working on your feet in a warehouse packing boxes, in a kitchen cooking burgers, or outside hauling lumber around a construction site in the rain, sounds like horrible work.

If Amazon warehouses were that bad, people wouldn't work there. I'm sure people get hurt, it's physical work. It's not a job you're going to enjoy if, like most adults, you are overweight and out of shape.

Not just in California but media today dramatize everything to get readers. The goal of almost any news story is to "go viral" to get clicks/views.

[gldalmaso]

> If Amazon warehouses were that bad, people wouldn't work there.

I don't know how the conditions at Amazon warehouses truly are, but this statement doesn't sound correct to me. I can think of countless examples of workers that accept from sub-optimal conditions to outright modern slavery simply because they can't find an exit to the system of cheap labor exploitation.

Maybe this can be scoped down to some developed countries or some cities in developed countries, but certainly doesn't hold true for most developing countries and certainly not for past history in basically anywhere.