[rochester46]

Canadian minimum wage is relatively high (and your statement is only true for Ontario, btw. In other parts of Canada, Amazon warehouse worker minimum pay is 150% minimum wage). When viewed through the lens of the reality that is the American workforce, things look very differently.

In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage. They make, at minimum, more than double the wage of an average McDonalds worker. They make more than Starbucks store workers, more than most construction workers. Even in Canada, Amazon warehouse workers make more than your average Tim Hortons worker.

Warehouse workers also get the same health insurance that Amazon SWEs get, which is better health insurance by far than even most white-collar American workers have.

>The majority of their employees are unskilled labour.

Unskilled laborers getting double minimum wage and great benefits seems to me to be a good thing for society. It baffles me that people are trying to decry this.

[danaris]

The pay being high is good.

It's not a good enough reason to not form a union.

Pay is only one piece of worker treatment, and when you're talking about hard manual labour, it's really not the most important piece—workplace health & safety is. Doesn't matter how much you were paid while you worked there if you get killed or crippled because the employer skimped on safety, either in equipment or in allowing you to take your time on dangerous tasks.

[rochester46]

I fully agree with your comment. I see no reason why these workers shouldn't be unionized. In my comment, I am addressing the pay and benefits argument that is being brought up by many HNers, because your statement "The pay being high is good" is a very rare statement on this website in regards to Amazon. And I am also not wholly convinced that a lot of people aren't conflating the two (I see a lot of arguments that these workers need unionization because they are paid 'poorly').

[Frondo]

Yes, agreed 100%. Pay is one of the many things collective bargaining is good for addressing.

Workplace safety is another. Greater autonomy is another; maybe these people want a 45 minute lunch break? Who knows? (Well, the workers know what they want...)

Another thing I've seen a lot, can't remember off the top of my head if this applied to Amazon too, is doing mandated security searches off the clock when people leave the job site. Imagine you're off at 5, but you don't get to leave til 5:30 because you're in a big line waiting to have your bag checked when you leave. Why should you be obligated to give the company that time? If they wanted, they could crunch the numbers and figure out what would cost them less, employee theft or paying for security checks, but they don't, because they can steal the worker's time at no cost to them. (And I guarantee you the security guards are being paid for that security check time, it's just the rank and file who aren't.)

Germany's got another thing I'd like to see here in the states, where the unions have a seat on the board and play a role in higher-level decisions as well. This is something I'd like to see even for high-paid tech workers, especially for morally questionable things like taking contracts with ICE -- there's been walkouts and worker organizing over companies taking contracts with ICE, but better still would be if the workers had a formal lever of power (in the form of a union) to stop that before it started.

[tomatotomato37]

I really don't see the connection between a union seat and blocking initiatives that run against progressive culture coming to play in practice. Amazon has a workforce larger than some US states mainly comprised of unskilled workers in locations with cheap enough land to make a half-kilometer wide warehouse remotely feasibly, aka rural or industrial locations; and if recent politics are anything to go by, unskilled rural labor tends to not align very well with that of skilled urbanites. If this union uses anything resembling a democracy for internal policies the woke software engineers in seattle are going to be vastly outvoted by the blue collar workers and rednecks working pretty much everywhere else.

Don't get me wrong a board seat would be great for preventing the company from pulling Gorden Gekko type shenanigans, it's just if the plan is to use it as a platform to further the progressive agenda than there's going to be some disappointment

[dashundchen]

> In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage.

And that US federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, $15,080 for a years worth of work. That is not a livable wage in almost any area of the country, especially the population centers the Amazon warehouses are located in.

In that sense $15 an hour is nothing to be proud of, from one of the largest and most successful companies in the country, run by one of the wealthiest people in the world.

I also would be shocked if your average construction worker or Starbucks is getting federal minimum wage, I have a feeling they are closer to $15 than you would think.

One question, do you work for Amazon? Your history consists solely of comments defending Amazon and their labor relations. If you do, it would be nice of you to disclose that before posting about your company.

[rochester46]

>And that US federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, $15,080 for a years worth of work. That is not a livable wage in almost any area of the country, especially the population centers the Amazon warehouses are located in.

And that's why it's great to hear that Amazon pays more than double that minimum wage, as I noted.

>In that sense $15 an hour is nothing to be proud of

I don't see how it's not. $17/hr is an incredibly high wage for the target audience of these jobs. $17/hr may be pennies for SWEs on HNs who think that anything under $100k/yr is oppression, but $17/hr for someone who was previously homeless, or a 16 year old getting their first job, or someone just looking for some extra cash part time during the holidays, is an amazing wage.

Amazon warehouse work is an amazing stepping stone for people that have no previous work experience or skills, for them to get a wage and benefits way above average. Indeed, Amazon even offers to pay for 95% of tuition costs for warehouse workers that want to get an associates degree, so that the warehouse work truly can be a stepping stone.

The fact that people far beyond their "entry level" stage of their career are stuck working in an Amazon warehouse seems like a problem with society, not Amazon, and there's only so much that Amazon can do there.

>I also would be shocked if your average construction worker or Starbucks is getting federal minimum wage, I have a feeling they are closer to $15 than you would think.

I didn't say they are getting federal minimum wage. And yet a quick Google will show you that Amazon warehouse workers get paid more than these workers.

>One question, do you work for Amazon? Your history consists solely of comments defending Amazon and their labor relations. If you do, it would be nice of you to disclose that before posting about your company.

No. My comment history is such because I use a special account specifically for posting about Amazon, because unfortunately this website has become very vitriolic as of late and I doubt some of the posters here would hesitate to try and ruin my life if I attached my main account and real name to statements defending "the evilest company in the world".

[retrac]

If that's the case and they're making ~$21 CAD an hour, then Amazon's American warehouse workers are paid considerably more than they are in Canada despite the US having a lower cost of living. At least in my local context, their behaviour doesn't seem to be something worth lauding. It's just another grueling underpaid warehouse job. With a union-busting employer.

[blaser-waffle]

The US as a whole has a lower cost of living. If you're near any real population center that's just not the case. Twice minimum wage goes pretty far in rural Kentucky, but that ain't gettin you much in Nashville, and gets you fuck-all around DC.

The COL is higher in Canada, but at least they have healthcare and worker protections. I'd rather be a Starbucks barista or Amazon warehouse worker in the CAN than anywhere in the US.

[forgotmylogin2]

Then quit and find a job with better pay. My guess is most of them can't because they're already getting the market rate for unskilled labor.

[klyrs]

Right. Quitting to find a "better job" means swirling around the bottom of the puddle. Standing up and bargaining for better working conditions at your place of work has historically been shown to be more effective. Labor movements brought us modern luxuries such as the weekend, the end of child labor, etc. Folks didn't make that happen by quitting and finding a better job.

[zrail]

In the US do you know how many Amazon warehouse workers are employed by Amazon directly vs 3rd party contractors? Do your statements hold for those contractors?

[nickff]

If you disbelieve a plausible comment, there is some onus on you to disprove them. Please do your own search, and post your own citations.

These 'citation needed' comments add no value.

[mikestew]

In the US, Amazon warehouse workers make more than double the federal minimum wage.

And what does minimum wage represent? A livable wage? An inflation-adjusted wage? Some random number that has no basis in real-life living and expenses?

If you chose option C, congratulations, you probably won't be basing any arguments on a number that only represents (if it represents anything) the stinginess and or fossilization of American politics.

[claudeganon]

That’s because they’re not decrying the wages or health benefits, but the overall treatment and union-busting.

You can have good wages and benefits for this kind of labor without firing organizers, plotting to smear them as “inarticulate” in the press, and exposing workers to undue injury and disease.

[rochester46]

>That’s because they’re not decrying the wages or health benefits

Speak for yourself. The vast majority of complaints about Amazon on this forum are explicitly referencing pay.

[claudeganon]

The top-voted comment on your thread suggests otherwise.

I think the workers should be receiving more in hazard pay, but this whole round of controversy was sparked by their firing warehouse workers organizing for better safety, not pay.

Where do you work, BTW? Your account is about a month old and only seems to comment on stories about Amazon.

[rochester46]

The "top-voted comment" anywhere has no bearing on what is or is not the majority argument.

[claudeganon]

You made an explicit appeal to the majority of arguments on this forum as referencing pay, I provided a specific counterexample, and you rebutted with more vagaries.

[rochester46]

You did not provide a specific counterexample. A reference to a sole example says nothing about the majority of arguments. That is not how majorities work.

Your original reply to my comment was an overgeneralization, and used that overgeneralization to attack a point that I never made. I'm not engaging in your argument because it was made in bad faith to begin with.