Omaha Steve & Co. say $15 an hour isn't enough; they demand more

[franksolich]

https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/whats-behind-amazons-plan-to-raise-its-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour/

Oh my. 

I suppose it was inevitable; the gimme crowd always wants more, more, more.....just so long as "someone else" is paying for it.

Ohio Barbarian (11276 posts)    October 3, 2018 at 4:31 pm

What’s behind Amazon’s plan to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour?

This is a Trotskyite analysis from the World Socialist Web Site. I vehemently disagree with their assertion that Jeff Bezos “carefully orchestrated” the announcement with Bernie Sanders, or as as the corporate media would say, that they colluded with each other to bring this about. I have a fundamentally different perspective of what motivated Bezos to give all of his workers a $15/hour minimum wage and also said that he would lobby to make that the federal minimum wage, as a post by @peacepatriot today informed us.

In fact, to clearly explain where I’m coming from is going to take me a whole OP, but it will probably be next week before I can write it.

But Bezos is the ultimate capitalist pig, and he just can’t help himself as he gives to the employees with one hand and takes back something else he’d already given them with the other, and this article searingly describes exactly how vicious Amazon really is. That corporation’s evil like a James Bond villain in a novel by Charles Dickens.

From the article:

With great fanfare on Tuesday, Amazon announced it will raise the minimum wage it pays to 250,000 workers and 100,000 seasonal temps to $15 an hour. In the United Kingdom, the company is raising the wages of 40,000 permanent and temporary workers to £10.50 (US $13.69) an hour in London and £9.50 (US $12.39) across the rest of the country.

The wage increases, which will go into effect for Amazon and Whole Foods workers on November 1, are a response to the deep opposition of Amazon workers to the poverty level wages and brutal working conditions at the giant retail and logistics company. The growing militancy of Amazon workers is, moreover, part of a wider sentiment among workers in the US and internationally, who after a decade of declining real wages since the 2008 financial crash are determined to fight for substantial improvements.

The pay increase, however, is minimal and will do little to improve the living standards of Amazon workers. The median Amazon worker was paid $28,446 last year, according to company filings, which comes out to about $13.68 an hour. An increase to $15.00 an hour—$1.32 more for the median worker—would amount to a yearly wage of $30,000. This is 120 percent of the official poverty rate for a family of four and will do little to help workers keep their heads above water, particularly in urban centers with higher costs of living.

Internal company documents available to Amazon workers make clear that the raise will be accompanied by the elimination of various incentive bonuses and other programs, which workers rely on to help with bills and car payments. This includes all or parts of the Variable Compensation Plan (VCP) and MyReward bonuses based on attendance and site performance goals. Also cut is the limited stock vesting program, known as the Restricted Stock Units (RSU) plan.

leftcoastmountains (4950 posts)    (Reply to original post)   October 3, 2018 at 4:40 pm

1. It's a switcheroo.

Amazon warehouse workers are no longer eligible to receive monthly bonuses and stock awards.

Amazon made the change as it announced a minimum-wage increase on Tuesday.

The change could make some longtime workers to make less money, according to The Guardian.

Amazon’s minimum-wage increase for its hourly workers comes with a trade-off: no more monthly bonuses and stock awards.

Amazon confirmed in an email to CNBC that the company is getting rid of incentive pay and stock option awards as it increases the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The company, however, stressed that the wage increase “more than compensates” for the loss in other benefits.

Amazon disclosed in its announcement on Tuesday that it is replacing the stock awards program with the minimum-wage increase because employees prefer the “predictability and immediacy of cash” compared with stock awards. The company didn’t say anything about the monthly bonuses.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/03/amazon-hourly-workers-lose-monthly-bonuses-stock-awards.html

Talk about deflating a balloon or bursting a bubble! Wow Jeff! What a piece of crap!

Silver Witch (6891 posts)    (Reply to leftcoastmountains - post #1)   October 3, 2018 at 7:23 pm

8. Ohhh I knew this was coming.

No rich person gives without taking twice as much.

<<<knew the demand for "more, more, more" was coming.

Ooops, a contrary opinion pops up:

Peace Patriot (4405 posts)    (Reply to original post)   October 3, 2018 at 5:44 pm

3. It takes an awfully snooty Troskyite to spit on a $1.32/hr increase for…

…poor workers, or, on average $1,500 more per year.   This is not to say that Jeff “Washington Post/CIA” Bezos isn’t “a James Bond villain in a novel by Charles Dickens,” as you so beautifully put it!  (Wow!  I wish I’d said that! Lol!)

I’ve no doubt at all that he’s re-stuffing his pockets from other pots of OUR money – Trump’s Billionaires’ Tax Heists, for one – in addition to his fiddles at Amazon. But before anyone says that the pay increase “is minimal,” I think they need to talk to the workers themselves rather than consulting their own theories and opinions.

$1.32/hr may be a pittance to some people but not to poor workers.

I also wonder about this, in the WSWS article:

The wage increases, which will go into effect for Amazon and Whole Foods workers on November 1, are a response to the deep opposition of Amazon workers to the poverty level wages and brutal working conditions…”.

That is only partly true.  The true part is that Bezos and his ilk are terrified of the power of organized labor, and Bezos is trying to head off unionization.  To the extent that Amazon workers have organized and vocalized, he is reacting to them.  But he is also reacting to Bernie Sanders who filed a bill in Congress against Amazon and has been talking about $15/hr almost nonstop for two years.  It is inaccurate and unfair not to give him some credit for putting pressure on Bezos – however slimey Bezos is.

I tend to agree with the WSWS conclusion:

…securing the right to good-paying and safe jobs will not be possible without building a powerful movement of the working class and carrying out a frontal assault on the entrenched wealth and political power of the corporate and financial oligarchy. To initiate this, the International Amazon Workers Voice is fighting for the formation of rank-and-file factory and workplace committees, independent of the corporate-controlled unions and political parties. This must be combined with a political struggle by workers to overthrow the economic and political dictatorship of the capitalist exploiters, expropriate their fortunes, and transform giant corporations like Amazon into public enterprises, collectively owned and democratically controlled by the working class.

But it’s a pretty grandiose Troskyite scheme that doesn’t help much in the immediate future with the overwhelming odds just against a decent wage, let alone “expropriating their fortunes” and “transforming giant corporations…into public enterprises.”

Fine goals, true.  But how do people put food on the table?  And how do people even have time to talk to each other and organize, given their brutal work load? 

Troskyites tend to skip over details like that and go for the big philosophical arcs that sound so great, but often mean that workers starve while they strike, or see their children’s brains shrink for lack of nutrition, or get killed for striking, or get replaced by scabs and never work again.

There is a lack of compassion and empathy for what ordinary people are going through these days, in our extremely fractured society with so little family and community support, and a kind of naivete about what “expropriating” the wealth of the uber-wealthy would really mean.  It would mean blood on the streets, for sure.

Yeah, I have an old lady’s view of things.  I think we had better deal with the ‘TRADE SECRET’ voting machines before we start storming the mansions with our pitchforks.  They can mow us down without mercy in the latter, but the former…ah, the former – getting our votes counted in the public venue – will give us a much sturdier revolution.

You know, for as much as all he contributes to the jackpinery, the buckeye barbarian is surely more worthy of a forum named for him, than is Steve Dawes.

[franksolich]

"what happens when greed over-reaches"
https://conservativecave.com/cave/index.php?topic=118943.0

[FlaGator]

The reason for Amazon's increase in its minimum wage is very simple, lurkers, and has nothing to do with nefarious schemes. The unemployment rate is so low that Amazon and others have to increase wages to attract workers. You can thank Trump for that, which is the reason you are devising silly explanations in order to avoid giving Trump any credit.

[BadCat]

Do they know, that politically, Bezos is one of THEM?

[DLR Pyro]

seriously, Did anyone ever think they would be happy with a $15.00/ minimum wage?

[Ralph Wiggum]

seriously, Did anyone ever think they would be happy with a $15.00/ minimum wage?

Of course not.  Why not make it $30, $50 or $100?  It'll take money from the rich, evil owners right?

Economic dunces.

[SVPete]

The Kavanaugh debacle has made Goal Post Moving a growth industry. So of course the $15/hour advocates are pre-primed to move theirs.

[zeitgeist]

Slowly but surely the DU_Libbers are waking up to the fact that they have been rump rustled by Bezos. 

Ran across an excellent analysis on zerohedge just the other day: 

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-02/bezos-decision-raise-wages-largely-machiavellian-distraction

Never let reason and common sense get in the way of a good fantasy.  It is what the DUmp specializes in, fantasy.

[Old n Grumpy]

Sounds like Amazon has jobe even Mexicans Won't do!