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from the so-EVERY-Amazon-employee-gets-a-raise? dept.
Amazon announces $15 minimum wage for all US employees
Amazon is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all US employees. The change takes effect November 1 and applies to full-time, part-time and temporary workers. Amazon says the $15 minimum wage will benefit more than 250,000 Amazon employees, plus 100,000 seasonal workers.
"We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO. "We're excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us."
The change applies to Whole Foods and all other subsidiary employees.
Amazon also said its public policy team will begin lobbying for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2009.
See also: Bernie Sanders praises Jeff Bezos on Amazon $15 minimum wage
Previously: 'Stop BEZOS' Bill to tax Amazon for Underpaying Workers
Related: Injured Amazon Worker Describes High-Tech Dystopia Inside Texas Warehouse
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 03 2018, @11:05AM (7 children)
Generosity between employer and employee has no place in business. See, the goal is to pay each position what they're worth as decided by both the local jobs market, labor/management negotiations, and individual job performance variations. Simply raising the base pay without raising everyone else's pay is going to piss off every last person who was making more. There are damned good reasons electricians, machinists, etc... make a lot more than shovel jockeys and if this becomes not the case your most crucial employees will either demand higher pay as well or start looking for gainful employment somewhere they appear appreciated.
Significantly raising base pay at a major employer is also going to cause the base pay of the surrounding community to have to rise to compete, which harms the health of every business and flat out kills those that were barely getting by to begin with. Which means every employee they employed is now out of work. Which makes it even harder to get a job at all, much less a good job, due to the increased competition on the labor end of things.
Also, given everything else being equal, nobody chooses the job that pays less. Which means the employer that compensates better gets all of the good employees for a given job and small businesses get the dregs who produce less value for their pay, which means you have to hire more to get the same value of work. This is all as it should be when the larger company actually values the work as much as they're paying but doing it for political reasons fucks shit up for everyone without having any goal except keeping politicos off their asses.
Doing it for ideological reasons is even worse. Commerce is not the place for ideology. The only consideration that should ever be given in regards to an exchange of values is are you getting equal value for your exchange. Every ideology that says you should favor one side or the other is effectively saying it is okay to cheat the other side.
tl;dr Either the employees are worth $15/hr and you'd damned well better be paying them accordingly if you want to keep them, or they're not and paying them as if they were causes widespread harm for extremely localized benefit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @11:51AM
You give a few reasons why it's a good idea for a business to raise it's base pay: They get first pick of the good employees, surrounding businesses have to keep up and if they can't the first company can take over their market share.
Yes, the higher paying employees may notice that their wage is now relatively lower. But when you start thinking like that you can only get depressed more and more. Do you feel like you get enough compensation for your work? If that answer is yes, than why do you care about someone else's wage?
Also commerce is the last place where you want to get equal value in an exchange. Many companies hire specific employees to try to disrupt that balance in their favor. If you can sell your stuff for much more than "equal" price, you're making significantly more money. Prices are set so to get maximum profit, not for some "equal value" ideology.
I agree that business may want to keep ideology out of it, but employees and certainly customers don't.
One more note: thanks for your generosity and time towards soylentnews, much appreciated.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @12:17PM (1 child)
Which opinion is part of your ideology.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:00AM
You're confusing the chicken with the egg. It's part of my ideology because of its practical utility and my ability to reason my way out of a paper bag best two out of three, not part of my business practices because of my ideology.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday October 03 2018, @12:48PM
Which is a great thing, remember? Labor is a relatively effective market and Amazon is signalling via price, the usual market mechanism that it's demanding better labor. There's nothing to be concerned about. If you are one of those marginal businesses who can't compete for that labor now, then what's the problem? Just end the business. The labor market already would be picking up at higher price the workers from that business and life would move on. We need businesses, but we don't need businesses that can't pay market rate.
I disagree. Amazon isn't being forced to do this. They're voluntarily virtue signalling. If as a result, they get commensurate benefits in the political game, then they made a good move and that should be reflected in the market just like any other relevant factor. We shouldn't care why someone chooses to trade at a certain price in a market, as long as they aren't being forced to do so.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 03 2018, @08:12PM (1 child)
-y getting by"
I regard that as a good thing.
To put marginal businesses under frees up their resources so they may be used for more profitable activities. It's just like firing an alcoholic employee such as Judge Kavanaugh: the only time an alcoholic will of their own free will give up the bottle is when they hit bottom.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:03AM
Did you miss the bit where that leads to all their employees becoming suddenly unemployed and the impact that has on the community?
Also, I would rather not see the economy fall any farther than necessary before it finds itself a bottom if it's all the same to you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 03 2018, @08:14PM
Is that why the US invaded Siberia shortly after the Russian Revolution?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]