Amazon Wage Raise

You may know that Amazon raised its wages for its employees to $15 an hour and Amazon is making a big hoopla about it and is jerking itself off on how "good it treats its employees". Here's my opinion of it as an employee and opinions of other employees.

I work in the warehouse where the raise was first announced and filmed for the media. I was not at the premier meeting where they announced it, but my roommates were. Amazon only increased wages because Bernie Sanders got a pill passed against Jeff Bezos for being the richest man in the world but paying his employees almost minimum wage. They brought a camera crew in, took all the employees in the warehouse and put them in one place to film their reactions and make themselves look amazing. It was gratuitous and so played out.

I was at the second meeting where they announced the wage raise to everyone who wasn't there at the first meeting. It had been a week later and everyone was over it. They raised wages to $15, but revealed that the pay cap is $15.65 and you don't get the 65 cents until you've worked there for 3 years. Employees also no longer get stocks or the potential monthly bonus that's an incentive for productivity. And they still had the audacity to make a huge deal about what "amazing thing they were doing for the employees". Nobody at my meeting was super happy. My building's manager kept saying "you guys should be happy" during the meeting. We all saw through their bullshit and we were tired of being there.

Another thing is Amazon holds itself on a high pedestal. They always say they pay competitively even though they were paying us almost minimum wage (minimum wage in California is $11 and Amazon starting pay is $12 with a 25 cent raise every 6 months). They say the benefits are included in your pay: company stocks (only sellable after working for amazon for 2 years, the POTENTIAL monthly bonus you can receive (you are not guaranteed a bonus and it's fucked up they include it as part of your pay), potential tuition help (only if you have a certain major and no more than $3,000), and your employee discount that is only 10% Amazon products ONLY and a max of $100 a year (yeah that means you need to buy $1000 worth of Amazon products to max out this discount). They mentioned in the meeting that the $15 wage is better because we aren't guaranteed getting the bonus but this guarantees us that money.

It's convenient they're giving us this raise right before peak starts because we actually had more potential to get more money during peak with the chance of getting a double bonus. Also fuck mandatory overtime. During Prime Week they made us work 12 hour shifts and said they might need us to work an additional work day. We would have been working 6 12 hour shifts. A 72 hour work week. For almost minimum wage. And Amazon fucking praises itself about how great it treats its employees.

Amazon says all the time that they're so great, that they're family, and that they're the best in the industry in how it treats its employees. But Target's wage for SEASONAL warehouse employees is $14- more than Amazon's $12 for full-time employees. And Target's pay for full-time warehouse employees is $17-$18. And guess what? In response to Amazon giving its employees a raise, Target also gave its warehouse employees a raise. So start at $19-$20 an hour and receive a WHOLE DOLLAR RAISE every 6 months. And while Amazon caps out at $15.65 pay, Target's warehouse pay caps out at $25. Amazon sucks man. Anyway this is my rant. Hopefully I can be more active here. Maybe. ahahahahhahahhhhhh