$19 an hour for warehouse work? I can see why they need to unionize instead of just finding somebody willing to pay more, nobody else is going to pay that for any comparable unskilled workload.
The workers want less crappy working conditions. I understand that. The problem is that their pay is what it is in order to make up for the crappy working conditions.
I don't think unionization will help here. Warehouses can already be automated to a much greater extent than Amazon does. I suspect that at ~$19/hr Amazon is very close to the break-even point for replacing pickers with automation.
Edit:
Picking inventory is fully automated in some warehouses in places with lower wages than NYC (Summit Racing for example). It stands to reason that combined with the higher than typical wages, whatever the break even point is an Amazon warehouse in NYC is far closer to it than anyone else.
Why do you suspect this? The labor market is far from an efficient market.
https://www.ny.gov/new-york-states-minimum-wage/new-york-sta...
Guys, i suggest looking at some of these companies balance sheets. In many cases (Walmarts, McDonalds...) even a small 5% pay raise for all employees would eat every single penny of profits.
Is this the conclusion you reached after reading Amazon's balance sheets? If so, would you mind sharing your research?
To be fair though, they aren't making money on fulfillment really, they're cross-subsidizing it with their more profitable segments which also do not require that many workers. In that sense it isn't comparable with Wal-Mart and McDonalds.
Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended?
$19 is certainly enough to live (~$38k/year). This is way above poverty and one of the highest wages for unskilled labor.
At least it's way more than a postdoc immigrant can count on.
This is unhelpful, but that's the way things work at the moment, and it's very well understood by aggregate investment capital.
So then you get a second sense: good enough to sustain huge amounts of investment capital from people who correctly perceive that it will destroy other companies that choose to pay their employees enough to live.
Still pretty unhelpful, if you're a human…
If they work 40h a week, rent a single bedroom apartment at ~$1600 and the cost of living for one is ~$800 this leaves 2976 - 2400 = ~576 a month without special circumstances. In this case they don't have a car, drinks or meals outside the home, going out (movies/etc.), alcohol, dog, sport membership or travel and certainly no family. If they have one family member at ~600 a month they are down 24 dollars a month so they'd better not. [1]
Simply seeing that Amazon is doing so mindbogglingly well for itself that the value of their assets has grown by 52.65% in 2017[2] and while still holding ~22 billion dollars in reserve[3], workers are not adding some value (as is required in a Keynesian capitalist system) but an insane amount of value. And it is all trickling up while workers cannot afford to have a family.
[1]: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Long-Island-NY-Unit...
[2]: https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/amzn/financials/...
[3]: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/256-billion-apple-cash-amazon-...
That's not up for a company to decide, they don't control all the prices and sentiments that determine what is and isn't "decent to live". They can decide what they can pay to hire an extra worker and make more money as a result. If they don't believe they'll make more money as a result, then there's no hire.
It seems odd that capitalism would have such a duty to humanity because it’s like saying “art has failed humanity.” Or “this screwdriver has failed breakfast.”
As we're seeing now, wealth and income inequality are at terrible levels. Wage stagnation has been hurting the middle class. Housing is becoming increasingly expensive as jobs centralize on cities. Gentrification pushes out the working class.
We have climate change bearing down on us, the effects of which are already being seen through mass migration, fires, hurricanes, and other disasters. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry would have us believe there are "two sides" to this argument so that they can continue to profit instead of adapting and doing the right thing. The first to feel it certainly won't be those of us making several hundred thousand dollars per year and looking down on those living paycheck to paycheck. It'll be those living paycheck to paycheck who feel it first.
Neither artists nor bartenders have the power over humanity that capitalists do.
With great power comes great responsibility. This is precisely why we must hold capitalists accountable.
The solution is to not work long-term in an entry-level, unskilled job.
The typical HN reply may be trying to help figure out a problem like “if I only have X dollars how can I maximize.”
Reality is that unskilled labor doesn’t get everything they want. Fortunately, they get everything they need. A better example would be healthcare, but I think Amazon’s fulfillment center workers have pretty good insurance.
It’s not a Rolex, but I was pretty happy when I was finally able to live alone.
I was thinking in terms of Maslow [0] as it’s somewhere, I think, around esteem.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Sure, you need a lot of money to enjoy life in NYC and $18/hr isn't exactly a lot of money. Even then, for folks without any other marketable skills, this isn't the slave wage as you falsely depict here.
You also should be properly reading that balance sheet. Those $22 billion in cash stand against $36 billion in short term liabilities, for example. Long term debt is over $37 billion.
And yet, they are critical to the operation of the company (until their jobs have been automated). If all of them decided to go on strike then Amazon would have fullfillment issues -- at least until the people on strike have been replaced.
Since the value of the entire workforce is higher than the sum of the value of the individual workers, thus convincing the business that raising the wages/improving conditions is in their own interest, compared to something like a strike.