Amazon Tells Canadian Warehouse Workers They’re Getting a Pay Cut | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Tells Canadian Warehouse Workers They’re Getting a Pay Cut

pressprogress.ca

35 pointsingve19 comments

This headline is completely misleading. The article says that Amazon is ending a temporary pay increase they had implemented in response to Coronavirus and that wages are returning to normal.

Purposefully misleading. This is why the public no longer trusts journalism. They can’t help but insert their agenda and provocation.

This isn't "journalism". It is explicitly the publishing wing of a democratic-socialist organization, the Broadbent Institute[1].

They "can't help but insert their agenda" because it is the stated purpose of this website, pressprogress.ca. It suggests nothing about whether traditional, mainstream publications are trustworthy or not.

1. https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/

This pandemic has made me notice how often a headline will be barely "technically true" just to elicit a response, but when you read the body of the article, you realize how ridiculously misleading the headline was.

Headlines are usually written by sub-editors, not the writer of the article. It's the headline writer's job to get you to click, they don't really care whether or not the headline is accurate so long as you clicked on the article (and saw the ads).

The fact that there exists a position whose purpose is to increase clicks (without caring for accuracy) shows how messed up this is.

"This one weird trick copy editors don't want you to know..."

I think journalism has to go this way because of what it competes with.

Surely Amazon is experiencing a huge increase in sales - I wonder how big. Completely insane for them to make _more_ money and find a $2 wage increase too high for a job that’s still incredibly risky.

Bezos gotta hit that $1T somehow

That $2 raise is probably costing them in the neighborhood of $150-$200 million a month, which for Amazon is no small change.

neither is it small change for the workers...

Prime deliveries have also changed from an average of 2-3 days to most items are now 1 month.

Is that in Canada? I still get it under a week (2-7 days) depending on the item.

Not just Prime, all packages. Even an hour from Mississauga, where Amazon has a warehouse, packages are super delayed. I'm not sure if it's Canada Post or Amazon, probably both.

Many of my packages (not just Amazon) have been coming out of Vancouver despite being in the GTA, so my assumption is that the items themselves are fresh off the boat (or plane) from factories in Asia, and the demand has outstripped their ability to get inventory on trucks and into the Mississauga warehouse to begin with.

Are you certain those packages are Amazon fulfilled rather than merchant fulfilled?

That seems to be recovering a little in some areas. Most things are showing typical Prime delivery time for me now.

I've had pretty good luck, where Amazon shows a "safe estimate" for the delivery date, but it arrives in a few days instead. (I'm in Texas, maybe you're referring to Canada specifically)

Is it even possible for there be a workers union at Amazon?

In BC,

> If a collective agreement is not in force and a trade union is not certified as bargaining agent for a unit appropriate for collective bargaining, a trade union claiming to have as members in good standing not less than 45% of the employees in that unit may at any time, subject to the regulations, apply to the board to be certified for the unit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com