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After months of Amazon announced Tuesday that it would start paying all US employees, including part-time, seasonal and temporary workers, to at least $ 15 by the hour and all employees in the UK to minus £ 9.50 (with higher salaries in 2007). London) starting November 1st. The move will affect 250,000 Amazon employees and 100,000 seasonal workers, according to the company.
In the same announcement, Amazon also announced that it would start lobbying Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, which is currently $ 7.25. Jeff Bezos, the company's CEO and the richest man in the world, said in a statement that Amazon "listened to his critics" and "decided to want to lead".
At first glance, Amazon's decision to raise wages is a good thing because it has the power to have a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers who were receiving low wages even though their employer had amassed a huge wealth. The salary increase also demonstrates the effectiveness of the Fight for $ 15 movement, a grassroots movement created in 2012 to increase wages and form unions in the retail and fast food sectors.
"Amazon has not chosen 15 dollars for no reason, but because of its symbolic importance," says Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, which studies low-wage labor markets. "Political pressures can really change wages in our economy, which, in my opinion, is a useful reminder."
Amazon has also been the victim of months-long attacks from politicians like Bernie Sanders, who last month presented a bill literally called the Stop BEZOS Act. The legislation is designed to force large employers to raise wages by taxing them when their workers need to be able to rely on public benefits, such as vouchers.
Sanders' initiative provoked a rare response from the Amazon, which is generally timid, and the senator seemed delighted on Tuesday when he learned that his efforts had apparently paid off. "Today, I want to give credit where credit is due. And I want to congratulate Mr Bezos for doing exactly what is right, "said Sanders at a press conference this morning. bewitched in praise on Twitter.
Amazon is probably betting, however, that a salary increase will not only relieve the pressure exerted by lawmakers and activists who want the retail giant to improve its working conditions. In the coming months, the company will have to attract 100,000 seasonal employees and try again to dominate the Christmas shopping season. He has to do these things in an extremely tight labor market in the United States – the unemployment rate has recently fallen below 4% – where few people are looking for work. Wage increases like those of Amazon have always occurred in similar economies.
"This is not really anything new," says Sylvia A. Allegretto, Labor Economist and Co-Chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California at Berkeley. . "This usually happens when labor markets are tight.Do not forget that Amazon needs a lot of workers for the holiday season."
The fact that Amazon has fewer hiring problems is the fact that she has faced a wave of bad press in recent months about her work practices in the United States and elsewhere. A report published in April documented how some Amazon workers were forced to pee in bottles of water to meet workplace demands, and another in July revealed that some employees had been victims of work accidents that had left them homeless.
Last week, Gizmodo also released excerpts from an internal video for officials at Whole Foods, designed to train them in detecting and reducing organizing efforts. (It has already been reported that employees in the luxury grocery chain owned by Amazon were planning to join a union.)
Taken together, these negative reports could complicate the task of convincing the already restricted pool of job seekers to choose Amazon, particularly when other retailers are also hiring for the holiday season. Initially, the company tried to solve this problem by opposing its own messaging, including through a new fleet of Twitter accounts to spread positive testimonials working at the retail giant. Now it is only paying more, which could also help reduce other long-term labor costs.
"They have very high turnover rates – it's very expensive when you have to constantly spend money to recruit and train workers," says Allegretto. "Paying a higher salary will help you keep those workers."
The increase in wages also means that many more people – Amazon is one of the largest employers in the United States – will have additional funds to spend on the purchase of goods from countries such as Amazon. Although rising wages will cost the retail giant, it can potentially offset the loss by increasing sales. "A lot of [Bezos’] the clients are low wage workers. There is a lot of demand that goes off when you start paying more money to workers, "said Allegretto.
Amazon already has another mechanism to reduce labor costs: automation. "Today, it takes fewer workers to sell and ship goods worth $ 100 million compared to a few years ago. This trend is only accelerating, "said Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Self Reliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for local economic development, m said on Twitter.
Although Amazon has emerged as a leader in increasing the amount of its employees, the company is far from being the first retail giant to have increased its salaries in recent years . "Today's announcement also shows how much more and more businesses across the country are recognizing that higher wages can be good for businesses and their employees," said Christine Owens. , Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project, a non-profit organization that advocates for American workers. A declaration. "Target is gradually introducing a minimum wage of $ 15 by 2020, for example, and Costco has recently increased its starting salary to $ 14."
What sets Amazon apart from its competitors, however, is that the company is expected to announce the location of its much-anticipated second seat before the end of the year. It is generally thought that the retail giant receives a lucrative government incentive agreement from the city of its choice, in exchange for creating tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. The last thing the company needs is that the announcement be overshadowed by concerns about how it treats its low-wage workers. Establishing a minimum wage of US $ 15 helps alleviate some of these potential criticisms.
Amazon's work practices and its decision to raise wages are representative of the larger problems facing American workers. Although companies largely recovered from the 2008 recession, employee wages barely increased with stock prices. The federal minimum wage has not been increased for nearly a decade, although many states and cities have legislated by increasing employee compensation. According to some experts, the gap between the rich and the poor is greater than in the United States. Businesses are starting to be held responsible for their role in deepening inequality, and some may try to mitigate the harm. But do not get me wrong: Amazon's bottom line remains its top priority and it's also good for it to reduce the economic divide.
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