Absolutely not. On the tail of the recession, I moved back near my family and got a warehouse job doing the same thing that Amazon workers do. It was shit work under even shittier superiors, but by no means was it worse than what Amazon pays. And that's even being generous to Amazon, comparing it under conditions that totally stacked in Amazon's favor: it's almost like comparing apples to oranges, given that it's now 10 years hence, not to mention that the reference point is the recession. What's the bastion of magnanimity that we're comparing it to, by the way? None other than Walmart.
When I learned how little Amazon workers made, at the time around five years after my experience at Walmart, where you're essentially guaranteed a 50 cent raise every year (or more when the company does well, which is, again, essentially guaranteed), I was floored.
So if other unskilled jobs pay better or have better conditions, why are hundreds of thousands of Americans taking these “horrible” Amazon warehouse jobs then?
Are they all being irrational? Are they being forced at gunpoint to take these jobs?
The real issue is that removing Amazon from the equation doesn’t suddenly make these people’s lives a utopia. They still won’t have healthcare or get higher wages, our laws (the real issue here) will remain the same.
In fact, smaller businesses tend to pay people less and closer to the minimum wage (or even below it, in the case of many Texas and California businesses who employee illegal immigrants).
But nobody writes news stories about tiny warehouses nobody has ever heard of overworking and underpaying their employees.
Absolutely not. On the tail of the recession, I moved back near my family and got a warehouse job doing the same thing that Amazon workers do. It was shit work under even shittier superiors, but by no means was it worse than what Amazon pays. And that's even being generous to Amazon, comparing it under conditions that totally stacked in Amazon's favor: it's almost like comparing apples to oranges, given that it's now 10 years hence, not to mention that the reference point is the recession. What's the bastion of magnanimity that we're comparing it to, by the way? None other than Walmart.
When I learned how little Amazon workers made, at the time around five years after my experience at Walmart, where you're essentially guaranteed a 50 cent raise every year (or more when the company does well, which is, again, essentially guaranteed), I was floored.