Coming November 1st, Amazon has decided to raise the minimum wage at all of its warehouse workers, Whole Foods workers, and all other subsidiaries. This news comes after heavy criticism arose around Amazon Day where workers protested for higher wages and better working conditions. Currently, wages can be as low as federal $7.25 per hour. By the beginning of next month, this will be doubled, going up to $15 an hour for all full-time, part-time, and temporary works.
However, there’s a catch. Amazon has decided that, in order to balance out the higher wages, they were removing company stock benefits and worker/health benefits from their workers. Workers, on the other hand, are not happy with the change. Their goal in their strikes and protests was to get not only better working conditions, but better benefits at their place of employment.
These workers feel as if they’re being side-lined. Amazon claims they were “listening to their critics” when it came to wage issues, but employers feel otherwise. While Amazon wants to be “a leader” in large companies changing wages for their employees, are they really just trying to divert attention away from the fact they’re stripping those same employees from crucial benefits?
