Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/03/amazon-eliminating-monthly-bon.html
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The raises can’t come from anywhere else./s
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Bezos got shit to do and stuff to buy…
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God forbid the stockholders should be told “Ok, so we’ve been fucking these people for a long time and that was wrong. We’ve made a lot of money off their backs so the stock dividends will be down a bit while the situation equalizes. Don’t worry though, you’ll still be making money.”
I’ve never quite understood the rational where you put the people only interested in squeezing every last buck out of an organization in charge. Screw the workers? Sure! Saddle the company with a bunch of your debts then let it go into a death spiral? Still making money, right?
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“Some long-time workers expressed frustration that their raises are small compared with newly hired workers who will see hourly pay bumps of as much as 40 percent.”
Or to put it another way you’re upset that your coworkers who were not paid a living wage now are and you only got a little extra. I have no love lost on people like that.
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Of course. How else has Amazon any hope of becoming a two trillion dollar company?
Now what evidence do I have that I’m better than they are?! /stamps feet petulantly, whines
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It might be better to have it more standardized this way. One could argue that its better to have careers that pay more hourly than bonuses and stocks which may pay out more for some and not others? I will say though that $15 is still not enough (especially by CA standards), but suppose its better than outsourcing to people at $5-$6 per hr. as many other companies do. (Read somewhere the average auto line worker in China gets about $500 a month (don’t quote me on that as a hard fact. I could be (and often am) completely wrong))
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Still, it would be more equitable if they proportionally raised wages so that the lowest paid workers made 15/hr and others still made proportionally more reflecting their seniority, experience, and service to the company.
While raising everybody to 15 shows decency, wiping out seniority and loyalty is still a dick move.
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In addition, because it’s no longer incentive-based, the compensation will be more immediate and predictable,” Amazon said.
This is key. Bonuses are at the whim of management, even if (especially if) they’re “merit based.” Almost any worker would rather know how much they’re earning.
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Where I live, they are also a tax problem. If you earn a salary, any bonus is taxed at nearly 50%. I once quit working for a company that decided to change all employees to combination low salary and bonus compensation. I explained the tax situation to my co-workers on my way out the door.
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Where the hell is that? I’ve never heard of such a low level shaft? I’ve only worked in PA and NJ but in both places a bonus over salaried pay was taxed as more salaried pay. Were not talking stock or options here - we are just talking money right? What fucked up place do you live?
hint to other readers - get a new job before you walk out, you’ll still have a chance to tell them about the bonuses on the way out.
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This is true. IRS treats bonus income differently
The IRS goes to great lengths to categorize different types of income and treat them differently, and bonuses are another example of this. In the eyes of the IRS, bonuses are typically categorized as “supplemental wages.” As a University of Minnesota summary explains:
“The IRS defines supplemental wages as compensation paid in addition to the employee’s regular wages that includes, but is not limited to, severance or dismissal pay, vacation pay, back pay, bonuses, moving expenses, overtime, taxable fringe benefits, and commissions.”
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Same places I’ve worked, and this happened in PA. The bonuses were not treated like salaried pay, they were a separate check. The combination of IRS bonus percentage (25%), plus all the usual payroll deductions tacked on basically cut what the employees got in half.
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Do you really need years of experience to take items off a shelf and put them in a box? Is that experience really valuable?
I find that in almost any job experience yields efficiency. As does grateful and dedicated workforce.
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I was wondering how amazon could effectively double the wage of huge numbers of workers and not see any financial ruffling.
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It is withheld at 50%, but taxed at the rate that you pay for any other income. There’s a difference between the withholding rate and your tax rate.
The IRS does treat bonuses differently from the point of view of withholding, but the tax rate you ultimately pay for a bonus on April 15 is no more than the taxe rate you pay on other income. Since your marginal tax rate on April 15 is going to be be less than 50%, you will get money back from that overpayment when you file your return. That said, it sucks to have to wait until you file to get your money back.
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True. In my experience bonuses weren’t taxed at 50% - more like 40% but it still sucks.
ETA Winnings from things like sweepstakes and lotteries are taxed at closer to 50%. And to make things extra shitty if you “win” something through work like, say, a laptop or car or something you’re on the hook for taxes on the value of your winnings unless they take a hit and pay them for you.
I’m afraid its been so many years since I drew a salary it sounds like things have changed since then.
All I can say is what a horrible thing to do to people on Salary. At least apply it only to people earning higher wages or larger bonuses. Where TF did this come from?
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This is what continues to happen to the newspaper industry.
