Amazon has decided to increase the minimum wage for it’s employees in the United States. Effective from the 1st of November, Amazon employees in the United States will earn a minimum of $15/hour.
The new policy will apply for employees working with Amazon, along with those employed by it’s subsidiaries, including Whole Foods. All in all, a total of 350,000 employees will stand to benefit from this policy change – including 100,000 seasonal employees.
The change comes even as US lawmakers are bearing down upon what they call (I kid you not) “Bad employers”. Senator Bernie Sanders, a powerhouse in the current American political landscape, recently introduced a bill to end corporate welfare. And check this out: the bill is titled Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop-BEZOS). Get it? Get it?
Speaking on the topic, Bezos (The Amazon CEO Bezos, not the bill) said:
We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead. We’re excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us.
All existing employee benefits will continue as they are, apart from the RSU stock grant program, which will be phased out for hourly fulfillment and customer service employees and. The stock grant program will be replaced with a direct stock purchase plan. The company also said that it will be lobbying for an increase in the federal minimum wage from federal $7.25.
As per the company’s public policy team:
We believe $7.25 is too low. We would look to Congress to decide the parameters of a new, higher federal minimum wage.
