Amazon Is Giving 500,000 Employees a Raise After Squashing Union Efforts
Pay increases between $0.50 USD and $3 USD per hour.
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it would be giving more than 500,000 of its employees across the U.S. a raise, a $1 billion USD investment that follows squashed union efforts at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.
In a statement, Amazon executive Darcie Henry said that pay increases will be between $0.50 USD and $3 USD per hour. The company already offers a starting minimum wage of $15 USD per hour and says it invested over $2.5 billion USD in “additional bonuses and incentives for front-line teams.”
The company is also hiring for tens of thousands of jobs in its customer fulfillment, delivery, package sorting and specialty fulfillment teams across the U.S. and moved its annual fall pay review for those teams forward. Pay increases will begin rolling out from mid-May through June.
Amazon defeated the landmark union drive earlier this month, with labor union advocates accusing the company of stifling employees’ free choice. In a statement on April 9, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union said that Amazon “illegally interfered in the union vote.”
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos addressed the vote in a letter to shareholders this month, admitting that the company needed to do more to support its workers.
“Does your Chair take comfort in the outcome of the recent union vote in Bessemer? No, he doesn’t,” Bezos said. “I think we need to do a better job for our employees.”
Last month, Twitter banned an army of fake accounts pretending to be Amazon ambassadors who aggressively defended the company from criticism.
