Amazon tops up pay longtime staff after disgruntled workers email Jeff Bezos directly

Jeff Bezos, CEO of
Amazon.
Alex Wong / Getty
Images

• Amazon announced that it would boost the pay of
  longtime workers to counter fears that a new minimum wage
  increase would actually leave them out of pocket.
• That’s after Amazon last week said it would up its
  minimum wage to $15 an hour starting November 1, including for
  part-time and temp workers, but also said it would phase out
  monthly bonuses and stock options for its hourly
  employees.
• Amazon is giving workers that already make $15 an
  increase of $1.25, and announced it will be introducing a
  direct stock purchase plan in 2019.

Amazon’s minimum wage increase has resulted in some unexpected
backlash.

While many welcomed the news that Amazon was upping its minimum
wage to $15, including longtime critic Senator Bernie Sanders,
some Amazon workers raised concerns that they were having other
benefits cut.

After announcing its new minimum wage, Amazon said it would cut
monthly bonuses and stock grants for hourly workers. For some
longtime workers making more than $15 an hour they worried that
their total pay might actually decrease.

In
a blog post about the wage increase, Amazon stated that it
would be phasing out its RSU (restricted stock unit) program
because, it had heard from warehouse workers that they, “prefer
the predictability and immediacy of cash.”

However, a group of
41 Amazon workers in the UK sent emails to Jeff Bezos
directly asking to have their employee share and incentive
schemes restored.

On Wednesday Amazon responded to the employee backlash, saying it
would adjust compensation accordingly so that all employees would
see the benefit of the wage increase.

“We moved quickly to get this information to our teams as fast as
possible knowing there would be certain cases that would need to
be adjusted between the announcement and November 1st when this
new $15 minimum takes effect,” Amazon
said in a statement on Wednesday.

It said it would be, “adjusting site by site and person by person
as needed since the announcement to ensure everyone experiences
the benefit of this change.”

Amazon said in
a statement shared across multiple outlets that workers who
already earn $15 an hour will see an increase of $1.25, rather
than $1.

“All hourly operations and customer service employees will see an
increase in their total compensation as a result of this
announcement,” Amazon said. “The significant increase in hourly
cash wages effective November 1 more than compensates for the
phase out of incentive pay and future [stock] grants.”

Amazon also said that while some employees have benefited from
owning stock, there’s no guarantee that this stock would continue
to be quite so valuable.

“Some employees have benefited from a bull market and the
unusually strong appreciation of Amazon’s stock price in recent
years. This is a good outcome for those employees, but such stock
price appreciation is by no means guaranteed to continue. Stock
markets and individual stocks can go up, but they can also go
down,” Amazon said.

“For employees who want to invest in stock for the possibility of
future growth, we will be rolling out a direct stock purchase
plan in 2019. We are continuing to roll out the details of all
these changes to employees this week.”