Amazon Company: Global Organization of Labor

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Table of Contents

Employees’ Majority
Unions
Top Executives’ Salaries
Employees’ Salaries
Gender Balance
Managerial and Employee Diversity
Campaigns
Response
Bibliography

Employees’ Majority

Amazon is one of the largest employers in the USA. As of 2015, the company employs about 231,000 workers, both full-time and part-time (The Statistical Portal 2016). The company headquarters is located in Seattle, Washington. Considering the fact that Amazon is an international company, it has 50 fulfillment centers and warehouses in the USA only, employing more than full-time 90,000 employees and about 130,000 workers that perform their duties outside these facilities. It should be said that the majority of the employees (about 24,000) work in Washington State (Soper 2015). The peculiarity of the company’s labor policy is seasonality so based on that it can hire thousands of extra employees per high season.

Unions

The situation with unions in regards to Amazon can be characterized as strongly negative. The company is known for its anti-union policies, and it has a long history of fending off labor unions of the USA from the moment of its creation in 1994 (Kopytoff 2014). In 2014, the Amazon workers neglected the idea of representing their interests by the Union again. The company’s management has a very clear position regarding this matter: “With today’s vote against third-party representation, our employees have made it clear that they prefer a direct connection with Amazon…” (Kopytoff 2014). Amazon has made serious efforts to achieve such a result, inviting law firms that specialize in withstanding the organized labor.

Top Executives’ Salaries

Amazon is known today as a huge company with tremendous revenues. It has made about $60 billion in 2012 in sales only (Thomas 2012). However, the company pays its executives considerably low salaries. According to Thomas (2012), the senior vice president that manages the international retailing business, Diego Piacentini, has made only $175,000 in 2012. The salary of Jeff Wilke, the executive manager of the consumer business in North America, was $10,000 less than Piacentini’s in the same year (Thomas 2012). On the other hand, top executives have substantial stock grants, so they do not complain, considering the growth of Amazon.com shares’ prices.

Employees’ Salaries

The salary the rest of the employees has depends on the position and work they perform. A warehouse worker earns from $9 to $14 per hour or $23,000-$35,000 per year. Software engineers earn much more, making about $90,000-$160,000 per year (PayScale 2016). Despite the considerably significant salaries, the employees of Amazon are not happy with their work conditions because of the internal policies’ strictness and excessive demands from the employer. The time of the workers is strictly regulated and controlled, while the conditions to follow these regulations are not created (Young 2013). Despite the claims that Amazon treats its workers well and pays 30% more than the usual retail stores do, employment in Amazon is not a very attractive choice.

Gender Balance

Amazon has a similar gender balance to the other large companies on the market. The company states that gender split across all positions is from three to two men to one woman. According to Neal (2014), “The percentage is slightly lower than those of Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Twitter, which all show a 70/30 split in favor of men, Facebook with 71/29 and LinkedIn with 61/39.” Women are paid less than men are (Gibson 2016). Amazon is criticized for the insufficient efforts in this area despite the claims of the executive management about the work done to improve the ratio.

Managerial and Employee Diversity

The statements of Amazon regarding managerial and employee diversity have presented the following situation. Most of the employees are men (63%), and there are 60% of white workers (Mac 2014). Over 75% of managerial positions are occupied by men, and about 70% of them are white. Only 15% of employees are African Americans, and they occupy only 4% of managerial positions. Hispanics and Asians constitute 9% and 13% respectively, and only 4% and a significant 18% of them are managers (Mac 2014). Finally, women work at 40% of workplaces in the company and only each fourth manager in Amazon is a woman.

Campaigns

Considering the strictness of the Amazon policies regarding unionizing the workforce, employees of the company have no opportunities to withstand their rights using strikes or unite anyhow differently for this purpose. However, certain changes took place when one of the warehouse workers, Brian Weiss, voiced his worries about the security of the parking lot of the company (Soper 2014). Managers from the HR department called him and reprimanded him because of this. He filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Former works of other warehouses initiated lawsuits again the company due to similar reasons (Soper 2014). Amazon had to settle the issues, negotiating behind closed doors.

Response

Today, the company has managed to agree to implement several changes to the rules of communication of the workers through the official company’s channels. The employees obtain the opportunity to talk about the problems they experience at work without the pressure of the potential punishment (Soper 2014). Amazon was obliged to provide its employees with the right to organize unions.

Bibliography

Gibson, Kate. 2016. “Amazon Resists a Push for Gender Pay Equality.” CBS News. Web.

Kantor, Jodi. “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace.” The New York Times. Web.

Kopytoff, Verne. 2014. “How Amazon Crushed the Union Movement.” Time. Web.

Mac, Ryan. 2014. Amazon Releases Diversity Numbers for The First Time and Surprise, It’s Mostly Male and White.” Forbes. Web.

Neal, Dave. 2012. Amazon Diversity Report Draws Criticisms on Race and Gender Balance. Web.

PayScale. 2016. Average Salary for Amazon.com Inc Employees. Web.

Soper, Spencer. 2014. “Amazon Worker Forces Changes as Labor Board Settles Claim.” Bloomberg. Web.

Soper, Taylor. 2015. “Huge Growth: Amazon Reaches 222,400 Employees, Hires 39,000 in Last Quarter Alone.” GeekWire. Web.

The Statistical Portal. 2016. “Number of Amazon.com Employees from 2007 to 2015.” Statista. Web.

Thomas, Owen. 2012. “The Highest-Paid Executive at Amazon.com Only Makes $175,000 A Year.” Business Insider. Web.

Young, Angelo. 2013. “Amazon.com’s Workers Are Low-Paid, Overworked and Unhappy; Is This the New Employee Model for The Internet Age?” International Business Times. Web.

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