by BASIC POINTS
- Fulfillment and transportation workers’ base pay will rise to more than $19 an hour
- Amazon has also expanded its payment access and launched a new professional development program
- Warehouse workers in Albany will vote on unionization in mid-October
Amazon announced it will start paying frontline workers more than $19 an hour, up from $18 an hour, starting next month. The announcement came as warehouse workers in Albany, New York, prepared for union elections next month.
“The average starting pay for front-line customer satisfaction and transportation employees is increasing from $18 an hour to more than $19 an hour,” the e-commerce giant said in a press release Wednesday. Amazon’s front-line employees consist of warehouse workers and drivers.
The company will spend nearly $1 billion on pay raises next year.
“Starting in October, Amazon’s average starting pay for US frontline workers will rise to more than $19 an hour” https://t.co/gPVLtgqpVG
— Erik Brynjolfsson (@erikbryn) September 29, 2022
Amazon further revealed that it has expanded its pay access program, Anytime Pay, to allow employees to “access up to 70% of their eligible earned pay – whenever they choose and without fees.”
It is also introducing a career development opportunity program that will help “place employees in engineering roles within Amazon Web Services (AWS), working to operate Dedicated Cloud regions of AWS. The program, called Amazon Intelligence Initiatives , aims to provide better career opportunities to 300,000 employees by 2025.
The e-commerce company’s announcement came just weeks before a scheduled union election for warehouse workers in Albany.
INBOX: An Amazon warehouse in Albany, New York will vote on whether to unionize @amazonlabor (the same club that won in Staten Island) in October.
It would be Amazon’s second US warehouse to become unionized. pic.twitter.com/CludrWcJKM
— Lauren Kaori Gurley (@LaurenKGurley) September 14, 2022
Workers at the Schodack ALB1 warehouse, located southeast of Albany, will vote between Oct. 12 and 17 to decide whether they want union representation at the company, Amazon representatives told CNBC earlier this month.
Organizers at the ALB1 warehouse filed for unionization with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in August. Kayla Blado, a spokeswoman for the agency, said at the time that the NLRB’s Buffalo office had begun the verification process to confirm whether employees have expressed interest, CNBC reported.
Amazon spokesman Paul Flaningan said in mid-September that the tech giant was skeptical whether Albany union organizers had collected enough “legitimate signatures” to advance to the October election, while pledging to support workers’ right to ” to have their voice heard. “
Trouble is mounting for Amazon amid the upcoming election, as federal regulators have moved to force the company to rework its regulations on workers’ use of off-work spaces.
Just last week, the NLRB’s Brooklyn office said in a complaint that the e-commerce company “selectively and disproportionately applied a rule” that prohibits workers from posting pro-union signs in non-work areas at the LDJ5 warehouse, one of the fulfillment of Amazon in Staten Island. facilities, the New York Times reported.
The agency further noted that Amazon “discriminatoryly” applied the rule “against workers who participated in union activity.”
In response, Flaningan said the regulator’s allegations “are completely without merit,” adding that Amazon was trying to refute the claims about the solicitation policy.
