Good to see The Stranger printing propaganda.

Yeah that raise is not really a raise. Hourly wage goes up, stocks and benefits taken away. The employees end up making less. It's all smoke and mirrors. Jeff Bezos does not give a shit and he will never give a shit and once when he's finally destroyed Seattle and is taking his dirt nap, those left holding the Amazon back will not give a shit either.

*holding the Amazon bag

Yo....you wanted $15 an hour to put a box on a conveyor....now you got it.

The left never thinks things through

“Are you part of a union?”

Then you can tell your City Council’s Socialist Alternative Party Member you want “NO HEAD TAX!!” in a supremely organized manner, one which will not — repeat, NOT — be reported in The Stranger. (Nor will it be celebrated by any self-appointed champions of workers’ rights.)

"by Members of the Seattle Democratic Socialists of America"

Which members? Are they officially speaking on behalf of the entire chapter? Why don't the authors want their names associated with this? And why would The Stranger agree to run a guest editorial without identifying the authors?

My criticisms have nothing to do with the content of the post. The circumstances under which it was published are a discredit to the chapter, DSA as a whole, and this media outlet.

The only thing keeping Bezos up at night is the hollow void where his soul should be, the inexorable pull of the vacuum that he attempts to sate with a crusade to deliver the consumer to a holy land wholly filled with plastic knick knacks fulfilled cheaper and faster than ever before; but with every payload, whether to doorstep or the threshold of space, he comes to realize that the more he feeds it, the stronger the vortex grows. There is a gnawing certainty growing alongside it: there is no escape, everything is still not quite enough. Time to, like every knight of avarice before him, slap his name boldly on a few good deeds and claim victory in the glory of himself. I am Ozymandias, look at my works ye mighty and despair.

The man who stares into that massive empty maw every day and thinks it his pet isn’t scared of impotent socialists. To join them, you must accept your ordinariness. You must admit to yourself that you are a loser. No self-respecting American would admit such a thing. A humble immigrant might, but even their child, immediately irradiated by the mighty sun of the land of opportunity, knows that to admit such a thing is to slip meekly into the infinite anonymous well of nothingness that Master Bezos seems to be escaping.

@13 Sooooooo profound dude.

@13: I am pretty sure you are supposed to be over 18 to post here.

@14, @15

Oh come on, give him a break. Writer's workshops can get really expensive, and these days they'll rip into you for quoting even Shelley, just for being British. Hell, I'd pick the more forgiving audience, too, if I had any new material to hammer out.

It's hilarious seeing all the Rightists bloviate over the fact that MW workers at AMZN are getting raises instead of one or two shares of stock; as if they've completely forgotten the fact that stocks only have value when you cash them in, whereas an increase in salary actually puts money in workers' pockets IMMEDIATELY. Sure, they can hold the stocks and watch the value increase, but it does them absolutely no good in the short-term, like, when the rent is due, or the doctor bills need to be paid, or the kids need clothes for school; but hey, they get to participate in the magicalness of "shareholder value", amiright?

@17

Even after cashing in, the amounts of stock offered to warehouse workers would be so small that they'd barely cover a medical deductable if one happened to come up in the sell window.

The change that's doing most of the damage here is the rescinding of bonuses (but only for blue-collar employees, of course).

" the amounts of stock offered to warehouse workers would be so small that they'd barely cover a medical deductable if one happened to come up in the sell window."

Citation please, and "up my arse" isn't sufficient.

Jeff. Dude — the size of your tie knot is three times what it should be. Money and taste are a rare pair in business.

Take note, this is happening as we approach Q4. Don't want labor issues during the holiday season, now do we?

@5- Bezos is the richest man in the world and Amazon is the second largest employer in the country. Amazon's revenue was nearly 200 billion last year, with around 3 billion in profit. Their employees are often reliant on public support despite working full time, so taxpayers subsidize that profit (and in other ways as well). This is why people focus on Amazon and Walmart warehouse workers rather than on small ones. But it's worth pointing out that the DSA is a national organization and there's nothing stopping local chapters around the country to work on unionizing and improving working conditions for workers at smaller companies as well. They are a part of the national fight for 15 and they are a socialist org, so I'd assume they are doing that too. But this is a Seattle newspaper publishing an op-ed by a Seattle org about Seattle workers at a company based in Seattle. Why would you expect them to talk about warehouse workers elsewhere?

@19:

Based on today's valuation (AMZN = $1,755.25), and hypothesizing a fulfillment center worker with one year of service, they would have received I believe three shares of stock; two upon hire and one more at their year anniversary. So, if they had a major medical situation today and were eligible to sell their shares they'd get roughly $5265.00, not counting any brokerage fees or Capital Gains taxes owed - so, call it $5K even just for shits and giggles. Assuming they make somewhere in the $32,000 - $35,000 a year range and have a low-premium/high-deductible plan, that $5,000 isn't going to cover much if it's a catastrophic event. Speaking from personal experience a weekend spent in an ICU can run $8,000 or more just to take up bed space, and doesn't include specialists, tests, medication, etc.

@24

Um, that's not how stock options work.

The company doesn't give you shares for free. It gives you an opportunity to BUY stock at a set strike price (market rate at time of hire, more or less) after a vesting period. Stock options are called "options" because that's what they are-- derivatives. They're basically open-term Call Options.

Amazon's share price isn't going up 100% a year anymore. Two shares of Amazon stock options, maturing today after a one-year vesting period, would put about $1,100 in your pocket after you turned around and sold them and paid your taxes-- around the amount of a typical medical deductable.