Dive Brief:
- Amazon this week announced what it called its “biggest ever investment in pay and benefits” for 800,000 workers, which amounts to more than $2.2 billion: Full-time front-line fulfillment and transportation employees who work a 40-hour week will get an hourly pay bump of at least $1.50.
- Hourly workers will also get a free Prime membership as long as they work for Amazon, according to a company blog post from Udit Madan, vice president of Amazon Worldwide Operations. And an education benefit has been tweaked to allow workers to access language classes when they’re hired rather than waiting 90 days.
- The increase brings these employees’ average hourly wage to more than $22, below the $24.57 average hourly earnings for retail workers as of August, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. With healthcare benefits and other perks, the average compensation tops $29 per hour, Amazon said.
Dive Insight:
Amazon’s hourly pay raise comes amid increased pressure from its workers.
The same day Madan’s post was published, hundreds of Amazon warehouse employees in St. Louis at a facility known as STL8 held a press conference where they said they were demanding $25 per hour. In that metro area, a living wage for an adult with no children is $21.10 per hour, for an adult with a child is $36.48, and for two adults, both working, with two children, is $26.16 per hour, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator.
Under the new system, the starting hourly wage at STL8 will be $19 per hour, according to Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards.
In an emailed statement Friday, Ash Judd, an Amazon STL8 worker and STL8 Organizing Committee member, said the workers “made this $1.50 raise happen through our tireless organizing, and we’ll keep fighting until we reach $25.”
“STL8 workers like me have fought for higher pay and safer work since our organizing committee went public in 2022,” Judd said. “Early this summer, we started wearing $25 buttons inside our warehouse and circulated petitions during breaks and shift changes. Amazon will put their own spin on this raise, but we know nothing moves without the workers, when it comes to getting customers their packages on time and when it comes to winning the higher pay we deserve.”
In an email Friday, however, Hards said the new policies came out of the company’s annual review of its “wages and benefits to ensure they stay competitive — and in many cases industry-leading” and were unrelated to the worker action.
The e-commerce giant has battled union efforts at several of its warehouses. This year, the Amazon Labor Union, a small independent collective that has successfully unionized an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, New York, voted to join forces with the Teamsters. The labor giant had previously opened a division dedicated to Amazon.
Amazon’s announcement also comes the same week that Sam’s Club said it would increase its starting wage to $16 and accelerate pay raises for nearly 100,000 front-line workers. That brings the warehouse retailer’s average hourly pay to about $19, an increase of nearly 30% in the past five years.