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Amazon Offers To Help Train Workers For Other Jobs
itwbennett writes "Amazon, which has come under attack for harsh warehouse working conditions, on Monday announced a new training benefit program for fulfillment center employees. The program will cover 95% of the cost of vocational training for jobs that Amazon determined to be in high demand and that pay relatively well, including aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technology, medical laboratory science and nursing."
Two limitations of note: the maximum Amazon will contribute is $2,000/year for four years, and the employees need to have worked full-time for three consecutive years before they can take advantage of the program.
Really, nothing stopping them from temp employees being tossed.
Three full years in an Amazon.com warehouse? From the stories, that sounds like a death sentence.
An Amazon Education: "Sucharita Mulpuru, the retail analyst for Forrester Research, was unimpressed. "It seemed self-congratulatory," she said in an interview. "Most companies, when they treat their workers well, that's just what they do. They don't say, "This is a reason you should do business with us.'"
I can almost pay for the gasoline needed to get to work! Thanks Amazon! Fuck the Unions!
god damn unions always fighting for a living wage n shit, buncha assholes!
because 2000 really covers 95% of fees for ANY education...
Hey, it may be a shit sandwich, but at least it's a sandwich, which is more than they got before...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I imagine we'll see more contract, part-time employees and a rash of mysterious sackable offences from employees at 2 years and 364 days.
They just staff the place with tons and tons of 'part-time' workers.
Who were hired and told it was fulltime and then the hours slip down. And ohhh now you don't get full benefits and all that. Complain, ask for more hours? try to get more hours somehow? overtime? ohhhhhhh... you are so fired. For some minor complaint we documented months ago just in case of this.
Didnt happen to me directly. But i saw it happen to alot of employees.
Seems like a very corporate thing to do.
Amazon knows they can pull the same thing. While making noise that they care.
[SARCASM]Where can I sign up[/SARCASM]
I was a temp, got converted, then hired into IT. Luckily there was a career path I was interested in... Due to what the company is and does, there just isn't much room for upward mobility or different career paths. They listened to the warehouse workers and gave them this option, which everyone loves. You put in your time and do your job, and after three years you can do what you want, and Amazon will pay for it.
I'm speechless.
and a really, really nasty one. Take a look at the 'in demand' jobs. Aircraft Mechanic? CAD? What is this, 1980?
It's a diploma mill. Amazon sends their employees to a diploma mill, gets a kick back from the mill, some of their workers pay for training they should've got on the job, and gets a nice tax break to boot, so the whole thing's paid for by the taxpayer.
The worst thing is the employee comes out of the mill with a tonne of debt and no marketable skills. And they worked really hard to do it too. This is awful. It's taking advantage of people's hopes and dreams while grinding them to dust. It is literally the most awful thing I've ever seen a company do outside of Bhopal.
There so much awful here I just don't know what to say. I didn't know people could be this bad...
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How well or poorly does NewEgg treat its warehouse workers? How about Overstock, or Buy.com, or any of the other comparable online retailers?
And really, while people here will complain about Amazon's treatment of its workers - if they have the lowest price, will you truly not buy from them because of it? Or will you just dodge the question and say "XYZ.com always beats them on price anyway, so I shop there"?
#DeleteChrome
The first thing that popped into my mind was the apartment complex where I used to live that sold apartments by telling people they could get $4,000 if they became first time home buyers when they left. They didn't mention the little detail (though it was on the pamphlet) of how you had to get a mortgage through the specific provider for whom they made the deal. It was an advertisement for a mortgage company and they used it to entice you to rent with them.
This deal doesn't sound like that, but working the same job for 7 years for pay plus an extra $8,000 (vested over 4 years starting at the end of year 3) sounds terrible. This should only be used by those people who find themselves "trapped" there anyway at the end of three years. And I hope they were saving during that time, because that $2,000/yr won't go far.
"The program will cover 95% of the cost"
"the maximum Amazon will contribute is $2,000/year for four years"
2,000 $/yr * 4 yr = .95 X
X = $8421
So apparently you can become a trained aircraft mechanic for not much more than $8,000. Which is about 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of a common Bachelor's degree.
Yeah, either the summary dropped a zero somewhere, aircraft mechanics are trained far less than you would think, or that 95% figure is *way* off.
Living wage my ass. Union shovel/broom-jockeys in my neck of the woods make twice what any other entry-level position in the area pays and they get benefits on top of that.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
"You should buy stuff from us instead of WalMart because we treat our employees about 50% better than they do."
separate matter: the folks here who are saying that working three years in a warehouse is a death sentence should get out and meet some real people, and try a bit harder to not be entitled pricks. One caveat: if you do meet a real warehouse worker (or dock worker, or other transportation/inventory logistics person), watch out for your teeth.
Here's another angle: people who have the self-discipline to work in a tough job like that for at least three years without quitting and going home to live in their parents' basement stand a good chance at managing the demands of the work/school balance and will likely complete their coursework.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
US businesses can deduct up to $5250 per employee per year in schedule C federal income tax filings for tuition reimbursement. I guess Amazon would rather pay taxes than help employees realize their full potential.
sorry, I had been a box monkey for most of my 20's, the work is mindless, dirty, hotter than hell during summer, cold as shit during winter and requires long hours of physical activity and standing on your feet all while getting meh pay...
and yet whenever you see an amazon warehouse, they have padded mats to stand on, roller tracks, and fairly new equipment and the place is pretty organized and clean... I only had one warehouse job during that time and I considered it pretty cushy ... though a honest days work.
harsh is trodding a 1,100 lb palette of car batteries 50 yards in 112 degree heat on a palette jack with a lumpy wheel that liked to drag, but I did it for 3 years to keep the rent paid while in school. I would love to see what is harsh is in a state of the art warehouse that's not ran by two hillbilly brothers and only 1 forklift in the building that's busted half the time and a leaky roof.
yea get off my lawn, but at the same time quit being a pussy, there are a lot tougher jobs out there than box monkey #21.
and people goto full time colleges and come out the same way lot's of debt and big skills gaps.
We need a middle of the road system building on the training system and add apprenticeships to it. College is to far to the theory side of things and is loaded with stuff from the past and lots of filler.
For some community college programmes that might be reasonable.
http://www.alameda.peralta.edu/apps/comm.asp?$1=20092
Lists aviation maintenance technology as a total cost of 3200 dollars including tuition and tools. Which presumably you could do in 1 year straight out of school, or in 2 or 3 if you're working at amazon, but hey, it's better than minimum wage at the end of it, and if you can't get student loans, or don't want to have them or whatever it's a better than nothing option.
You have to consider what 2000 dollars is relative to their existing pay. Amazon claims their fulfillment centres pay '30% more than a retail job', which are, apparently (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes412031.htm) 25k. So an employee making ~ 32k is getting offered 2k (tax free? not sure how that's like in the US), so 6% of your pay for a chance to get out of it. And at 32k you can at least live, not live well, but live, and not be in debt at the end of it. It's not spectacular, but it's still a lot of money.
Don't forget there is always approval wall. Reasons ive been given, heard from colleagues
1. Theres no budget (then they send someone using the same budget to an introductory course to java programming)(yah he was a java programmer %$&*&*)
2. You are well qualified and dont need training (contradict with promotion time , you dont have the qualifications that the other guy has)
3. You are in a critical role you need to train back up to cover( righhttttt)
4. Budget is used up
5. Not Your Turn
Besides after you are trained, there is no guarantee you can get that next opening in the company.
Also this programme is targeted at associate degrees and less, which really has very little value since there is a huge glut for bachelors
This should be a labor retention policy dressed as a training policy,
You prevent turnover for the duration of the course and also things such as pay increments and bad reviews. Employees tend not to hop when they have to study,they want stability. Even Bad Stability. I know i was one of them
Like they'll ever have time to use that benefit. Amazon are freaking slave drivers, working their employees around the clock
When you start with UPS as a warehouse worker you make less than minimum wage after initiation and dues for the first few years. Thanks for looking out for me Teamsters
Not really. Coming out of a proper college they come out better. They have new skills and abilities. Ones that are useful outside of their current employers work environment. What these mills do is one of two things: a) teach a useless skill or b) teach a highly, highly specialized skill only relevant to the current employer.
I'm not going to argue the intangible benefits to society of traditional College because I think the phrase 'intangible benefits' is shorthand for 'I'm too lazy to quantify the benefits so I'll just call them intangible".
Apprenticeships look good in theory, but that assumes we need that many full time workers. Automation and productivity increases mean we need less full time workers, not more. The filler will keeps students out of the work force, and properly applied give them better baseline thinking skills. They then contribute more to society as a whole (if only by virtue of being better citizens). Also, it's too easy for apprenticeships to devolve into free, borderline slave, labor. We're already seeing this with unpaid interns being made to do productive work.
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This seems a little patronizing. If I were an Amazon employee I might rather they take the money they're planning to spend subsidizing employee training and just pay it out in the form of additional salary. Then I could spend it on whatever I pleased.
The diploma mill issue is a good point. It's also important to note that besides kickbacks, trade schools with shady accreditation often pressure their reps to find new applicants. Also, less reputable schools often milk the federal student loan program for what it's worth by farming applicants and then saddling them with huge loans through high-pressure tactics (don't read, just sign it!). Hey, why should the school care if the student defaults? They're getting the gov't dough up front. Amazon might think they're going to get PR kudos, but in reality they're just compounding loan fraud, high default rates, disillusioned unemployed persons, and an already craptastic consumer economy. Who really loses? The hardworking student at a reputable institution who needs a federal loan and has the means and intent to pay it off. Students such as these will get shafted if/when Congress cuts down student loan programs because of the systemic problems cited.
Why is this modded funny? This isn't funny. I have been laid off the day before a raise or benefit increase multiple times in the last decade.
When the corporate policy says get X piece of paper and you will receive a 20% raise on your next review, be prepared to find yourself out of a job the day before that review. It happened to me, it will happen to you.
and when it comes time to get a raise, they can hold this over your head.
Id rather take a 2k/yr raise than this BS.
I have had hard jobs. Hauling drywall around for half a cent a square foot and a quota of 48,000 pounds a day for 100 bucks was the worst. (take that 16 ton coal miners) Some drywall is even covered in lead (x-ray rooms) that tripled the weight for the same pay. Taking it up 10 flights of stairs didn't pay any better either.
That job taught me some things:
Lead tastes delicious and it stains your skin smurf blue.
I know what asbestos smells like.
Go limp before you are crushed by something to avoid broken bones.
With enough weight falling on your hand all the blood can be forced to one side, splitting it open and spraying everything in the area.
Saying 'Fuck you! I'm calling OSHA.' when someone tells you to clean up the blood before you go home will get you fired.
OSHA doesn't care.
Good times.
Amazon just bought Kiva Systems, which makes warehouse fulfillment system robots. Kiva already powers orders from major brands including Crate and Barrel, Soap.com, Dillards, Drugstore.com, Gap, Office Depot, Saks, Staples, Timberland, Toys-R-Us, and Walgreens. This is what order fulfillment is like with those robots. It takes about two minutes to learn the job and there is no chance for advancement.
The people being "retrained" will be laid off soon.
The small business I work for offers full tuition reimbursement for any class provided you pass. Try again amazon.
We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
offered 2k (tax free? not sure how that's like in the US)
The devil's in the details of course but generally speaking, scholarships are tax-free.
Educational assistance is fairly common...
McDonalds, UPS...
http://work.lifegoesstrong.com/article/don-t-turn-your-back-free-education
"McDonald's tuition assistance program will reimburse up to $5,250 a year (which is the maximum IRS exemption), and $2,000 for part-time employees, which in effect adds two dollars an hour to someone's earnings. UPS has a program called Earn and Learn where students can have their tuition, expenses and transportation paid for if they work a part-time schedule; since 1999, UPS has paid out more than $47 million in tuition assistance alone."
B&N
http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/jobs/benefits/benefits.html
"Continuing Education
Our continuing education program offers full-time booksellers tuition assistance if you choose to further your business career by taking courses toward a job-related degree. "
Someone making 30k a year is only paying 15% anyways.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but maybe those "train workers" could find new jobs with Ruby on Rails.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
You apparently havent' interviewed the ignorant fools our "liberal arts" schools have been churning through. I see more motivation to work and desire to learn from University of Pheonix students than from Division I schools. Quality of the education appears to only be affected by the individual, not the schools.
Their front page, yesterday, said they'd pay up to 95% of your tuition, so to now read that it's up to "$2,000/yr" is a little disheartening. That's like a decent quarterly bonus, at best. I mean, it's better than nothing, but plenty of other companies have much better tuition assistance.
That's why we need to DESTROY the fucking unions. Bring everyone down to the same level that we deserve for being the shit eating losers that we are.
The local county community college here charges $112 per credit hour for part students. Two classes per term and three terms per year put you at $2,016 per year which is right about where the benefit maxes out. Coursework at that rate is probably on track for a student to get an associate's degree in four years with not much out of pocket other than books, and miscellaneous fees.
I think that's a fairly good deal for what is effectively a non-skilled manual labor position with limited room for growth.
Why bother? They're doing a fine job of destroying themselves by strangling the businesses they extort. Every union job held directly causes the unemployment of the person the other half of their wage could have paid.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
What makes sense to you, individually, does not matter.
As far as Amazon's labor practices are concerned, all that matters is the behavior of the majority of its customers.
The majority of its customers don't think reflectively, like you do. They do not hold your principles, and they cannot be made to. Most of them just aim for cheap and move on.
If you can find a way to nudge the masses to a higher state of being, mission accomplished! But until then, the only things that are going to drive a real improvement in labor conditions are going to be unions and governmental regulations (such as they are).
Amazon seems to be trying to get in front of these unpleasant alternatives. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
when you only make 30k 15% of 2000 = 300 bucks is a lot of money.
Depends how much those programmes usually cost. If you can get airline mechanic training for 3200 dollars one place and 32000 another down the road amazon is making clear it wants you in the 3200 dollar one.
Not to mention that it requires you to stay employed with Amazon for three years. There's two big caveats there - first, how many people working in the warehouses actually work for Amazon (as opposed to whatever temp agency they're contracting out to)? Second, considering how many US states have at-will employment, what's to stop them from punting you out the door at 35 months? (And if they're particularly screwy, waiting two weeks, then offering your job back - it says "consecutive", so any break in your work history will reset the clock.
I'm sure we'll hear some selected "success stories" from this, but I doubt Amazon is going to be funding a mass of long-term employees.
When you start with UPS as a warehouse worker you make less than minimum wage after initiation and dues for the first few years. Thanks for looking out for me Teamsters
Might want to check with those Teamsters first - it might be UPS figured out how to beat the system.
Here's the trick - union wages are great if you're planning to stay for a while, but if you're not intending to be there 10-20 years you don't really care what the wages will be at that point. Company knows this, so they offer a deal that has little/no salary bonus, but a decent-sized signing bonus. Get it in-front of the employees, and all those new folks will happily take a few grand up-front and miss the fact that they've screwed themselves long term. (Or more properly, screwed the guy coming after them).
What a tangled web of fallacy we weave. While I'd agree that _some_ Unions should be investigated, and other unions may be taking advantage, for the most part unions are there to do what the poster states. Here is a nice page for you to read on Labor Unions.
A person should not scrap the concept because of wrong doing, or else we would have nothing in the world. Find and Fix corruption, and regulate where necessary. Education, perhaps it should be sought out!
I wonder who is the ignorant one, since you vent on Liberal Arts yet neglect what the primary subject matter of Liberal Arts is: Critical Thinking. If one can think, they can learn any other subject.
Maybe you should learn what the Trivium was, and why it was the primary education for a couple thousand years. (though not always called Trivium the curriculum matched). then ask yourself why we did away with teaching Liberal Arts in public schools about fifty years ago.
As an example: Most coders coming out of schools now that lack Liberal Arts in their education are simply horrible. They lack problem solving skills, and have no desire to learn basic concepts of hardware. Most can't tell you why a Sparc binary can't run on their Windows box. They simply follow coding instructions that other people give them.. it takes them years to be useful beyond being told exactly what to do.
No, labor unions were a good idea back in the 30s when unemployment rates meant you had to take what they gave or be jobless. Today, with unemployment being a very workable eight-ish percent, they exist solely to enrich their members at the expense of the health of the companies they work for. As near as I can tell, their formula is take the average wage for the position, double it, ask for 25% more worth of benefits, and make it all but impossible to fire anyone even if they're incapable of or unwilling to doing their job.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
> separate matter: the folks here who are saying that working three years in a warehouse is a death sentence should get out and meet some real people, and try a bit harder to not be entitled pricks.
Hello. I currently work at a factory, albeit not one of Amazon's. We've worked almost 30 hours in the past two days. There is no AC. I fight heat stroke by using my own money to buy cans of Gatorade powder and share them with my shift. Management had their heads up their asses about it until I started making formal complaints about the heat. I'm a first aid provider, so it was well within my prerogative. It's not exactly a "death sentence" but I'm pretty sure we'd have had someone collapse by now but for my meddling. I've put in almost 3 years on the floor, so I think I'm qualified to speak about how things are on a production floor. I'll be brief: it sucks.
> Here's another angle: people who have the self-discipline to work in a tough job like that for at least three years without quitting and going home to live in their parents' basement stand a good chance at managing the demands of the work/school balance and will likely complete their coursework.
This is nice, but it does absolutely nothing for the vast majority of Amazon's temps, which make up half or more of their workforce. Maybe some will, but if they're anything like the guys I know, they'll never get the chance. The people who work where I do pretty much all have a record, a pile of bills, and can't afford any time for self-improvement. They're going to go home and play on an old x-box or buy a 40oz and try to forget how miserable work is. I hope the few who can make use of that chance do so, but I have no illusions about how many will.
You don't become a factory worker by having high self-discipline. You just don't. And if you do, you don't stay there long. I myself am lacking, though I actually did just complete an educational program that I hope will get me out of this dump. But I had spare cash and I'm one of the lucky few. We have a good crew and I try to take care of them. I have savings, unlike the rest, so I can afford liberties they cannot.
Yes, they work tough jobs and I'll give them respect for that. But I'm not one for starry-eyed delusions about how responsible the average factory worker is. They're not bad people, really, but you just don't end up in a factory job by being responsible. You just don't. If you're that damned responsible, you'll get the hell out of there before very long. Believe me, I can see where I've been irresponsible in the past, and I'm working my ass off to run straight out the damned door.