Will all Amazon HQ2 jobs be good jobs?
The company's recent promise to pay all of its employees at least $ 15 an hour does not apply to subcontractors who supply the company with bathroom cleaners, landscapers and window washers. Nor zal het betrekking hebben op de duizenden van voedseldiensten en retail jobs die naar verwachting zullen ontstaan als gevolg van Amazon's nieuwe outposts.
"This is an incredibly one-sided deal," says Tanya Goldman, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit think tank in Washington DC that focuses on alleviating poverty. "There are people who are going to get $ 150,000 a year, but we are going to exacerbate racial disparities and economic inequality." The instinct that not all of these jobs are going to be good jobs is going to be correct. "
Amazon's track record in Seattle may tell us something about what to expect in New York and Virginia, but it has also been heavily shaped by the city's role as a trailblazer in the United States on raising wage floors and labor standards .
The company said that its presence in the city, where 45,000 people now work at its original campus, had given rise to 53,000 additional jobs through the end of 2017. The largest chunk of those are in construction, followed by retail, hospitality and healthcare. They have increased the income of non-Amazon employees by $ 17 billion, and encourage their contractors to pay at least $ 15 an hour.
In addition, Seattle provides a supportive environment for union organization. De meeste grote bedrijven hebben nu contract uit hun bouwdiensten, zoals landscaping en beveiliging, wat betekent dat de contractuele dienstarbeiders de voordelen van de onderneming's white-collar werknemers niet krijgen. But in Seattle, many of these contractors are unionized – including Amazon's janitors, whose contract guarantees family healthcare coverage and other protections.
"Regardless of whatever corporation is in your home town, you have to continue to push for living wages and the right to unionize," says Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda.
So, what does that mean for Amazon's new corporate homes?
"I think it's outrageous that our minimum wage working population would be able to cross the border and make twice as much, "says Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol. Det er også et skattemæssigt problem: Lavlønner kræver at staten plukker opp slacken. "Vi har virkelig slitt som en lokalitet for å finne nok av et sikkerhetsnett for folk som jobber utrolig hardt."
"They could put in place workplace protections," says Roshan Abraham, a member of the steering committee of Our Revolution Arlington. "Unionizing is one of them. Even if they just did it in Virginia as a first step, that would be a good signal to us."
Arlington County Council still has to vote on the $ 23 million cash grant it offered Amazon, but that's not a lot of leverage, and the County has shown no willingness to hold up what it otherwise sees as a very good deal for the area by imposing other requirements on Amazon.
"The fact that the state is going to come up about $ 3.2 billion in revenue after incentives are paid is a hard argument to turn away from considering these incentives," states state senator Adam Ebbin, who represents the Arlington neighborhoods Amazon plans to occupy, as well as Alexandria to the south. "Den ting jeg har å väga er den statens pakke inneholder betydelige penge til transport i vores distrikt som burde hjælpe os generelt. Og det er en stor ting."
Rather than requirements, local officials are counting on pure supply and demand to support good jobs. Stephanie Landrum, president of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, says creating the environment for businesses to make more money should trickle down to employees, especially in an area where unemployment is already low.
"If you're working at a restaurant, there's only one shift because there's not enough demand, if a business comes along that sends in customers, then you can pick up more shifts," Landrum says. "
" For nogle oppositionsgrupper, er bekymringen om Amazonas ankomst stems mere fra en frykt om at selv marginalt højere lønninger ikke vil være i stand til at følge med de stigende omkostningerne af boliger fueled by astronomical tech salaries – as well as a more global objection to Amazon's business practices.
"Their entire model is based on exploiting and destroying small businesses," said Renata Pumarol, deputy director of New York Communities for Change, which is part of a coalition of unions and community groups organizing against subsidies for Amazon. "In a city that's already facing the worst affordability crisis that we have ever seen, what a company like that would do to New York would be absolutely devastating."
Pumarol says that the best way for Amazon to help would be employing graduates from the City University of New York, who serves the city's working-class students, rather than importing tech workers from Ivy League schools.
"We're just not ready to say what we need from Amazon," she says. "We're just saying no to the subsidies and no to Amazon coming to New York City."
