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goobster  ·  2024 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Squeezing the Worker

Amazon took issue with the way Bernie Sanders recently characterized their SNAP-eligible employees. Something like 90% of this demographic CHOOSES to work part-time jobs for their own reasons, therefore they are not eligible for Amazon's full-time benefits that kick in after 35-hour work weeks.

So yeah... the issue is more nuanced than simply "Bad company, raping public multiple ways."

But it is the underlying systems - employer-provided healthcare, minimum hours, etc. - that lead to employers making these decisions that have unintended consequences.

And every employee that finds a way to cut costs or increase profits will get a good employee review. Will they always fully understand the impacts of their decisions on the global job market? No. Probably not. They just saw that part-timers were getting the same bennies as full-timers, and that the math didn't pencil out. So they suggested we "provide benefits at 35-hours", and save money.

You really can't fault the base thinking, there. It's the knock-on effects further down the pipeline that we have a hard time predicting and calculating until after the fact... then it's a news story.