Amazon's backlash comes as workers demand higher wages

Amazon is currently facing disgruntled employees on every front.

Office workers are protesting CEO Andy Jassy's return to office mandates, Fortune reports—which a leaked document shows Amazon also plans to gut, Business Insider reports. Despite the biggest layoff in Amazon's history, CNBC reported, hundreds of drivers are flocking to join a union to negotiate better working conditions. And hundreds more unionized warehouse workers are increasingly unionizing nationwide to demand a $25 an hour minimum wage. On Wednesday, workers everywhere were encouraged to leave a voicemail to Jaycee that boosted workers' demands for a $25 minimum wage.

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The momentum has been building for years after drivers unionized in 2021. And all this collective anger seems to be increasingly pressuring Amazon to negotiate better conditions for some workers.

Just last week, Amazon added $2.1 billion — its “biggest investment ever” — to improve driver safety and raise driver wages.

Unionized warehouse workers told Ars they are seeking a similar investment from Amazon, which currently pays an average minimum wage of $20.50.

“We work at a breakneck pace,” Christine Manno, an Amazon fulfillment center worker at Amazon site STL8 in St. Louis, Missouri, who was injured and never expects to work again, told Ars. “We put smiles on the faces of billionaires, and we think this is prime time for real growth for workers. Many of us are struggling with food and housing, yet Andy Jassy took home over $14,000 an hour last year and Amazon is making billions in profits.”

On Wednesday, Amazon finally appeared to bow to pressure from warehouse workers by announcing a compromise on wage increases. The company said it is investing $2.2 billion to raise hourly supplement workers' base pay to “above $22 an hour and above $29 an hour with benefits,” Reuters reported.

But while workers have claimed victory, they are no longer going to sit back and take a pay bump. Ash Judd, an STL8 worker on the organizing committee with Manno, told Ars that workers “raised this $1.50 through our tireless organizing, and we will continue to fight until we reach $25.”

Given recent gains and the increasingly dire financial plight of workers, Amazon workers likely won't be easing into the e-commerce giant anytime soon. Some office workers told Fortune they are looking for other remote work to avoid returning to the office, threatening “soft exits” and claiming Amazon is “regressing” with stricter office policies than pre-Covid times. “This is a layoff in disguise,” one apparent worker complained on Reddit. “Get back to the office or you'll be fired and we won't have to pay any severance or unemployment.”

With many workers frustrated, it may now be a question of when Amazon will respond to their growing demand, according to Beth Gutelius, director of research at the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Research shows that the presence of collective bargaining agreements exerts upward pressure on wages and working conditions, both in facilities that are unionized and those that are not,” Gutelius told Ars. “Based on that evidence, I would expect working conditions at Amazon to improve.”

Gutelius co-authored a May report documenting the financial insecurity of Amazon warehouse workers by surveying more than 1,400 across 42 states.