Amazon, the largest U.S. Corporation announced it would raise its minimum wage to $15/hour to be effective next month. The raise would cover 350,000 plus workers including full time, part time, temporary and seasonal workers. Amazon's actions were looked upon as a major victory for the $15/hour movement. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said we listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do and decided we wanted to lead. Amazon also said it would push congress to increase the federal minimum wage that now stands at $7.25/hour.
Amazon is the company President Trump tried to ridicule because it has a contract with the USPO at a discount rate to handle its shipments. But the Post Office struck back and pointed out that the business with Amazon is profitable. Trump's real reason for his hit on Amazon is that its founder, Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post which has run a number of stories concerning Trump' lies and his campaign's involvement with Russia.
Amazon's actions long with the many states that have raised their minimum wage will go a long way to keep the ball rolling for employees to be paid a decent wage and share in the profits CEO's and their executives have been enjoying for the past 30 plus years. Just think, American bread and butter industries could have been doing this long ago but ignored the average worker big time.
PolitiDose will be watching to see who follows Amazon's actions.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
