Amazon investors nuke proposed ethics overhaul and say yes to $212m CEO pay Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's first shareholder meeting was a rousing success for Amazon leadership and Jassy's bank account. But for activist investors intent on making Amazon more open and transparent, it was nothing short of a disaster. While actual voting results haven't been released yet, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky …
Should the pope be a catholic? the church votes...
You dont want pesky things like unions, health and safety, paying people properly and treating them like humans instead of disposable numbers to get in the way of profits, plus we have to pay top dollar to get the best talent at the C-level.
Lets face it.... a company that wants to put cameras in their delivery vans so they can moniter the drivers as closely as they do the rest of the disposable staff is'nt likely to do anything that may impact the money it makes
Exactly. As an American, i see a lot of lip service paid to "doing the right thing" but that only goes as far as the quarterly reports - from gun violence to middle class wages, America has completely sold its soul to the capitalist corporatist agenda. Only money matters, and that's now spread to EVERY first-world capitalist country (so don't go saying that your X country is "better" simply because you live there / you think it is. The entire world is now morally corrupt about money and your politicians will happily prove that to you in their next vote).
Agree 1000%. The capitalist west (and most of the world honestly) is now entirely driven by greed and power, with profit and growth at all costs. We are in a spiral now - staring into the void. It's not all about money, and nobody, yes nobody needs a $200m pay packet. Humanity really is screwed if we carry on like this.
The trouble is to Americans the Democrats are seen as being "the left" whereas to those outside of the US they are still to the right of centre.
So basic social ideas such as a national health service - free to all, paid for through taxation, is seen as some lunatic left idea that couldn't possibly work; outside of the UK...
Trouble is the Conservatives don't want it to work, because no profit in it for their mates - hence why they want US style healthcare, and will do anything, including nothing to assist the NHS in overcoming the waiting lists etc.
Also the NHS suffers from "the Unions" in the form of the Royal Colleges who are more interested in enriching their existing members than advancing health care. Hence are very good at ensuring as much of the additional monies government throws at the NHS reaches the pockets of their existing members often to the detriment of patients and the NHS (ie. do the same work but as a locum or through some other arrangement that pays more than normal hours - my brother was a registrar who played the games...). Not going after the Royal Colleges in the way she went after the NUM is another of Margaret Thatchers failings...
Some do, maybe. But the numbers are tiny.
If you want to see the effects of the different systems at population levels, try comparing relative mortality rates. You'll see that in every demographically significant segment, people in the UK are less likely to die than comparable people in the USA.
This post has been deleted by its author
" gun violence"
So you're fine with other forms of violence, but gun violence is a no-no. You'll be glad to hear, as guns are inanimate objects, that they are incapable of committing violence.
People like you make me sick. Violent people are the problem, not guns. Targeting guns because of what violent people do with them is wrong. Trying to take my guns because someone else uses them to commit violence is like you kicking your dog because somebody walking their dog let their dog shit in the neighbor's yard.
Want to end violence? Do something about violent people, not other people's property. Britain already proved that banning guns doesn't work. They've banned guns, knives and are now working on an acid ban. When acid is banned, violent people will just find something else to use.
You folks thumbing me down do realize that you're giving a huge thumbs up to letting violent people do as they wish because you'd rather go after the possessions of a law abiding person than dealing with the violent person, right? Because that is exactly what my post was saying - if violent people are the problem, deal with the violent person and not anything he might have in his hand.
What the US provides ample evidence of is that giving everyone access to guns without effective controls to prevent unsuitable people from having them doesn't work.
That is people with a history of violence and/or threatening behaviour, mental problems/irrational behaviour or are otherwise shown to be unreliable or irresponsible with regard to the needs of safe keeping and usage of such weapons.
The UK is proof that careful gun control does work, and thus largely preventing those who would use guns for violent and illegal means so that they will resort to stabbing one another with knives instead.
This post has been deleted by its author
Why is it, in a free society, acceptable for a Union, that has invested $0.00 (risked) can some into a company and effectively organize an extortion operation within the company. Any effort of the company to resist the extortion operation is viewed as union busting. Once the extortion organization in entrenched within the company, any effort to remove it can now be a violation of labor laws, no matter how uncooperative the union becomes.
Unions in today's world do 2 things, generate revenue for the Union to promote itself and its political agendas and restrict the earning power of the employees. In a union shop you get paid the same as the slacker next to you and your job performance means noting when it comes to your earnings. When there is a down turn at the company and staff must be reduced, your job performance means nothing as the unions require seniority be considered, no matter how poor the job performance of the senior staff.
When you compare OSHA reports of companies like Walmart, Target, etc. to Amazon their safety record is relatively the same. If there are egregious violations of safety it only takes one report to OSHA to start an investigation, Injuries MUST be reported to OSHA, that is not optional!
As someone who has worked in the construction industry for 20 year I can tell you that OSHA violations are no joke and can cost a company millions of dollars and operations can be shut down for months. Serious violations can cause people to end up in jail!
The majority of the BS reported on Amazon is just that, BS. It is the same for Walmart, both these companies are routinely vilified because they refuse to be extorted by unions!
No they can't. Because they can only leave if they can get better elsewhere. And that means both conditions and pay, not a trade off between the two if you are already near the bottom anyway.Least of all if there is no certainty of a new job. Especially not in the USA where there is no entitlement to free medical treatment.
It is the unions that have done much to create safer working environments by ensuring that accidents don't get hidden.
A friend of mine works as a solicitor supporting and representing employees that have had catastrophic injuries or even fatalities and the unions are always involved, even if the victim is not a union member. The reason for this is so that they can try and bring management to account. Let's be clear, this is not "Ambulance Chasing", due to a paper cut or stubbed toe, this is at the opposite end of the scale. The injuries are invariably life changing at best.
Having heard the amount of effort that management will put into to avoid culpability when it is absolutely clear to everyone there has been a breach of H&S defies belief. The bigger the company the more effort they put into wriggle out.
>It is the same for Walmart, both these companies are routinely vilified because they refuse to be extorted by unions!
Personally, I vilify Walmart because their employees are treated so badly they need tax-payer support, via Medicaid, food stamps and others. This means part of the billions in dollars of profit Walmart makes is stolen from me and other tax-payers, even if we never stepped inside one of their stores. The extortionist isn't the Union - it's Walmart, and tax-payers are the victims.
If unionizing Walmart means they will start paying employees enough to get them off state support, than more power to the unions, says I.
I would like to point out at this time that there is a huge difference between unions in the USA vs unions in Europe. They are as similar to each other as puppy dogs are to moon rocks - both exist, and that's where the similarities end. In the US, unions operate as for-profit entities whose main purpose is to extract the maximum amount of money from the companies and employees for the purpose of padding pockets, political payoffs and stripper G-strings, while on the other side of the pond the union represents the workers at the companies for which they work. Remember a few years back when VW was having financial problems and the union agreed to temporary wage cuts to help the company get back on its feet? That would never fly in the US, where the unions would bleed the company dry, then tell the workers "tough" when the company goes under. What a union used to be in the US is not the same as what a union is in the US today. Nor is it what a union in Europe is. Don't mix the two up. I'd gladly join a worker's union in Europe, but not a worker's union in the USA.
This post has been deleted by its author
A refrain commonly posted is "Go Woke, Go Broke". That's not a universal truth but plenty of companies have garnered significant bad press for adopting a Woke stance on something. There isn't any point to making big changes to something that's working. Lots of trained seals pound the buttons to order products through Amazon that they might be able to get for less if they shopped locally, but how much fun is that? They then wind up with the self-fulfilling principle of not being able to get those items locally as local businesses close their doors. There are many stores that are happy to special order items for you that you can pick up for free in a couple of days. Hardware, tools and building supplies are a good example. I have a standing order at the local corner shop for things at rock bottom prices and when the owner spots them at the wholesaler on offer, he gets them and sets them aside for me. Many times the snacks will be a day or two past their best by date, but perfectly fine and they won't last long in my possession anyway. Fortunately, the deals aren't so frequent that I wind up approaching a size parity with Babar.
Guiding a big company is like sailing. It's proper to make minor course corrections to take advantage of favorable winds and to avoid storms, but if you make wild navigation choices you can easily wind up going back the way you came. There is also a physics analogy where big companies have so much inertia that changing direction quickly is nearly impossible or very costly.
Buy local. Not really. My local people are a bunch of assclowns that make Amazon look good.
I needed a Helicoil kit to repair some stripped bolt threads. I went down to Ace Hardware, and it was locked to the shelving hangar. I had to get someone to unlock it, and he insisted on a) not letting me touch it - I had to argue with him to look at it enough to make sure it was the size I wanted, then b) I was walked to the counter like he had caught me shoplifting it.
I wasn't treated with that much security when I bought a gun. For a $35 repair kit, it's insulting.
I didn't buy it. I took a picture of the part number at the counter and walked out and ordered it online.
There are many stores that are happy to special order items for you that you can pick up for free in a couple of days
Not in MY neck of the woods. You ask if you can order something, and it's like you're speaking Martian. Then you get laughed at.
I don't order from Amazon, but I do order from B&H Photo, McMaster-Carr, Revzilla, Twisted Throttle, Motion Pro, Tower Hobbies, Makerhaus, Prusa, and a bunch of other places.
I'm with Gene on this. Around here, most of the truly "local" places (for "man stuff" anyway) are very cliquish - not very welcoming to new customers, and not offering to be terribly helpful, although there are exceptions like the local welding supply store and one of the local glass places. But the local gun stores, auto parts, lumber and building, hardware, and metal supply places don't do much if they don't "know you from church". These are truly local places founded and run by local businessmen - the kind of stores that people like to reminisce about fondly from the "Before Walmart" days. Meh, they weren't really that great then, and still aren't.
The chains are better at being friendly and helpful, although the depth of knowledge isn't very good. But still, the money is going back to Corporate, wherever that is, not staying "local", so other than the pittance they pay the counter people, most of the profit is going elsewhere. So in that aspect they aren't a great deal better than buying from Amazon or other online places.
"Meh, they weren't really that great then, and still aren't."
Apparently, things are different where I live. I do make an effort to get to know the managers at the local shops or the owners if it's independent. It's amazing how good the service is when you exchange pleasantries with the boss on the way in to shop for something. The employees notice that the boss calls you by name and smiles a greeting. The smart ones do, anyway.
I buy some stuff from B&H photo as there isn't a photo store where I live these days. I bought from McMaster for ages. I order some parts from Digi-key and Mouser and even more so since the Rat Shack went Tango Uniform. When I visit friends where I used to live, I'll often hit the local electronics store. Half the store is new stuff and the other half is surplus. I plan on at least an hour perusing the stock.
I avoid Amazon, Wally World and the other retail arms of the Chinese manufacturing company. Got a couple of killer deals on Starrett micrometers and gauge blocks at an estate sale today. The sellers had no idea of what they were worth. Odd that both were at that place as they didn't fit with the rest of the offerings.
I will concede that were I back in my "hometown" where I grew up, I would probably get better service. But I'm 40 miles away now, an "outsider" (been here 25 years, though) in what used to be a small town but now has big ambitions.
One day, after I'm dead, the wife is going to go through my tool chests and realize just how much tooling (and spare parts) I've accumulated for my "hobbies". She won't know what any of it does or how it's used, and will probably sell it for yard-sale prices. Somebody will be getting some Good Stuff at that point (assuming it isn't banned), so it's good I will be dead...
How about telling you employees to do their damn job and stop bitching! We have come to a point in America where people just don't want to work and they want to be paid well for hardly working! Now we have these morons in the Democrat party talking about $30.00 minimum wages! They have no idea that they will put the most needy people out of work! Which I believe is their who plan!
Let me tell you a story my child! The US Postal Service loses millions of dollars every year. I used to do IT work for the mail processing center in Jacksonville Florida. One of the managers told the story of a certain female employee, who was recorded on camera spending 6 hours a cay out side smoking! It took 9 months and multiple meetings with the Union before this person could be terminated! Even after her termination the union filed a law suit to reinstate her employment of receive compensation for "unlawful termination". Luckily the judge never let this go to a jury and threw the suit out!
Its one thing to treat your employees fairly, provide them with help care, vacation, and sick leave. Its another when those employees refuse to do the job they are assigned as is required and your viewed as the ass hat when you let them go.
At one level, remuneration in a private company (as opposed to a public, taxpayer funded organisation) is not in the public domain. The trouble is that large companies are large employers and have a huge impact on society as a whole. Studies have shown that excessive disparities between the highest and lowest wages are not good for society. So, what C-level people are paid in relation to their employees is of public concern.
"So, what C-level people are paid in relation to their employees is of public concern."
It can be a huge indicator of why prices are what they are and why a company is having trouble hiring and retaining employees. You expect the boss gets paid more than you do, but over $210mn more is frustrating. Since governments are so keen to bail these big companies out when they have a downturn, it IS a concern of the public.
Whenever I hear that a company is "too big to fail" I am really keen to find out if that's really true or not by letting it fail. What rises from the ashes, if anything, is likely to be leaner and run much better.
"That's old school thinking!"
You are kidding, right?
If I were working for somebody else again and the company wanted to hang more responsibility on me for the same money, I'd decline or move to another job. I owned a manufacturing company for many years and there were plenty of times when the employees' paychecks were more than mine, but more often I was the one getting paid more to make up for that. I would never expect the employees to make those kinds of sacrifices.
That's a nice MAGA hat that you are wearing. Oh... that "Q" flag that is draped over your shoulders is just the height of fashion in 2022...
Amazon has a well-documented record of treating its employees like bovine excrement and what is worse, laughing about it as they fire those who dare to complain..
These 'investors' need to be named and shamed then the rest of us can boycott them as well as Bezos Slavedriver Inc.
Anytime you try to discuss a concept and use "this one time" as an example for why something is a bad idea is generally a poor argument.
That is of course one of those times is a nuclear explosion, or a massacre that could have easily been prevented (oh wait, those are happening every day now).
People that do repetitive, easily quantifiable, laborius jobs like warehousing, postal delivery, and manufacturing greatly benefit from having unions for all the reasons discussed here.
There will always be the time I saw someone at a gas station using their food stamp card to buy beer example, doesn't mean people shouldn't get food assistance because of an asshole (who probably didn't really the beer with his food stamp card).
"There will always be the time I saw someone at a gas station using their food stamp card to buy beer example, doesn't mean people shouldn't get food assistance because of an asshole (who probably didn't really the beer with his food stamp card)."
As a teen I was a bagger/stocker at a local grocery store. It was the one where the food stamp people went to. When the stamps came out they came in droves, and I personally watched person after person buy cigarrettes with food stamps, as well as other prohibited items. Inwas also the one carrying said items out to customer cars, many of which were new 30,000 dollar cars at a time when cheap new cars were under 10,000. And, I regularly watched stamps exchanged for cash. I was a dumb teen at the time and didn't know better, and since then the store has gone out of business. Yes, there are people who legitimately need the help but from what I saw, less than half were actually needy. If you can drive a new luxury car, you shouldn't be drawing welfare. It wasn't just a few bad actors.
Sorry, I don't know where you live but this is just not true.
If you looking for everyday items then yes, you can get them locally but let me give you an example.
We have roll-up blinds on our screen patio, we purchased them at Home Depot. Over the last 5 years we've had them the end cap tie down attachment on the blinds have broken. (yes, they are plastic and in the Florida sun plastic deteriorates and becomes brittle) Home Depot does not have them in the store, does not have any way to order them, Their answer? replace the blind at a cost of $69.99.
So I go to Amazon and find a full replacement set of end caps, bungee tie downs and tie down connectors for $14.99. I was even able to replace my crank wands that Home Depot does not sell. They were a little pricey as $24.00 each. So for a little over $100.00 I was able to fix my blinds instead of replacing all four instead of replacing them all for almost $300.00.
That is the value of Amazon. You can find hard to find items for a reasonable price.
is that there is always an alternative vendor of the things you want.
Much of the TAT that AMZN sells is actually via their third party marketplace.
Ok, be lazy and give the Amazon seller of cheap tat your money but with a little thought, you can find what you want elsewhere and often at a lower price. Going direct removed the AMZN uplift.
If you are a writer like me and want to use Kindle you get a choice. Give Bezon 70% or give them 30%. Most people choose to give them 70% of the income from your book sales. It hurts... a lot.
I only deal with AMZN because I have to, not because I want to but I'm very close to giving them the finger and using other outlets for my work.
IMHO, everyone should think long and hard before using Amazon.
I suspect you looked you could find these items on ebay or some other independent online retailer who doesn't treat their employees like robots as well though, even though it might cost a couple of dollars more.
Speaking of which that the only reason Amazon tolerates flesh and blood worker ATM because robots are not yet sophisticated enough to replace them. But as soon as they are, expect massive lay offs at Amazon.
Except that you increasingly frequently find that your order from ebay turns out to be from a dropshipper who:
... either buys their stock from Amazon and uses the 'fulfuilled by Amazon' service (which is freely permitted by eBay)
.....or one who is abusing their Amazon Prime account by buying your item from Amazon and having it sent as 'a gift' (which is not permitted by either ebay or Amazon, but Amazon don't seem to bother doing anything about it).
Either way, it turns up in an Amazon branded box, and often delivered by one of Amazon's own fleet of delivery vans.
"Except that you increasingly frequently find that your order from ebay turns out to be from a dropshipper"
When I find that something has been fulfilled by Amazon that I purchased on eBay, that seller gets a negative feedback. Some sellers start to find out that after a certain number of negatives, the percentage that eBay charges as a final value fee goes up.
I know some people that order everything online from what I can tell and they give me the stuffing and boxes to use for things I sell on eBay. Many times the box I use has Amazon livery on it, so it's not always a good indicator. The shipping label has my return address so it should be easy to tell that I shipped it directly. It's not hard to spot the labels from drop-shipped sellers. I also choose the smallest box that does the job so I don't use up all of my packing materials at once. It seems like Amazon packers just grab the nearest box to hand and proceed to kill a forest's worth of paper to keep the item from bouncing around too much.
And not just hard to find and niche items. Sometimes simple, inexpensive items that are unique to Amazon, even though they are obvious things for someone to produce. Or are only available outside Amazon at stupid prices because those suppliers are asking ridiculous mark-ups Presumably because in Amazon the makers have a market place. The brackets that hold my VM hub onto the wall are simple, effective, unobtrusive and inexpensive. I couldn't find anything elsewhere that was any of those things. The casting resin I wanted to buy was ridiculously expensive through hobbyists' suppliers, but on Amazon there were dozens of inexpensive suppliers. One positive thing that internet selling (not just Amazon of course) has done is to remove form the UK one malaise that used to drive me mad, a decade or two ago: Old fashioned bosses of small companies were unable to distinguish between profit margins and earnings. They'd rather have sold 100 of an item at 60% markup than 1000 at 30% markup.
A favourite example of this was at the start of the computer age. The PC market in the UK was slow to take off, compared to the USA. So US manufacturing companies sold machines to UK resellers at significantly lower prices. The idea was that the UK resellers would reduce retail prices and increase the volume of sales. Instead the UK resellers kept prices/sales volumes at the same level. Pocketed the extra profit .
Companies are managed by and on behalf of beancounters.
Just as lawyers make money for lawyers, so do beancounters make money for beancounters.
And they do it in a self-righteous way because they are trained to think only of the bottom line.
Q)What's the difference between an accountant and a computer?
A) A computer has feelings.
I upvoted you but I'm old enough to remember the days when we had MDs not CEOs (at least here in the UK) and the normal path to that seat was the finance function. Then the marketeers started to get the top job and the incidence of boom / bust seems to have increased as well as golden parachutes and total lack of accountability. Or are my glassed just a bit to rose tinted?
Maybe my specs are even more rose tinted. But I remember the times when the MD was someone who knew the business. Had been an engineer or a Personnel (not "HR") manager or even a sales manager, then become an executive and rose to become an MD by demonstrating acumen. As opposed to an accountant or MBA fast-tracked to the top and lauded for his/her ability to make fast profits over the short term, to raise the value of shares within short term investment cycles.
I've held a small amount of shares in companies, and I've had savings in building societies. Every time they ask you to vote, there's a box like "click here to vote the way we recommend, we'll get out of your way and you can get on with your life".
That probably helps to stack things against the 'activist' investors. They don't get to present a "click here to use your vote more morally" box. Rejecting the default vote usually means you need to handle dozens more form controls over multiple pages. Few people think their vote counts badly enough to do that.
I never had that.
And I am trying to avoid ordering stuff from them. In some cases I sort of have to (a 200% markup for the pretty much exactly same article at the local store? WTF?), or it is something extremely special I cannot get anywhere else. In some cases brick and mortar stores use Amazon to handle the payments and internet platform shizzle, as that stuff is hard to do right if you are a smaller place.
"Nearest reasonable shopping is Inverness - a mere 95 miles away."
Apologies if it is a sore point I am poking at but how are the buses? Cheap, plentiful, regular and extremely common, like perhaps every ten minutes all day, every day including Sundays and costing twenty pence for a round trip?
"Nearest reasonable shopping is Inverness - a mere 95 miles away."
I'm about 50 miles from a big shopping center and also feel the pain. Especially lately with gas prices going up every hour. Perhaps it's easier for me as I often work in that direction and can hit the shops on the way home. I maintain lists on my phone for things I need to pick up and plan to get everything in one trip. I also bulk up on things. If it's something that isn't going to go bad, I'll buy more than I need. It's not like I'm going to stop using paper products anytime soon and if I do, my heirs will be well supplied. I weigh having excess on hand against the cost of acquisition.
I always need to work on organizing stuff so when I need screws for a project, I can find them at the house rather than going to the store where the petrol to get there and back exceeds the cost of the screws. The same goes for ordering things online. If I have to, I have to, but I try not to do it very often. It might be just fine to put a project off for a few days and spend the time to figure out if there is any other supplies I might need.
I've bought lots of stuff from Amazon for at least 10 years and I don't feel ashamed one iota! I also buy stuff from other places too, even visiting bricks & mortar establishments. The company meets a need, and is very successful at it. If there wasn't the need they would have gone bust.
That's the way businesses usually work. The successful ones spot a need and work to meet it. Businesses with a market that goes away go bust, voluntarily liquidate or find another purpose. Not much call for fletchers, thatchers and livery stables these days.
@john sager
Your argument is factually correct about businesses but the result could/would lead to a monopoly where a company gets enough investment to take losses and destroy the competition. Once the monopoly is established the screw is turned on the public.
The market for Fletchers doesn't exist but that's very different to Amazon killing the independent retailers.
Fact is, if your not reading the reviews and you getting crap that's your problem. Yes some of the reviews are fake and some of them are just stupid people buying the wrong thing or being unable to assemble, install, or use the product, but most of them can help you make the right decision. remember, not everything sold on Amazon "come" from Amazon!
Prime is a waste of money, it is only for people who must have instant gratification (next day delivery) and yes the streaming service isn't worth it!
> Prime is a waste of money, it is only for people who must have instant gratification (next day delivery)
I've seen several complaints along the lines of: girlfriend orders something and it's £15.00 free delivery with Prime; the boyfriend orders from his non-Prime account and it's £11.00 plus £4 delivery.
"and yes the streaming service isn't worth it!"
Most streaming accounts aren't worth it. When you read the fine print, you find out you own nothing and if you do something that gets your account terminated (too many returns, complain, etc) your library is flushed. It's likely cheaper to go to the cinema to see the few movies worth watching. I go in the winter when I can wear a heavy coat and smuggle in my snacks and drinks. When I was a kid, they'd let us bring our own popcorn, but not anymore. Try it and you'll wind up with bruises.
> Additionally, shareholders proposed adding more candidates than there are board seats to ballots, which was also defeated.
One person one vote - we're fine with that. One candidate, only one vote needed to elect him - even better!
[Icon: The traditional tool of the shop-steward: "Listen bruvvers...!"]
This post has been deleted by its author
The two salary scales are *not* "unfair, not from "a certain point of view". A typical Amazon worker can *easily* make the same salary as the CEO.
All she would need to do is to work 14,133,333.33333333 hours per year. With a little creative overtime, some reduction in wasted off-hours taken as "weekends", "nights", "vacation-time" and "sick-days" and a bit of effort, this is quite achievable.
It must be. The bosses manage it.
.
For those without instant access to a calculator: that number of hours per year is equivalent to 588,888.8888888888 days per year or about 1,612.289907977793 *years* per year.
That's well within the limits of a what a dedicated, hard-working, loyal employee with a positive attitude and strong work-ethic can do.
All you need to do is to work hard and you, too can be a milliardaire.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
