Corporate employees of Amazon were asked on Monday to volunteer their time to the company’s warehouses to assist with grocery delivery as it heads into its annual discount spree known as Prime Day.
In a Slack message reviewed by the Guardian that went to thousands of white-collar workers in the New York City area from engineers to marketers, an Amazon area manager called for corporate “volunteers to help us out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on our biggest days yet”. It is not clear how many took up the offer.
The funniest thing about this is that Prime day is a “holiday” of their own making. It’s not like it’s the Christmas push caused by consumers.
And here’s a reminder that it’s actually illegal to volunteer at the same company you’re employed at. Specifically to prevent situations exactly like this, where employers attempt to pressure their employees into volunteering, so they don’t have to pay overtime. If you’re working for your employer, you’re required to be on the clock.
Given, that only works if the rules are actually enforced. And this administration has done a good job of dismantling agencies that would be enforcing this.
Easy, you’re a salaried employee and “seasonal duty: light warehouse work”
Boom, it’s part of your job.
There are specific requirements for being exempt from overtime, even for salaried employees. There are three big exemptions, and each one has multiple requirements; You need to meet ALL of the requirements for any exemption in order to be legally exempt. I’d advise you to check the requirements here, because employers regularly misclassify workers and lie through their teeth about it to avoid paying OT. Intentional misclassification is one of the most overt ways that employers steal wages, but also extremely common in many industries.
Also, there’s a blue-collar clause that says all manual labor positions are non-exempt. So if they’re dumb enough to write manual labor into your job description, you’re non-exempt no matter how highly paid you are.
next youre gonna tell me something crazy like how the most theft in america is from unpaid wages or whatever
Guys we don’t have enough delivery drivers for the holidays. Come on down and “volunteer” or you might just find yourself passed over for future promotions. You might think differently but you’re just a disposable peon. The night of the delivery you might feel a slight sting. That’s pride fuckin’ with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts. It never helps. You fight through that shit.
Lol promotions. Sure boss, be right there. Wait for me.
Would somebody please think of the billionaires!?
Sorry, I was distracted be the profits.
Let’s see Mr and Mrs Bezos out there volunteering first. It’s a wholesome honeymoon activity!
How about paying your staff for the work they should do?
How much money does Bezos make per hour? Ah yes, about 7,9 billion USD. (2023).
Stop making rich people richer.
Surely that maths is wrong and/or we have different meanings of the word “make”.
Well if it’s voluntary and the staff gets paid their usual wage - one would assume a higher one than the warehouse folks get - I don’t really see the problem. It doesn’t make sense to try and hire folks for just a few days of peak workload. Not if you can manage it by shifting some folks around. Heck, I’m sure some will appreciate the change of scenery.
If theres one thing we all know desk jockeys appreciate its the opportunity to do manual labor
Well not everyone, obviously. But that’s why it’s voluntary.
I’ve certainly done stuff that’s outside of the scope of my personal job. Our company owner actually scrubs the toilets in our building and that guy owns an actual yacht 🤷♂️
Great – when there’s a service outage you can help the engineers!
I’m sorry, are you not a multi-billion-dollar company dominating the global markets? Are you suddenly confused and thinking you’re running a charity that requires regular donations? Are your 99% tax exemptions not enough to cover your bases? What world do you think you’re living in?
I have a salaried job, and from time to time when there’s a big order we are asked to help out the manufacturing team, which is paid hourly. It tends to be repetitive assembly-line stuff, but it can be a fun change from the office work.
It’s not unusual during specific times to redeploy people temporarily where they are needed more. The alternative is to hire a bunch of seasonal staff. You have to train them anyway, but at least by redeploying existing people you at least know they are reliable.
That’s a big nope from me. If it’s not in the job description I was hired to do I’m not doing it unless we renegotiate my salary. This is how they take advantage of people.
Not op but I’ll do stuff from time to time that is well below my pay grade. Mind management understands that the pay difference and that I’m not doing my normal responsibilities if I’m helping out…
Since you’re doing work that pays less, I guess you could negotiate a lower salary for the period of time you are pitching in. That’s only if you really want to stick to your principles.
No my time costs the same regardless of what I am doing. If I’m not making software for them I could be making it for someone else making the same or more. I don’t have time to waste in a warehouse. Don’t be a pushover
You are allowed to enjoy your job and take a little detour from what you do best to be a part of a team.
If you hate everybody and everything, sure, stick to your guns. But there is nothing wrong with being a team player
Nah, go there and then start organizing with the warehouse workers to get them paid as much as you’re being paid to do their job.
Why would I even be in a warehouse when I could be subsistence farming on a commune with Boris and Sergei?
But then who will have a meeting and capture the action item to have another meeting afterwards?!
Where I live this would be just regular ask to stay for overtime
The manager said volunteers are “needed” to work Tuesday through Friday this week, in two-hour shifts between 10am and 6pm in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the company operates a warehouse as part of its grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh.
Sounds like they’re getting paid but I’m really hung up on the word “volunteer”. If I’m paid my regular wage and can fit it, really not a problem.
I run a ransomware recovery department at my company. We don’t staff the department beyond us three managers. When we get an IR, we ask for volunteers in the normal staff to work for us. They get 1.5x + $25/ hour and a $50/day Uber Eats credit for working 4 hours OT.
We get a lot of volunteers.
I doubt Amazon is doing anything like that. If they don’t get enough volunteers, I could see them switching to “volunteer or else.”
I can’t help but think that, just maybe, the idea is to volunteer for extra shifts.
Yes, perhaps Amazon is just terrible, I think it’s also possible this article is painting an inaccurate picture to make things seem worse than they are.
“perhaps”
salaried emps don’t have “shifts”. the safe thing is to assume amazon is doing the profitable thing and that means exploitation.
I highly doubt that Amazon is dumb enough to ask people to volunteer their time for free. There are way tooany ways that ends in lawsuits. HR and the lawyers would put a stop to that faster than you can say “wage theft”.
I’ve worked jobs where, at times of peak business, office staff were asked to volunteer for paid shifts rather than hire more people for a very short time. It’s not weird or malicious, it’s fairly normal.
“Volunteer” doesn’t always imply “work for free”.
I’ve worked jobs where, at times of peak business, office staff were asked to volunteer for paid shifts
You’ve worked some shit jobs.
you don’t understand how exempt salaried employment works in the US.
Exempt employees are are not entitled to overtime pay or minimum wage protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is supposed to be limited to those who work in professional, administrative, executive, outside sales, or computer-related roles.
Asking a salaried employee to do something like this as a one off isn’t going to revoke their exempt status.
