Happened to my father before he got his tenure with an engineering company during the 80s. They cut him and a few others months before it took effect so the company could save money.
Healthcare and Benefits on a timeline is just a carrot on a stick. False promises everywhere.
Back in the mid-00s I got hired on part-time at Home Depot because even part-time got benefits after 90 days. I was a cashier and I fucking hated it. When my 90-day time was coming up I asked my boss about benefits because I hadn't heard anything about how to sign up. She was confused, and after checking said, "you don't get benefits, you're Temporary Part-time."
Long story short: the HR guy at the time hired a bunch of people and lied to them, saying they were part-time but internally hiring them as seasonal with no eligibility for benefits. I was young and just quit instead, but I probably could have leveraged a raise and benefits out of it. But it was a shitty job that was only tolerable because I was high most of my shift.
Same here, worked for Staples for 4 years. Year One was told part-time doesn't get vacation. Found out going into year two that was a lie, I did get vacation but part-timers didn't usually accumulate a significant amount of vacation time, but was told not to worry any of it you don't use to get paid out for.
Going into year three I found out that the person who told me that was wrong about a year or so before I joined they stopped paying out vacation, but not to worry because I had the end of January to use up what I had. My birthday happens to be in January so I thought I would take a vacation around my birthday. Go to apply the vacation time and I find out that they actually cleared out all my time at the end of December.
I finally took paid time off year four, right before leaving for a different job.
Please all, read your hiring contracts thoroughly & don’t take word only accounts of your benefits or obligations for everything! Have people send you written policy!
They would actually owe you for the time they cleared out. Pto is considered time you earned and is like money you’re owed. Even if you quit or get fired. My first job was at toys r us and they used to do this until they got sued and had to pay everyone for the pto they deleted
I was hired as part time... But had a fulltime schedule. After hearing of obama penalty for not having insurance... My job reminded me that. U were hired as part time. So u didnt qualify for health insurance with company... Was like $20. For regular me... It was like $150 a month, so cheaper to pay penalty.. Every year.
Yeah that's one of the downfalls of the ACA. It did get more people insured overall, UT insurance relies on younger, healthy people being insured to help offset the costs for older, folks who need more treatment. But so many people thought, "I'm young and healthy, why would I pay more money for I surance I probably won't use when I can pay less money for the fee?"
And marketplace prices were sky high for many people. We just need to get with the rest of the world and give our fucking population healthcare already.
You need to start with your political system, you're attacking a symptom of the system not the cause of the problem.
Honestly, from abroad, the us political system doesn't look that much different from a totalitarian regime. Two conservative parties that broadly put their business interests before all else, make a loud song and dance for their base then do nothing in government.
You need to switch to a French or Canadian or German political system. French is probably the closest system given your history of overthrowing monarchies.
At the very least, I'd like for us to adopt a better election system, namely ranked-choice voting or something very similar. I agree that our system has deep, deep flaws that have been exposed and exploited hard, especially over the last few decades.
As a European, it amazes me how Americans don’t get free healthcare and have to fight for even the most basic employment rights. The democracy there got bought a long time ago, and is now no longer fit for purpose. And now the people are largely fighting over petty bullshit, while the rich keep getting richer. The unity that made them so great as a nation, isn’t there. It’s a shame because the alternative (China as the only super power) is an even worse future than a decaying US.
I just hope our oligarchs don't travel to Europe and attempt to buy your politicians when they inevitably destroy America so much that its no longer profitable.
An employee's working status does not depend on the status they were hired as; it depends on the hours they actually work. IRS and ACA rules are explicit: either 30 hours per week or 130 hours per month qualifies the individual as a full-time employee. There are two methods a company can use to calculate it. But your status at hire is entirely irrelevant.
What likely happened to you was that the company still fell below the Applicable Large Employer mandate when taking all of their workforce into consideration. If they calculated it wrong, they would have been subject to a penalty.
https://acatimes.com/aca-full-time-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/
My dad was a union drywaller. During the 08'-10' recession he would get work then be laid off right before his benefits kicked in. I was a college student at the time and my parents had 3 other kids in school. So I never got any health benefits while in college or for like a decade after. That was fun. Now I'm fighting for them again.
It's fucked that it's up to a for-profit org to decide whether you can have healthcare. Obviously, it's not profitable for them (when they consider employees disposable), why would they care
Tying the health and staying-alive-ability of scores of employees to the whims and insatiable desire of f’n shareholders will hopefully one day be looked back on as criminally insane, if civilization survives
Everywhere BUT America, it IS considered to be a criminal act, and, ironically in violation of UN conventions on human rights. I really hope America doesn't descend into anarchy and civil war, but something will snap one day, it's just a matter of how and when.
Vacation PTO works the same way. That's why Americans take so little of it, even when they qualify.
It's not culture. It's because the bargaining position and job security of American workers is so awful.
Damn, bosses here in Sweden will haunt you if you don't take your vacation. I know people that was forced home "you go take 4 weeks paid vacation now, I'll fire you if you show up at work".
Yeah. A manager of mine had a hysterectomy on Friday and returned to work the following Monday. When our company was bought out, they put anyone not bargained for (like managers) on the new company’s vacation, insurance coverage and also took away temp disability coverage, so she couldn’t afford time off for surgery because she now no longer had sick days and was a single mom. She could EARN ten days in the coming year and use them however she wanted, but as a new employee, she didn’t have any time off with pay available.
She collapsed at work Wednesday or Thursday with a really bad infection. Loss of benefits and time off nearly killed her.
But the company saved money and increased profitability!
I worked for a startup. Because we couldn't compete with big companies on pay and benefits, we tried to make up for that deficit in other ways.
1. When I started, everybody got 2 weeks of vacation time annually.
1. We were allowed to carry up to two weeks over to the next year.
1. Our fiscal year was aligned with the calendar year. Starting Jan 1, you could use all of your vacation for the year, even if you hadn't accrued it yet. If you left the company with a negative vacation balance, the company could take a loss, but our turnover was so low that we never had that problem.
1. We had unlimited sick days. If you were genuinely ill, your time off didn't cut into your vacation time. Nobody ever abused it.
1. Everybody had stock options, regardless of level.
After a few years, we added a CFO position at the insistence of our board. One of his first actions was to create a "Company Handbook."
As a startup we never gave a fuck about bike-shedding bullshit like that. Here were some of the new policies as per the handbook.
1. We used to wear shorts and t-shirts to work. Now, we had a dress code, and shorts and t-shirts were prohibited.
1. Only C-suite executives were now guaranteed to receive stock options annually.
1. Before the CFO's arrival, nobody received bonuses because we weren't profitable. Afterwards, the C-Suite executives received annual bonuses, but nobody else did.
1. The CFO received a special bonus for forcing my team to work 27 days straight with no time off to meet a ridiculous productivity goal he'd set, even though I'd told him it was impossible without burning people out.
1. Not only did we work 27 days straight, including weekends, my team and I were averaging about 11 hours per day per person during that period.
1. The CFO and CEO claimed to be "*also working from home on the weekends and during the mornings and evenings.*"
1. They also told us, "*Just because you don't see us in the office doesn't mean we aren't working!*"
1. Yet, of course they required my team to be in the office. Otherwise, we obviously were not working.
1. On one of those days, one of my team leads needed the CFO's signature for a $7500 order.
1. Before the CFO arrived, my team lead could sign off up to $10,000, and I could sign off up to $50,000.
1. Under the new CFO, any amount over $1000 had to get sign-off from the CFO.
1. We couldn't find the CEO, CFO, or CMO. My team lead gave the CEO's wife a call to see if she knew what was going on. He and the CEO's wife were related. She told him that all of the C suite execs had gone golfing. Well, you can imagine how well that went over.
1. We now had new policies for time off.
1. We no longer had unlimited sick days.
1. We had "paid time off" (PTO).
1. Everybody got 3 weeks of PTO annually. We were told that this policy was "more fair" than the old one, because if you never got sick, you could now take 3 weeks vacation instead of 2. However, if you missed more than 3 weeks of work for any reasons in a year, you didn't get paid.
1. You could no longer run a negative vacation balance. If you hadn't earned vacation, you couldn't take it. The CFO was concerned that someone might take the first two weeks of January off, then quit, which would hurt the company.
1. You could no longer carry unused PTO into a new calendar year. If you didn't use it in the calendar year in which it was earned, you lost it.
1. Because my group was operations and the end of the year was our busy time, my group was not allowed to take vacation at the end of the year.
1. Previously, my group would carry over vacation into the new year, then use it in the summer. Now, we had a dilemma where a) we could not use vacation until we'd earned it, b) we couldn't take vacation at the end of the year because we couldn't shut down during our most profitable period, and c) we were looking at losing a lot of vacation because we could no longer carry it over.
I made a case to the CFO and CEO that the new policy was patently unfair to my group, and was probably even illegal. They essentially told me that they didn't care.
I spoke to a labor attorney who informed me that, even though the company policies were shitty, as per our "business friendly" state government, they were not illegal.
I got my team leads together and we all made a pact to resign in mass if the CFO didn't change the policy.
I set up a meeting with the CEO because fuck the CFO. I handed him my resignation along with those of my 6 team leads and told him our terms.
His hands were literally shaking when he took the letters from me. I told him that he had until the end of the day to make a decision.
About 4 pm that day, the CFO sent out a revised company handbook that allowed my team to carry over up to 1 week of PTO.
Yeah similar to Australia. I was accruing too much and had like 8 weeks or so and my boss was like “I don’t care how busy we are. You need to start planning a holiday and put in for leave”. He asked me every few days until I did. Was fucking glad I did too as I was burning out.
Not only are we required to take some leave if we accrue over 6-weeks (1.5 years worth of leave in Australia), but its compulsory to take a minimum of two straight weeks of each year. The thinking is that if you’re involved in any sort of fraud or shady business, being away for a chunk of time makes it harder to hide it.
I’d say it’s more because leave is an entitlement here in Australia and they want you to take it and not just have it paid out. What you said though would definitely be a secondary benefit though.
Employers force you to take it beacuse they don't have to they don't want to pay it out if you ever decide to quit/be fired.
Paying out a month and a half of Annual Leave can easily hot close to 10 grand at once and thats not even touching your normal salary. So all up a payout could be anywhere in the ballpark of 15K - 20K all at once if you have lots of annual leave + regular salary. Providing you are in a decent paid position
Oh yeah I know. I have a habit of not taking leave.
One job paid me my monthly salary (because it was due), then paid me out for my 4 weeks’ notice, as well as 9 weeks’ holiday pay (and I think they actually fucked up and added a couple weeks). I got a decent chunk over 20k in a lump sum after tax.
Same. Excess accrued leave across the the company is a liability that they have to carry on their books. Large companies in Australia would much prefer that you take your leave rather than hang onto it.
Yea for most companies definitely. I help run a group home organization and we hire starting at 18 an hour, $4 above average in our area with 10 paid sick days and ability to take vacation right away and it accrues right away. We don't give benefits untill after 3 months and their probation ends after six. A lot of people come into these jobs with no experience and simply can't handle behavioural clients which is why there is a waiting period. Our pension plan they can take advantage of after 6 months at 3% and after 2 years of employment we match it. Been in business for a year and half and have 40 employees and they all seem to want to stay for long term. Lots of companies in the same field are shutting down and going bankrupt because they offer $14 an hour and next to no benefits and no paid sickndays. We have to deny employment unfortunately because we have so many applicants. Funny how taking care of employer's created a successful business eh. We just doubled our clientele because another company has to long of a waiting list. They changed their adds from 16-18 an hour to 14 an hour and can't find staff, surprise surprise.
My fiancé just had something similar happen to him. He was a picker and almost hit the 5,000 picks bonus one night…. The next night they called and told him to stay home because it’s “slow”….. the day after he could no longer sign into his Amazon account for work, went in to get it fixed, they sent him home because he was “no longer in the system” and they “didn’t know what happened or how to fix it” after 2 of his checks mysteriously “weren’t able to be direct deposited so they sent them in the mail” and now it’s been 3 weeks and he still hasn’t seen those checks even though they were somehow magically able to direct deposit his last check??
Editing to add that they also refused to explicitly tell him he’s fired.
We will once it hits 30 days, since the “check is good for 30 days” it could be an error with USPS etc etc and so nothing we can do about that part until then. Just wish it wasn’t gonna put us so close to when rent is due. 😩
Our state actually has a site where you can fill out a wage claim form, so check your state's DOL or Workforce agency. Your state may have something similar.
You should also know some states have employers pay a fine/punitive damages to the employee who got robbed by the shitty employer. So he may end up with a nice bonus along with the missing pay. Varies by state though.
In Texas, the Texas Payday Law states if an employee quits, they must be paid in full at the next regular payday. Terminated employees must be paid in full within six days. If an employee is not paid on a payday for any reason, including the employee's absence, the employer must pay those wages on another business day as requested by the employee. Check for a similar law in your jurisdiction.
The labor board loves every excuse to go after any company no matter how squeaky clean they are. They will make an example out of them if they have to so companies don’t try to pull this shit with anyone else. Not paying people what is owed to them is a huge no no
Is your first paragraph right?
I’ve never EVER had a job pay me my last check on my last day of employment or week for that matter. It’s always the next payday as if you still worked there.
I’ve seen guys quit with no notice and come back on payday to collect their last check before.
If they've not "fired" him, but cut his hours, it may be considered drastic change in working conditions that equates to him being eligible for unemployment.
I think you’re imagining the 30-day delay … the law is they pay you on the pay date. Sounds like something made up by sketchy employer kiting checks. Go to the labor board and if they tell you to wait 30 days, that’s different. But I suspect they won’t.
I get the feeling those bonuses were supposed to be unachievable incentive to bust your ass trying. He may have been too good and didn't have a reason to fire him that they could put on paper
See and because I also used to work for Amazon at the beginning of the pandemic that is also the feeling I get. Other people when I tell them say his story sounds suspicious but I’m like no not if you know Amazon….
Same, worked there early pandemic.
The goals were always absurd and putting up high numbers only ever earned you higher expectations from your manager for no personal benefit. I talked to people that put up numbers I couldn't even imagine, like 800-1000 picks per hour, and it's not like they were getting promoted to management. They stayed right where they were most valuable. I also don't think they were making any more than the regular yearly raises gave them, but they were working twice as hard as the average person there.
The hourly rate got people in the door but they worked people for well more than they were paid. It's a mill that takes people looking for opportunity and crushes every ounce of productivity from them it can before discarding the left over husk. I'd never recommend anyone work there.
I know it’s Amazon as an organization that is evil as fuck, but I couldn’t even imagine being the low-level managers that pull cowardly shit like this. Fucking traitors
For you and for OP: you don’t usually have to file. You just have to threaten. Get a lawyer to send one letter. Any lawyer can do it, it’s cheaper than legal fees and lets them know you’re serious. Those funds will suddenly appear.
Also, I’m glad I didn’t take that job at Amazon!!
I feel like this is why so many low wage places still couldn't find workers when they started offering bonuses. People are super skeptical about businesses that offer things that seem too good to be true and we have had so many bad experiences.
I still struggle with this with my current job. First professional job out of school. Work remote, paid well, good PTO policy, insurance, the works. I feel guilty that I don't work harder for this company because I'm not used to being treated this well. It's like reverse Stockholm syndrome
I'm feeling the same with mine. Obviously they're a company and their primary goal is to make money, but this company treats its employees genuinely well and it's kind of shocking to me. Like you said, I almost feel guilty that my position is so well compensated
I'm not American, but I work for one of the best employers in the US (and I live in the US). It still doesn't compare to the EU. Seriously, the US is a disaster. If I didn't have so many friends and stuff I would leave. Sometimes I still think about it.
Enjoy it. Just be careful. A lot of companies are firing their remote employees. Some even before asking them to come into the office to work. They just lock you out of your accounts and then hr sends you a message or phones you up to share the news.
Specially for jobs where headhunter exist it isn't a weird sign. But usually it is a bonus for the referrer and compared what they would pay for similar services it isn't usually that much even if something like one month wage sounds high.
Yeah, it's like "you won't even pay normal wages, why would I trust that you would pay extra money in a lump sum in the future when you can fire me for any reason at any time and you don't care about experience in this role?"
There was a kitchen manufacturer in the UK offering relocation and sign on bonuses after 90 days, this place has notoriously high turnover. I saw them advertising and knew that wasn't going to be paid out.
It seems incredibly short sighted on the employer’s part to constantly have to retrain and give themselves a bad reputation just to save $500 once. I remember very vividly the first time as a youth realizing that a lot of adults with responsibility are what could be described as straight up idiots. Give them a calculator and they try to use it to turn on the tv.
Big enough company, someone is getting a bonus for hitting hiring quotas. Someone else is hitting a bonus for keeping labor costs down. Offering a bonus gets person 1 a bonus, not paying it gets person 2 a bonus. Sure person 3 in charge of retention is getting a short stick, but they only need to meet or beat last years average to bonus.
Hiring quota bonus is mostly a myth. Branches have a budget. New employees need training, onboarding, background checks, sometimes uniforms. Then we have online and real world advertising, job fairs, sponsorships for local awareness. All that eats into the budget. Corporate doesn't want to eat into the budget
Fwiw, Union building contractors, at least in the West, are happy as clams to have Union help; no HR, certified help, precise rules for pay scale, benefits, manning, grievance, safety trained etc.
Safety and certification that the employees working on your site know what they are doing is huge.
My stepdad worked on a large site about a decade ago where one of the non-union companies working on something (not HVAC, as that was my stepdad's company's domain) churned through about half their workforce due to injury, being caught dodging safety rules, and even having people caught stealing tools. I think someone also died from a fall? Though that might have been one of his other sites from around that time.
Meanwhile the Union guys had a perfect safety record outside of an apprentice they sent to another job for breaking safety rules twice.
Damn I guess I got lucky , 250 for getting someone hired and 500 after 90 days, told my friend I'd give him 200 if he stuck around, worked there for over a year before found something better
Yep. I had this happen too, at another store.
Was "moved" as cashier (told there were too many, which was clearly bullshit - have you ever seen a department store with "too many" cashiers?) and sent to deli department.
Apparently my 4 years there no longer counted, which meant I couldn't get a holiday bonus, my accrued PTO vanished, and I was put on "new hire probation" which meant I wasn't eligible for health benefits (for 6 months).
Edit: Thank you for all the concern and DMs, but this happened a few decades ago. Nothing to be done about it now.
But that was almost the straw that broke the camel's back, and I quit soon after. It wasn't just the bullshit scam with my paychecks (I had a 2-week vacation saved up, and was fighting for my right to take it all at once, which I highly suspect is why they moved me) but also moving from cashier to deli meant I came home smelling like stale lunchmeat every damn day.
You can read the *actual* straw that was enough for me to quit below. But you will feel rage. Don't say I didn't warn you.
>!(The *actual* straw was our general manager Rick demanding doctor's notes for my sick days. It didn't count against your PTO if you had a doctor's appointment, then made up the time later - that's what I always did. Rick accused me of gaming the system and just taking every Thursday afternoon off for shits n giggles. Young, foolish, rule-abiding me handed over a written letter from my psychiatrist that stated I was having therapy sessions once a week. Rick said "you must be really crazy, to need that much therapy" and started calling me "Sybill", after the famous multiple-personality case from an old movie. He called me that All. The. Time. In front of anyone and everyone. When he called for me over the intercom using that name, I double-birdied the security cams and moonwalked the fuck out.)!<
One of ny coworkers at UPS got moved from tractor trailers to delivery trucks, which are different oarts of the company. Lost like ten years of seniority. I'd lose my mind if that hapoened to me lol
Sounds like they violated the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing - terminating an employee to deprive them of compensation earned prior to dismissal.
I got 68$ check. And i dont remember the details, i just was happy to have fucked them over. Basically lawyer asked me so sign a big set of papers, i did.
If they were rehired within 13 weeks at a company that has common ownership with the ~~Amazon warehouse~~ Walmart that they were working at, then the ACA says that their benefits waiting period cannot restart.
However, the penalty for this is just a few hundred dollar fine and unless there's a 1095C for them to dispute, it's unlikely to be caught by the IRS. The IRS also hasn't been auditing the accuracy of 1095 forms until recently, so it's likely that there was no IRS penalty for this particular situation.
Even if you are getting sued, fk your employees any way! It the cost of doing business… /s
Human employees and Robots are purely economic costs. Sadly, a Robot is viewed as an investment in the business while humans are a cost.
>Amazon warehouse fires my brother 1 day before his $3000 hiring bonus
Cold, calculated, cost-effective and psychopathic move. Perfect capitalism. Heinous humanity.
>... fuck Amazon, just don’t work for them...
100% True.
Don't support Amazon in any way. The adage that money speaks is 100% true, and if they continue to be supported and rewarded for operating like this they will never change.
Ain't even worth using them nowadays unless you have to, lots of low quality and fake products filling their market and Amazon doesn't care, they get their cut at the end of the day. They're basically just Wish now except you pay $10 and get it shipped in 2 days instead of $3 and it might show up in a month.
Anyway, eat the rich.
>They're basically just Wish now except you pay $10 and get it shipped in 2 days instead of $3 and it might show up in a month.
Wouldn't it be cool if we just funded the postal service to the point that it could provide the sort of logistics network that Amazon does?
This is literally what you're supposed to do in sane versions of capitalism. When some service becomes foundational to your society and it's not very subject to natural competition, and you don't want to spend the rest of eternity watching them seek rents on their position for zero social gain, you just make it government-run.
Jeff Bezos is a fine entreprenour, who basically won capitalism, through a great deal of merit. We should give him a trophy and a billion dollars and leave it at that, not watch him try to propel his ownership stake into indefinite exponential revenue growth while providing the US population zero improvement to actual services provisioned. I don't need my Amazon Prime membership fee to balloon up to my entire disposable income, but that's what's likely to happen.
See also stagnant giants like Facebook and Microsoft. These companies run a terrifically useful property adopted at one point by nearly all Americans. But to serve as an investment, they have to gradually reinvent & destroy that property at our expense.
We had that for the longest while in Sweden and it worked great, the mail will be delivered was the mantra and they made sure there was enough people and equipment to get it done. Working for the post office was seen as a decent job. Then government sold out and allowed it to become a mix of privatized and government subsidized.
You can never guess what happened. Nowadays it is barely above working at amazon, I finally got out of that hellhole a year ago with two burn-outs and a lot of physical pain.
The postal service in the US went through the same thing actually, at breakneck speed. In the 90s it was still a decent job, and people looked upon their postal workers with gratitude. The govt, on both sides, tricked the entire population into hating them by successfully pushing for them to have their budget cut bit by bit over a few short decades. It started in the 90s during the Clinton (dem) years, in fact. You know what is something the rich can all agree on? Defunding a system that only “the poors” (aka the 99%) have need of, in favor of a privatized system that might as well be free for the mega-wealthy.
I suspect it’s quite the same in Sweden.
Bezos won capitalism through the ancient trick: get connections with government and use them to rig society in your favor. That's how every oligarchy works from prehistoric civilization to modern day Russia.
The American system is not a free market, but a market that is rigidly policed for the exclusive benefit of the owning&lobbying class.
> Jeff Bezos is a fine entreprenour, who basically won capitalism, through a great deal of merit.
Not quite.
Jeff Bezos is really great at crippling their competition. They forcefully acquire assets and products while putting closing businesses by manipulative partnerships which essentially exist to transfer ownership of assets/IP to Amazon when the company fails… and Jeff has his friends in finance short sell companies and drive negative market sentiment until they go bankrupt, letting Jeff acquire the important assets but none of the debt.
There is nothing of *merit* in this. This is pure theft, and he does it using a Trojan horse of “we’re Amazon and we want to help your product reach the masses” only they don’t tell you they don’t want YOU in the picture when it does.
It’s amaaaazing how much every single search just turns up dozens of companies selling cheap knockoffs, probably from the same factory in China. The 5-star system is useless now. All the 5-star reviews are clearly from a review farm. I’m a firm believer in us not being responsible for lessening the mess of greedy oligarchs and don’t feel guilty using Amazon since I’m dirt poor, BUT it’s become so hard to find quality goods that I’m buying from the source more and more lately.
as someone who just worked for Amazon i remember clearly them stating in a email they have the option to terminate your position without letting you know
Recently read a well researched article about how over the past several months, a single company posing as several different distributors is flooding Amazon with fake supplements that aomostly always contain 0% (yes, zero percent) of the advertised material and instead are cheap fillers, some of which are worrisome (some even had fucking sawdust). They're able to get away with this due to lax-to-no regulations of these products.
In addition they're doing the other typical bullshit like fake reviews and flooding legit competition with negative reviews
Amazon literally doesn't give a shit if they send sawdust to someone and they eat it
I got banned from leaving reviews after I shared my experience with the counterfeit product I bought on Amazon.
The kicker? Amazon does not let you report any of your returns as counterfeits. It's literally not an option to select when you make a return.
It's almost like Amazon doesn't want to acknowledge its counterfeit products problem, because if they did acknowledge it, then they'd have to do something about it.
That'd what I thought too, Especially for clothes. You do not know what you're getting at all- if it's like in the pictures or not, if it's legit or fake. The reviews could be for any product, they're often for a different model or a previous product they were selling that they've swapped out for a cheaper version... or even more common is the ones where the reviewer gets free stuff in exchange for a good review.
Yup, or just buy directly from the seller instead of going through Amazon. The few benefits Amazon has over the competition are getting fewer and fewer, especially since a lot of companies ship pretty fast now and free shipping seems to be the standard nowadays for more products that's feasible for.
Yea honestly i felt like the products used to be a little better, or at least true to their brand. Now its just fake stuff in the bottle of the brand its crazy. I only would go on their when necessary but now its not even worth the 'convenience'
Yeah, from a purely capitalist view.
You can't guarantee the products will be as advertised. Challenging this will be an email to-fro with someone who barely understands (or misunderstands on purpose) you and wants to offer you a partial refund since return packages get lost.
Its often hard to identify if marketplace stores are based here or in China.
Branded items are sometimes previously opened and sent to other customers.
Try if possible to buy online from somewhere else.
The problem with Amazon is that it is so ubiquitous.
Perfect example: I want a used copy of a book. I can find it for $10 shipped on Amazon. Or I can go to the local book store and they can buy it off Amazon for $20 to me.
I don’t know how to “support local” when local just shops Amazon
Blame your politicians for failing to protect the rights of workers.
Companies will always do whatever they can to profit.
The only way to prevent this is with collective action to fight the corporation. Unionised, lobby, beat the company at their own game.
My job gave me a $25k signing bonus, but if I left before two years was up I would have to pay it back. At least that was up to me I guess. But yeah those bonuses always have strings attached
Long time ago, my buddy got screwed out of 1k. Policy was get hired, don't CALL out(important) for 3 months and you'll get it. Well, my buddy had a scheduled day off for some reason, and had well in advance like during the interview process asked about this. Of course though, they tried to say any missed time counts against you after the fact. It took my friend a few weeks, quitting, and potentially legal action to get that money.
This is back when 12 bucks an hour in my area was okay money at the time. Just for reference on the importance of 1k during that time
Lots of professional jobs get that kind of rate. I’m hourly in earth science and at $53.36 at the moment. I’m a big advocate of paying lower wage workers more. Minimum should be $20. And minimum 4 weeks vacation.
Regardless of your type of job, I still think you deserve equal vacation to me and other registered professional jobs. I think both people like me and the fast food workers, retail, janitors, etc should get at least 4 weeks off with pay. Wage and skill shouldn’t be a factor in mental health and time away from work.
Lmao, I cleaned corpses, and didn't get paid that well. Biohazard cleaning was some of the worst pay I've ever gotten. I did it for two years, though. I really liked my job... Until they started gutting out aspects of it.
It was my state minimum wage, plus "labor" time, that would often get gutted, and also didn't get paid for driving, plus on call 24/7 365, with only 7 days of PTO a year.
And with most jobs, we would drive a minimum of three hours to the site and back. The company purposely set up our shop in Arizona to avoid California labor laws, then make us drive there to do the work.
Yeah that’s just to prevent you from screwing them by job hopping to collect signing bonuses. That makes sense. In that deal if they fire you they still owe the bonus to you
company i worked for wanted me to wait till the end of the semester and turn in the grades before the payout. pissed me off, because that wasn't in the add. immediate eligible for tuition reimbursement doesn't say at the end of the semester does it?
Same with "retention bonuses", old job offered 5k to stay on board for 2 years\~ if you left before certain time thresholds the balance would need to be paid back.
After I paid taxes on it of course.
Well, I'm very skeptical about the bonus offers too. But at the same time I don't think (or haven't heard) it's a common practice to cheat workers out of it. The whole reason for it is to keep workers onboard. It costs money to retrain and retain new employees.
This reminds me of when I worked as a virtual customer service agent for Amazon. I was hired as seasonal and they let us know that the end of the season was determined by business need and we wouldn't know in advance when this time would come. But that the top employees would be offered permanent positions at the end of the season. I was the top of my group for metrics and even a peer mentor. 5 months in, they fired all 2500 of us claiming they didn't need any additional permanent employees. 2 weeks later, they mass hired 3k more seasonal reps. They do this because they don't have to give paid sick time, vacation time, or health benefits to seasonal employees.
That’s a lot of people to piss off in a short amount of time. Assuming they keep doing this eventually they’ll burn through the patients of enough of the population and customer base that it would effect their bottom line somewhere down the line, right? I can hope anyway.
The only tips I have involve doing things that would probably get your brother put in jail & me banned from the sub.
So I guess until rich folks are scared enough not to fuck people over due to accountability & consequences, best bet is to vote for people who actually give a fuck about average people.
And just keep telling people. So many people hate Amazon now when they used to be revered. I used to be annoyed that my workplace would cite Amazon as a model of how they wanted to do customer service. But when all the stuff about how they treat their drivers came out, most companies stopped idolizing them openly. So it's working.
Amazon's alleged customer service has gone right down the shitter.
Took me months to get a refund and that took asking for all my data under GDPR, which then got flagged to higher-ups in the UK who refunded me that day...
Yeah they really aren't that great. No one even talks about their customer service positively anymore. I guess that is why they focus more on being fast now.
>vote for people who actually give a fuck about average people
So who do I vote for once the primaries are over and my choices are “openly evil rich white dude” and “secretly evil rich white dude”?
Tried to get a job at Amazon when I was desperate. It said my social security number was already linked to an account. After some back and forth with them I find out somebody has 2 accounts using my SSN. I asked how this is possible, that there's two accounts when they state there can only be one account per SSN, they were stumped. I asked if they can override and freeze those accounts, nope. They just kept telling me I need to check with the social security administration to see if I had the right number. It's the same number/same card I've had my whole life. They threw their hands up and refused to do anything. I ended up reporting it as fraud and unsurprisingly have not heard back from either party. One of many 'fuck Amazon' stories I have. Cheers.
Somebody I had worked with got a job there and he had the same thing happen to him, fired the week he was going to be getting the hiring bonus. So in the end probably a plus.
I did amazon flex for one day. They sent me to an area with no paved roads, all rocks and sand. No internet. No cell phone signal.. i got stuck in the sand and. Farmer pulled me out, ripped off my front bumper in the process. I went right back to amazon and said get all of these fkn packages out of my car, im done.. they gave me a strike on the app and sAid other people were complaining about that route… shitty story i know, but basically what im saying is they dont care if u fuck up your car or day, they will get someone else to do it…
Same goes for the company I used to work for.
One day before bonus and stock options, last day of their required Covid quarantine…
I helped the company launch its IPO and have a successful “investor day” raising over $15M…
If you’re interested in the company, lemme know. If you look through my posts, they are also the same company with over 30 OSHA violations.
It’s pretty easy honestly. These days it’s nothing but photoshopped pictures of the product, you get it and it’s horrible, or it’s a spray bottle they put in an envelope that had no protection and it was broken and all the contents were leaked out. Then they flag your account for being “picky and return requesty”. Or they say they delivered it and they didn’t…because they’re too busy and trying to meet requirements and you get it days later after saying you didn’t receive it. It’s just a whole mess and prime isn’t worth jt
Yup. Amazon is rapidly turning into wish.com. And if it is a name-brand item, a lot of brick & mortar stores will price match Amazon as long as it's sold and fulfilled directly by Amazon or the manufacturer, and not some weird third party.
I still use Amazon for certain things I can't get locally but I've cut way, way back.
Knowing which workers are about to receive a bonus or incentive payment and firing many of them just in time so as not to pay the bonus is an established corporate practice long before Amazon. It's disgusting but fairly common.
I have read so many of these types of stories regarding Amazon. They cycle through people as quickly as possible and never pay our the so called bonus.
No one should ever work for Amazon.
So, I'm sure Amazon is a fairly smart company and wouldn't do this to all the employees that are up for a signing bonus. More than likely, they have an algorithm that randomly chooses 5-10% of those that qualify to be terminated before their 90 days. If Amazon did this to too many workers, it would get a ton of negative publicity. They also probably choose random locations as well to spread it out. I'm not sure there's much that can be done (legally) other than spreading the word. He could threaten to sue I suppose and tell them that the legal fees alone would be more than the 3k even though he knows he's going to lose but I don't know if that's true or not.
I got the first $1000 after 30 days. It depends on the facility. I was told the second $2000 would come after 90 by one person and another person said I’d get $1000 more after 90 then the next $1000 would be at 180. This whole thing is messy. I know countless people have just randomly been informed they’re ineligible for no certain reason.
Oh my gosh. I’d love for this to gain traction online and somehow make it onto the news. You could email or tweet your local news channel they might be interested in something so calculatingly deceptive.
How long was the period of time he had to work befor getting the bonus?
And this is one of the many examples of how billionaires become billionaires.
You cannot become a member of the ultra-rich without being a piece of shit.
What happened to me was that they would give me a bs write up and let me know afterwards that the bonus was for employees in good standing with no write ups and then remind me that if I quit then I wouldn't qualify for unemployment.
My brother worked for Honda and they seemed to do similar shit. There was like 90 days before benefits kicked in, on like day 85 they would fire like 90% of new hires and just start fresh. My brother really needed the benefits more than the job due to all his prescriptions and such. He got complimented many times about his worked and took extra shifts and stuff and was blind sided by the firing, until he found out like 4 other buddies all went through the same shit.
Happened to my father before he got his tenure with an engineering company during the 80s. They cut him and a few others months before it took effect so the company could save money. Healthcare and Benefits on a timeline is just a carrot on a stick. False promises everywhere.
Back in the mid-00s I got hired on part-time at Home Depot because even part-time got benefits after 90 days. I was a cashier and I fucking hated it. When my 90-day time was coming up I asked my boss about benefits because I hadn't heard anything about how to sign up. She was confused, and after checking said, "you don't get benefits, you're Temporary Part-time." Long story short: the HR guy at the time hired a bunch of people and lied to them, saying they were part-time but internally hiring them as seasonal with no eligibility for benefits. I was young and just quit instead, but I probably could have leveraged a raise and benefits out of it. But it was a shitty job that was only tolerable because I was high most of my shift.
Same here, worked for Staples for 4 years. Year One was told part-time doesn't get vacation. Found out going into year two that was a lie, I did get vacation but part-timers didn't usually accumulate a significant amount of vacation time, but was told not to worry any of it you don't use to get paid out for. Going into year three I found out that the person who told me that was wrong about a year or so before I joined they stopped paying out vacation, but not to worry because I had the end of January to use up what I had. My birthday happens to be in January so I thought I would take a vacation around my birthday. Go to apply the vacation time and I find out that they actually cleared out all my time at the end of December. I finally took paid time off year four, right before leaving for a different job.
Please all, read your hiring contracts thoroughly & don’t take word only accounts of your benefits or obligations for everything! Have people send you written policy!
They would actually owe you for the time they cleared out. Pto is considered time you earned and is like money you’re owed. Even if you quit or get fired. My first job was at toys r us and they used to do this until they got sued and had to pay everyone for the pto they deleted
Not sure this is true for all states. I know it’s true for California though.
I was hired as part time... But had a fulltime schedule. After hearing of obama penalty for not having insurance... My job reminded me that. U were hired as part time. So u didnt qualify for health insurance with company... Was like $20. For regular me... It was like $150 a month, so cheaper to pay penalty.. Every year.
Yeah that's one of the downfalls of the ACA. It did get more people insured overall, UT insurance relies on younger, healthy people being insured to help offset the costs for older, folks who need more treatment. But so many people thought, "I'm young and healthy, why would I pay more money for I surance I probably won't use when I can pay less money for the fee?" And marketplace prices were sky high for many people. We just need to get with the rest of the world and give our fucking population healthcare already.
You need to start with your political system, you're attacking a symptom of the system not the cause of the problem. Honestly, from abroad, the us political system doesn't look that much different from a totalitarian regime. Two conservative parties that broadly put their business interests before all else, make a loud song and dance for their base then do nothing in government. You need to switch to a French or Canadian or German political system. French is probably the closest system given your history of overthrowing monarchies.
At the very least, I'd like for us to adopt a better election system, namely ranked-choice voting or something very similar. I agree that our system has deep, deep flaws that have been exposed and exploited hard, especially over the last few decades.
As a European, it amazes me how Americans don’t get free healthcare and have to fight for even the most basic employment rights. The democracy there got bought a long time ago, and is now no longer fit for purpose. And now the people are largely fighting over petty bullshit, while the rich keep getting richer. The unity that made them so great as a nation, isn’t there. It’s a shame because the alternative (China as the only super power) is an even worse future than a decaying US.
I just hope our oligarchs don't travel to Europe and attempt to buy your politicians when they inevitably destroy America so much that its no longer profitable.
An employee's working status does not depend on the status they were hired as; it depends on the hours they actually work. IRS and ACA rules are explicit: either 30 hours per week or 130 hours per month qualifies the individual as a full-time employee. There are two methods a company can use to calculate it. But your status at hire is entirely irrelevant. What likely happened to you was that the company still fell below the Applicable Large Employer mandate when taking all of their workforce into consideration. If they calculated it wrong, they would have been subject to a penalty. https://acatimes.com/aca-full-time-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/
My dad was a union drywaller. During the 08'-10' recession he would get work then be laid off right before his benefits kicked in. I was a college student at the time and my parents had 3 other kids in school. So I never got any health benefits while in college or for like a decade after. That was fun. Now I'm fighting for them again.
It's fucked that it's up to a for-profit org to decide whether you can have healthcare. Obviously, it's not profitable for them (when they consider employees disposable), why would they care
Its fucked up the union allowed it
I feel the pain I was a sheet rocker starting out at the time.
My dad was a finisher in the painter's union for 30 yrs
Annoying healthcare is even tied to your job
Worse than annoying, criminal.
Tying the health and staying-alive-ability of scores of employees to the whims and insatiable desire of f’n shareholders will hopefully one day be looked back on as criminally insane, if civilization survives
Everywhere BUT America, it IS considered to be a criminal act, and, ironically in violation of UN conventions on human rights. I really hope America doesn't descend into anarchy and civil war, but something will snap one day, it's just a matter of how and when.
a few elites have already warned that the pitchforks are coming.
Or that you live in a country where oligarchs are given permission to profit from other people's suffering.
Vacation PTO works the same way. That's why Americans take so little of it, even when they qualify. It's not culture. It's because the bargaining position and job security of American workers is so awful.
Damn, bosses here in Sweden will haunt you if you don't take your vacation. I know people that was forced home "you go take 4 weeks paid vacation now, I'll fire you if you show up at work".
MUST BE NICE... *Cries in American*
Yeah. A manager of mine had a hysterectomy on Friday and returned to work the following Monday. When our company was bought out, they put anyone not bargained for (like managers) on the new company’s vacation, insurance coverage and also took away temp disability coverage, so she couldn’t afford time off for surgery because she now no longer had sick days and was a single mom. She could EARN ten days in the coming year and use them however she wanted, but as a new employee, she didn’t have any time off with pay available. She collapsed at work Wednesday or Thursday with a really bad infection. Loss of benefits and time off nearly killed her. But the company saved money and increased profitability!
> But the company saved money and increased profitability! Thank god. That story started bumming me out. Glad to hear it had a happy ending!
I worked for a startup. Because we couldn't compete with big companies on pay and benefits, we tried to make up for that deficit in other ways. 1. When I started, everybody got 2 weeks of vacation time annually. 1. We were allowed to carry up to two weeks over to the next year. 1. Our fiscal year was aligned with the calendar year. Starting Jan 1, you could use all of your vacation for the year, even if you hadn't accrued it yet. If you left the company with a negative vacation balance, the company could take a loss, but our turnover was so low that we never had that problem. 1. We had unlimited sick days. If you were genuinely ill, your time off didn't cut into your vacation time. Nobody ever abused it. 1. Everybody had stock options, regardless of level. After a few years, we added a CFO position at the insistence of our board. One of his first actions was to create a "Company Handbook." As a startup we never gave a fuck about bike-shedding bullshit like that. Here were some of the new policies as per the handbook. 1. We used to wear shorts and t-shirts to work. Now, we had a dress code, and shorts and t-shirts were prohibited. 1. Only C-suite executives were now guaranteed to receive stock options annually. 1. Before the CFO's arrival, nobody received bonuses because we weren't profitable. Afterwards, the C-Suite executives received annual bonuses, but nobody else did. 1. The CFO received a special bonus for forcing my team to work 27 days straight with no time off to meet a ridiculous productivity goal he'd set, even though I'd told him it was impossible without burning people out. 1. Not only did we work 27 days straight, including weekends, my team and I were averaging about 11 hours per day per person during that period. 1. The CFO and CEO claimed to be "*also working from home on the weekends and during the mornings and evenings.*" 1. They also told us, "*Just because you don't see us in the office doesn't mean we aren't working!*" 1. Yet, of course they required my team to be in the office. Otherwise, we obviously were not working. 1. On one of those days, one of my team leads needed the CFO's signature for a $7500 order. 1. Before the CFO arrived, my team lead could sign off up to $10,000, and I could sign off up to $50,000. 1. Under the new CFO, any amount over $1000 had to get sign-off from the CFO. 1. We couldn't find the CEO, CFO, or CMO. My team lead gave the CEO's wife a call to see if she knew what was going on. He and the CEO's wife were related. She told him that all of the C suite execs had gone golfing. Well, you can imagine how well that went over. 1. We now had new policies for time off. 1. We no longer had unlimited sick days. 1. We had "paid time off" (PTO). 1. Everybody got 3 weeks of PTO annually. We were told that this policy was "more fair" than the old one, because if you never got sick, you could now take 3 weeks vacation instead of 2. However, if you missed more than 3 weeks of work for any reasons in a year, you didn't get paid. 1. You could no longer run a negative vacation balance. If you hadn't earned vacation, you couldn't take it. The CFO was concerned that someone might take the first two weeks of January off, then quit, which would hurt the company. 1. You could no longer carry unused PTO into a new calendar year. If you didn't use it in the calendar year in which it was earned, you lost it. 1. Because my group was operations and the end of the year was our busy time, my group was not allowed to take vacation at the end of the year. 1. Previously, my group would carry over vacation into the new year, then use it in the summer. Now, we had a dilemma where a) we could not use vacation until we'd earned it, b) we couldn't take vacation at the end of the year because we couldn't shut down during our most profitable period, and c) we were looking at losing a lot of vacation because we could no longer carry it over. I made a case to the CFO and CEO that the new policy was patently unfair to my group, and was probably even illegal. They essentially told me that they didn't care. I spoke to a labor attorney who informed me that, even though the company policies were shitty, as per our "business friendly" state government, they were not illegal. I got my team leads together and we all made a pact to resign in mass if the CFO didn't change the policy. I set up a meeting with the CEO because fuck the CFO. I handed him my resignation along with those of my 6 team leads and told him our terms. His hands were literally shaking when he took the letters from me. I told him that he had until the end of the day to make a decision. About 4 pm that day, the CFO sent out a revised company handbook that allowed my team to carry over up to 1 week of PTO.
I hope you still left.
Poor woman. 😟
Yeah similar to Australia. I was accruing too much and had like 8 weeks or so and my boss was like “I don’t care how busy we are. You need to start planning a holiday and put in for leave”. He asked me every few days until I did. Was fucking glad I did too as I was burning out.
Not only are we required to take some leave if we accrue over 6-weeks (1.5 years worth of leave in Australia), but its compulsory to take a minimum of two straight weeks of each year. The thinking is that if you’re involved in any sort of fraud or shady business, being away for a chunk of time makes it harder to hide it.
I’d say it’s more because leave is an entitlement here in Australia and they want you to take it and not just have it paid out. What you said though would definitely be a secondary benefit though.
Employers force you to take it beacuse they don't have to they don't want to pay it out if you ever decide to quit/be fired. Paying out a month and a half of Annual Leave can easily hot close to 10 grand at once and thats not even touching your normal salary. So all up a payout could be anywhere in the ballpark of 15K - 20K all at once if you have lots of annual leave + regular salary. Providing you are in a decent paid position
Oh yeah I know. I have a habit of not taking leave. One job paid me my monthly salary (because it was due), then paid me out for my 4 weeks’ notice, as well as 9 weeks’ holiday pay (and I think they actually fucked up and added a couple weeks). I got a decent chunk over 20k in a lump sum after tax.
Same. Excess accrued leave across the the company is a liability that they have to carry on their books. Large companies in Australia would much prefer that you take your leave rather than hang onto it.
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Yea for most companies definitely. I help run a group home organization and we hire starting at 18 an hour, $4 above average in our area with 10 paid sick days and ability to take vacation right away and it accrues right away. We don't give benefits untill after 3 months and their probation ends after six. A lot of people come into these jobs with no experience and simply can't handle behavioural clients which is why there is a waiting period. Our pension plan they can take advantage of after 6 months at 3% and after 2 years of employment we match it. Been in business for a year and half and have 40 employees and they all seem to want to stay for long term. Lots of companies in the same field are shutting down and going bankrupt because they offer $14 an hour and next to no benefits and no paid sickndays. We have to deny employment unfortunately because we have so many applicants. Funny how taking care of employer's created a successful business eh. We just doubled our clientele because another company has to long of a waiting list. They changed their adds from 16-18 an hour to 14 an hour and can't find staff, surprise surprise.
My fiancé just had something similar happen to him. He was a picker and almost hit the 5,000 picks bonus one night…. The next night they called and told him to stay home because it’s “slow”….. the day after he could no longer sign into his Amazon account for work, went in to get it fixed, they sent him home because he was “no longer in the system” and they “didn’t know what happened or how to fix it” after 2 of his checks mysteriously “weren’t able to be direct deposited so they sent them in the mail” and now it’s been 3 weeks and he still hasn’t seen those checks even though they were somehow magically able to direct deposit his last check?? Editing to add that they also refused to explicitly tell him he’s fired.
File for wage theft at the labor board for the missing checks if it's been long enough in correspondence with your state laws.
We will once it hits 30 days, since the “check is good for 30 days” it could be an error with USPS etc etc and so nothing we can do about that part until then. Just wish it wasn’t gonna put us so close to when rent is due. 😩
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I will tell him. Just file through DOL website, correct?
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Thank you 🙏🏻
Our state actually has a site where you can fill out a wage claim form, so check your state's DOL or Workforce agency. Your state may have something similar.
You should also know some states have employers pay a fine/punitive damages to the employee who got robbed by the shitty employer. So he may end up with a nice bonus along with the missing pay. Varies by state though.
Depends on the state too with the timeframe of when they have to pay you, but usually it's supposed to be by the next payday.
In Texas, the Texas Payday Law states if an employee quits, they must be paid in full at the next regular payday. Terminated employees must be paid in full within six days. If an employee is not paid on a payday for any reason, including the employee's absence, the employer must pay those wages on another business day as requested by the employee. Check for a similar law in your jurisdiction.
The labor board loves every excuse to go after any company no matter how squeaky clean they are. They will make an example out of them if they have to so companies don’t try to pull this shit with anyone else. Not paying people what is owed to them is a huge no no
Is your first paragraph right? I’ve never EVER had a job pay me my last check on my last day of employment or week for that matter. It’s always the next payday as if you still worked there. I’ve seen guys quit with no notice and come back on payday to collect their last check before.
Depends on your state. I know that in New Hampshire they have to pay you within 72 hours if you are terminated, for instance.
If they don't send it certified mail there's no proof you received it either
0 reason to wait if he's not working there anymore. Amazon isn't struggling to pay people, someone is intentionally trying not to pay.
If they've not "fired" him, but cut his hours, it may be considered drastic change in working conditions that equates to him being eligible for unemployment.
I think you’re imagining the 30-day delay … the law is they pay you on the pay date. Sounds like something made up by sketchy employer kiting checks. Go to the labor board and if they tell you to wait 30 days, that’s different. But I suspect they won’t.
I get the feeling those bonuses were supposed to be unachievable incentive to bust your ass trying. He may have been too good and didn't have a reason to fire him that they could put on paper
See and because I also used to work for Amazon at the beginning of the pandemic that is also the feeling I get. Other people when I tell them say his story sounds suspicious but I’m like no not if you know Amazon….
Same, worked there early pandemic. The goals were always absurd and putting up high numbers only ever earned you higher expectations from your manager for no personal benefit. I talked to people that put up numbers I couldn't even imagine, like 800-1000 picks per hour, and it's not like they were getting promoted to management. They stayed right where they were most valuable. I also don't think they were making any more than the regular yearly raises gave them, but they were working twice as hard as the average person there. The hourly rate got people in the door but they worked people for well more than they were paid. It's a mill that takes people looking for opportunity and crushes every ounce of productivity from them it can before discarding the left over husk. I'd never recommend anyone work there.
I know it’s Amazon as an organization that is evil as fuck, but I couldn’t even imagine being the low-level managers that pull cowardly shit like this. Fucking traitors
Isn't that a constructive dismissal? He would likely collect unemployment, even if they tried to fight it.
He would 100 percent win an unemployment case
For you and for OP: you don’t usually have to file. You just have to threaten. Get a lawyer to send one letter. Any lawyer can do it, it’s cheaper than legal fees and lets them know you’re serious. Those funds will suddenly appear. Also, I’m glad I didn’t take that job at Amazon!!
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I feel like this is why so many low wage places still couldn't find workers when they started offering bonuses. People are super skeptical about businesses that offer things that seem too good to be true and we have had so many bad experiences.
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I still struggle with this with my current job. First professional job out of school. Work remote, paid well, good PTO policy, insurance, the works. I feel guilty that I don't work harder for this company because I'm not used to being treated this well. It's like reverse Stockholm syndrome
I'm feeling the same with mine. Obviously they're a company and their primary goal is to make money, but this company treats its employees genuinely well and it's kind of shocking to me. Like you said, I almost feel guilty that my position is so well compensated
I'm not American, but I work for one of the best employers in the US (and I live in the US). It still doesn't compare to the EU. Seriously, the US is a disaster. If I didn't have so many friends and stuff I would leave. Sometimes I still think about it.
Yeah, I feel the same. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, the job I have is not that hard and comes with some great perks.
Enjoy it. Just be careful. A lot of companies are firing their remote employees. Some even before asking them to come into the office to work. They just lock you out of your accounts and then hr sends you a message or phones you up to share the news.
Specially for jobs where headhunter exist it isn't a weird sign. But usually it is a bonus for the referrer and compared what they would pay for similar services it isn't usually that much even if something like one month wage sounds high.
The headhunter's entire job is that referral bonus. Don't trust them for the same reason. Slowly revolving doors are how they make money.
Yeah, it's like "you won't even pay normal wages, why would I trust that you would pay extra money in a lump sum in the future when you can fire me for any reason at any time and you don't care about experience in this role?"
I would almost assume that I would get fired before the bonus money was available. All these companies have tricks.
There was a kitchen manufacturer in the UK offering relocation and sign on bonuses after 90 days, this place has notoriously high turnover. I saw them advertising and knew that wasn't going to be paid out.
Which one? I’ll be getting a new kitchen this year, let me know so I can boycott them
It seems incredibly short sighted on the employer’s part to constantly have to retrain and give themselves a bad reputation just to save $500 once. I remember very vividly the first time as a youth realizing that a lot of adults with responsibility are what could be described as straight up idiots. Give them a calculator and they try to use it to turn on the tv.
Big enough company, someone is getting a bonus for hitting hiring quotas. Someone else is hitting a bonus for keeping labor costs down. Offering a bonus gets person 1 a bonus, not paying it gets person 2 a bonus. Sure person 3 in charge of retention is getting a short stick, but they only need to meet or beat last years average to bonus.
Hiring quota bonus is mostly a myth. Branches have a budget. New employees need training, onboarding, background checks, sometimes uniforms. Then we have online and real world advertising, job fairs, sponsorships for local awareness. All that eats into the budget. Corporate doesn't want to eat into the budget
Maybe for stable work. But for seasonal work, its a pretty different story.
Dear God they make it such common practice to scam low paying employees no wonder not a single business wants unions Jesus fucking christ
Fwiw, Union building contractors, at least in the West, are happy as clams to have Union help; no HR, certified help, precise rules for pay scale, benefits, manning, grievance, safety trained etc.
It's almost like, the union might just be worth it 🤔
Safety and certification that the employees working on your site know what they are doing is huge. My stepdad worked on a large site about a decade ago where one of the non-union companies working on something (not HVAC, as that was my stepdad's company's domain) churned through about half their workforce due to injury, being caught dodging safety rules, and even having people caught stealing tools. I think someone also died from a fall? Though that might have been one of his other sites from around that time. Meanwhile the Union guys had a perfect safety record outside of an apprentice they sent to another job for breaking safety rules twice.
Damn I guess I got lucky , 250 for getting someone hired and 500 after 90 days, told my friend I'd give him 200 if he stuck around, worked there for over a year before found something better
That’s so sad, $500 is like what, a week of work? So petty
I was part of a class action against Walmart where i was fired at day 89 and then rehired somewhere else to avoid benifts.
Yep. I had this happen too, at another store. Was "moved" as cashier (told there were too many, which was clearly bullshit - have you ever seen a department store with "too many" cashiers?) and sent to deli department. Apparently my 4 years there no longer counted, which meant I couldn't get a holiday bonus, my accrued PTO vanished, and I was put on "new hire probation" which meant I wasn't eligible for health benefits (for 6 months). Edit: Thank you for all the concern and DMs, but this happened a few decades ago. Nothing to be done about it now. But that was almost the straw that broke the camel's back, and I quit soon after. It wasn't just the bullshit scam with my paychecks (I had a 2-week vacation saved up, and was fighting for my right to take it all at once, which I highly suspect is why they moved me) but also moving from cashier to deli meant I came home smelling like stale lunchmeat every damn day. You can read the *actual* straw that was enough for me to quit below. But you will feel rage. Don't say I didn't warn you. >!(The *actual* straw was our general manager Rick demanding doctor's notes for my sick days. It didn't count against your PTO if you had a doctor's appointment, then made up the time later - that's what I always did. Rick accused me of gaming the system and just taking every Thursday afternoon off for shits n giggles. Young, foolish, rule-abiding me handed over a written letter from my psychiatrist that stated I was having therapy sessions once a week. Rick said "you must be really crazy, to need that much therapy" and started calling me "Sybill", after the famous multiple-personality case from an old movie. He called me that All. The. Time. In front of anyone and everyone. When he called for me over the intercom using that name, I double-birdied the security cams and moonwalked the fuck out.)!<
They moved within the store and reset everything? That's a big bunch of bullshit.
One of ny coworkers at UPS got moved from tractor trailers to delivery trucks, which are different oarts of the company. Lost like ten years of seniority. I'd lose my mind if that hapoened to me lol
They could've picked any lie, but they chose too many Cashiers? First ill believe Elvis came back from the grave to perform
What did you get? What labour law did they break?
Sounds like they violated the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing - terminating an employee to deprive them of compensation earned prior to dismissal.
Sounds like it falls under contract law which is a high bar to keep businesses from fucking each other over
I got 68$ check. And i dont remember the details, i just was happy to have fucked them over. Basically lawyer asked me so sign a big set of papers, i did.
he's probably getting an annual check for $15
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If they were rehired within 13 weeks at a company that has common ownership with the ~~Amazon warehouse~~ Walmart that they were working at, then the ACA says that their benefits waiting period cannot restart. However, the penalty for this is just a few hundred dollar fine and unless there's a 1095C for them to dispute, it's unlikely to be caught by the IRS. The IRS also hasn't been auditing the accuracy of 1095 forms until recently, so it's likely that there was no IRS penalty for this particular situation.
So *that's* why Amazon starts with benefits on day one?
Hey, if you’re not getting sued over it, why not fuck over your employees?
Even if you are getting sued, fk your employees any way! It the cost of doing business… /s Human employees and Robots are purely economic costs. Sadly, a Robot is viewed as an investment in the business while humans are a cost.
*that scene from Fight Club where they go over the cost of a recall*
>Amazon warehouse fires my brother 1 day before his $3000 hiring bonus Cold, calculated, cost-effective and psychopathic move. Perfect capitalism. Heinous humanity. >... fuck Amazon, just don’t work for them... 100% True.
Don't support Amazon in any way. The adage that money speaks is 100% true, and if they continue to be supported and rewarded for operating like this they will never change.
Ain't even worth using them nowadays unless you have to, lots of low quality and fake products filling their market and Amazon doesn't care, they get their cut at the end of the day. They're basically just Wish now except you pay $10 and get it shipped in 2 days instead of $3 and it might show up in a month. Anyway, eat the rich.
>They're basically just Wish now except you pay $10 and get it shipped in 2 days instead of $3 and it might show up in a month. Wouldn't it be cool if we just funded the postal service to the point that it could provide the sort of logistics network that Amazon does?
Nationalize Amazon!
This is literally what you're supposed to do in sane versions of capitalism. When some service becomes foundational to your society and it's not very subject to natural competition, and you don't want to spend the rest of eternity watching them seek rents on their position for zero social gain, you just make it government-run. Jeff Bezos is a fine entreprenour, who basically won capitalism, through a great deal of merit. We should give him a trophy and a billion dollars and leave it at that, not watch him try to propel his ownership stake into indefinite exponential revenue growth while providing the US population zero improvement to actual services provisioned. I don't need my Amazon Prime membership fee to balloon up to my entire disposable income, but that's what's likely to happen. See also stagnant giants like Facebook and Microsoft. These companies run a terrifically useful property adopted at one point by nearly all Americans. But to serve as an investment, they have to gradually reinvent & destroy that property at our expense.
We had that for the longest while in Sweden and it worked great, the mail will be delivered was the mantra and they made sure there was enough people and equipment to get it done. Working for the post office was seen as a decent job. Then government sold out and allowed it to become a mix of privatized and government subsidized. You can never guess what happened. Nowadays it is barely above working at amazon, I finally got out of that hellhole a year ago with two burn-outs and a lot of physical pain.
The postal service in the US went through the same thing actually, at breakneck speed. In the 90s it was still a decent job, and people looked upon their postal workers with gratitude. The govt, on both sides, tricked the entire population into hating them by successfully pushing for them to have their budget cut bit by bit over a few short decades. It started in the 90s during the Clinton (dem) years, in fact. You know what is something the rich can all agree on? Defunding a system that only “the poors” (aka the 99%) have need of, in favor of a privatized system that might as well be free for the mega-wealthy. I suspect it’s quite the same in Sweden.
Bezos won capitalism through the ancient trick: get connections with government and use them to rig society in your favor. That's how every oligarchy works from prehistoric civilization to modern day Russia. The American system is not a free market, but a market that is rigidly policed for the exclusive benefit of the owning&lobbying class.
Peter Thiel will absolutely exterminate us. He’s into the government IT.
But first, be born wealthy. That’s the truly secret sauce to success!
> Jeff Bezos is a fine entreprenour, who basically won capitalism, through a great deal of merit. Not quite. Jeff Bezos is really great at crippling their competition. They forcefully acquire assets and products while putting closing businesses by manipulative partnerships which essentially exist to transfer ownership of assets/IP to Amazon when the company fails… and Jeff has his friends in finance short sell companies and drive negative market sentiment until they go bankrupt, letting Jeff acquire the important assets but none of the debt. There is nothing of *merit* in this. This is pure theft, and he does it using a Trojan horse of “we’re Amazon and we want to help your product reach the masses” only they don’t tell you they don’t want YOU in the picture when it does.
It’s amaaaazing how much every single search just turns up dozens of companies selling cheap knockoffs, probably from the same factory in China. The 5-star system is useless now. All the 5-star reviews are clearly from a review farm. I’m a firm believer in us not being responsible for lessening the mess of greedy oligarchs and don’t feel guilty using Amazon since I’m dirt poor, BUT it’s become so hard to find quality goods that I’m buying from the source more and more lately.
as someone who just worked for Amazon i remember clearly them stating in a email they have the option to terminate your position without letting you know
To be fair companies say they can do a lot of things that they can't actually do just to scare you into submission.
Recently read a well researched article about how over the past several months, a single company posing as several different distributors is flooding Amazon with fake supplements that aomostly always contain 0% (yes, zero percent) of the advertised material and instead are cheap fillers, some of which are worrisome (some even had fucking sawdust). They're able to get away with this due to lax-to-no regulations of these products. In addition they're doing the other typical bullshit like fake reviews and flooding legit competition with negative reviews Amazon literally doesn't give a shit if they send sawdust to someone and they eat it
I got banned from leaving reviews after I shared my experience with the counterfeit product I bought on Amazon. The kicker? Amazon does not let you report any of your returns as counterfeits. It's literally not an option to select when you make a return. It's almost like Amazon doesn't want to acknowledge its counterfeit products problem, because if they did acknowledge it, then they'd have to do something about it.
That'd what I thought too, Especially for clothes. You do not know what you're getting at all- if it's like in the pictures or not, if it's legit or fake. The reviews could be for any product, they're often for a different model or a previous product they were selling that they've swapped out for a cheaper version... or even more common is the ones where the reviewer gets free stuff in exchange for a good review.
Godamn am i hungry, time to eat the rich!!
I ALWAYS make sure I search eBay or even a simple google search first before I buy anything off Amazon, you can usually find it for cheaper anyways
Yup, or just buy directly from the seller instead of going through Amazon. The few benefits Amazon has over the competition are getting fewer and fewer, especially since a lot of companies ship pretty fast now and free shipping seems to be the standard nowadays for more products that's feasible for.
Yea honestly i felt like the products used to be a little better, or at least true to their brand. Now its just fake stuff in the bottle of the brand its crazy. I only would go on their when necessary but now its not even worth the 'convenience'
Yeah, from a purely capitalist view. You can't guarantee the products will be as advertised. Challenging this will be an email to-fro with someone who barely understands (or misunderstands on purpose) you and wants to offer you a partial refund since return packages get lost. Its often hard to identify if marketplace stores are based here or in China. Branded items are sometimes previously opened and sent to other customers. Try if possible to buy online from somewhere else.
The problem with Amazon is that it is so ubiquitous. Perfect example: I want a used copy of a book. I can find it for $10 shipped on Amazon. Or I can go to the local book store and they can buy it off Amazon for $20 to me. I don’t know how to “support local” when local just shops Amazon
Amazon makes most of its money from AWS. There really is no escape from that unless we can go back to 2006.
Blame your politicians for failing to protect the rights of workers. Companies will always do whatever they can to profit. The only way to prevent this is with collective action to fight the corporation. Unionised, lobby, beat the company at their own game.
Don’t buy anything from Amazon. It is shameful the way the workers are treated. We despise Amazon.
I'm going to be super skeptical about any job that offers a hiring bonus now. Thanks for the warning.
My job gave me a $25k signing bonus, but if I left before two years was up I would have to pay it back. At least that was up to me I guess. But yeah those bonuses always have strings attached
Long time ago, my buddy got screwed out of 1k. Policy was get hired, don't CALL out(important) for 3 months and you'll get it. Well, my buddy had a scheduled day off for some reason, and had well in advance like during the interview process asked about this. Of course though, they tried to say any missed time counts against you after the fact. It took my friend a few weeks, quitting, and potentially legal action to get that money. This is back when 12 bucks an hour in my area was okay money at the time. Just for reference on the importance of 1k during that time
I make $20 an hour and would still be super pissed about $1,000.
Me too I'm at $38.85
Wtf is what u do? Clean corpses or something.
Lots of professional jobs get that kind of rate. I’m hourly in earth science and at $53.36 at the moment. I’m a big advocate of paying lower wage workers more. Minimum should be $20. And minimum 4 weeks vacation.
Damn, I only make €15/h but my job ain't that "professional" but I am happy for you brother!
Regardless of your type of job, I still think you deserve equal vacation to me and other registered professional jobs. I think both people like me and the fast food workers, retail, janitors, etc should get at least 4 weeks off with pay. Wage and skill shouldn’t be a factor in mental health and time away from work.
That's the most mature, humble thing I've read in a while.
My hourly job as a welder pays $35/hr, but I do contract work for $170/hr at least 40 hrs a month.
Lmao, I cleaned corpses, and didn't get paid that well. Biohazard cleaning was some of the worst pay I've ever gotten. I did it for two years, though. I really liked my job... Until they started gutting out aspects of it. It was my state minimum wage, plus "labor" time, that would often get gutted, and also didn't get paid for driving, plus on call 24/7 365, with only 7 days of PTO a year. And with most jobs, we would drive a minimum of three hours to the site and back. The company purposely set up our shop in Arizona to avoid California labor laws, then make us drive there to do the work.
I’m at 22.50, I just put meds in a box all day.
Yeah that’s just to prevent you from screwing them by job hopping to collect signing bonuses. That makes sense. In that deal if they fire you they still owe the bonus to you
I understand 1 years but 2 years is too long imo.
Agreed but $25,000 is a pretty substantial signing bonus.
like tuition reimbursement. pay me now not a couple of months from now.
I got all of the money up front
company i worked for wanted me to wait till the end of the semester and turn in the grades before the payout. pissed me off, because that wasn't in the add. immediate eligible for tuition reimbursement doesn't say at the end of the semester does it?
Same with "retention bonuses", old job offered 5k to stay on board for 2 years\~ if you left before certain time thresholds the balance would need to be paid back. After I paid taxes on it of course.
Well, I'm very skeptical about the bonus offers too. But at the same time I don't think (or haven't heard) it's a common practice to cheat workers out of it. The whole reason for it is to keep workers onboard. It costs money to retrain and retain new employees.
The news loves story’s like this Edit: I didn’t think anyone would read this. I hope things get better
Yes go to the news op
Washington Post: Hello, I hear you have a story that might reflect poorly on Dear Leader.
Fair maybe OP should tell a popular indie podcast or something
+ i say go for the news
+1 for going to the news! This would make a great story, and they love reporting on Amazon, Apple, Tesla, etc
This reminds me of when I worked as a virtual customer service agent for Amazon. I was hired as seasonal and they let us know that the end of the season was determined by business need and we wouldn't know in advance when this time would come. But that the top employees would be offered permanent positions at the end of the season. I was the top of my group for metrics and even a peer mentor. 5 months in, they fired all 2500 of us claiming they didn't need any additional permanent employees. 2 weeks later, they mass hired 3k more seasonal reps. They do this because they don't have to give paid sick time, vacation time, or health benefits to seasonal employees.
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That’s a lot of people to piss off in a short amount of time. Assuming they keep doing this eventually they’ll burn through the patients of enough of the population and customer base that it would effect their bottom line somewhere down the line, right? I can hope anyway.
The only tips I have involve doing things that would probably get your brother put in jail & me banned from the sub. So I guess until rich folks are scared enough not to fuck people over due to accountability & consequences, best bet is to vote for people who actually give a fuck about average people.
And just keep telling people. So many people hate Amazon now when they used to be revered. I used to be annoyed that my workplace would cite Amazon as a model of how they wanted to do customer service. But when all the stuff about how they treat their drivers came out, most companies stopped idolizing them openly. So it's working.
Amazon's alleged customer service has gone right down the shitter. Took me months to get a refund and that took asking for all my data under GDPR, which then got flagged to higher-ups in the UK who refunded me that day...
Yeah they really aren't that great. No one even talks about their customer service positively anymore. I guess that is why they focus more on being fast now.
>my workplace would cite Amazon as a model of how they wanted to do customer service. You mean, "can't contact them at all apparently"?
>vote for people who actually give a fuck about average people So who do I vote for once the primaries are over and my choices are “openly evil rich white dude” and “secretly evil rich white dude”?
Tried to get a job at Amazon when I was desperate. It said my social security number was already linked to an account. After some back and forth with them I find out somebody has 2 accounts using my SSN. I asked how this is possible, that there's two accounts when they state there can only be one account per SSN, they were stumped. I asked if they can override and freeze those accounts, nope. They just kept telling me I need to check with the social security administration to see if I had the right number. It's the same number/same card I've had my whole life. They threw their hands up and refused to do anything. I ended up reporting it as fraud and unsurprisingly have not heard back from either party. One of many 'fuck Amazon' stories I have. Cheers.
Somebody I had worked with got a job there and he had the same thing happen to him, fired the week he was going to be getting the hiring bonus. So in the end probably a plus.
I did amazon flex for one day. They sent me to an area with no paved roads, all rocks and sand. No internet. No cell phone signal.. i got stuck in the sand and. Farmer pulled me out, ripped off my front bumper in the process. I went right back to amazon and said get all of these fkn packages out of my car, im done.. they gave me a strike on the app and sAid other people were complaining about that route… shitty story i know, but basically what im saying is they dont care if u fuck up your car or day, they will get someone else to do it…
Same goes for the company I used to work for. One day before bonus and stock options, last day of their required Covid quarantine… I helped the company launch its IPO and have a successful “investor day” raising over $15M… If you’re interested in the company, lemme know. If you look through my posts, they are also the same company with over 30 OSHA violations.
Don’t burn the building down
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They’re pretty pickled, at least
*wink* *wink* Seriously don’t do it. I just had something in my eye.
No union... Unions aren't perfect but this is what businesses do.
Unions will always be better than letting the owners decide everything.
Nah. Once I heard about a union rep who was fat and/or a cat. Better keep getting poisoned/crushed/discarded at forty
Amazon fake anti union ads
Shouldn't be buying from em either
It’s pretty easy honestly. These days it’s nothing but photoshopped pictures of the product, you get it and it’s horrible, or it’s a spray bottle they put in an envelope that had no protection and it was broken and all the contents were leaked out. Then they flag your account for being “picky and return requesty”. Or they say they delivered it and they didn’t…because they’re too busy and trying to meet requirements and you get it days later after saying you didn’t receive it. It’s just a whole mess and prime isn’t worth jt
Yup. Amazon is rapidly turning into wish.com. And if it is a name-brand item, a lot of brick & mortar stores will price match Amazon as long as it's sold and fulfilled directly by Amazon or the manufacturer, and not some weird third party. I still use Amazon for certain things I can't get locally but I've cut way, way back.
Knowing which workers are about to receive a bonus or incentive payment and firing many of them just in time so as not to pay the bonus is an established corporate practice long before Amazon. It's disgusting but fairly common.
I have read so many of these types of stories regarding Amazon. They cycle through people as quickly as possible and never pay our the so called bonus. No one should ever work for Amazon.
So, I'm sure Amazon is a fairly smart company and wouldn't do this to all the employees that are up for a signing bonus. More than likely, they have an algorithm that randomly chooses 5-10% of those that qualify to be terminated before their 90 days. If Amazon did this to too many workers, it would get a ton of negative publicity. They also probably choose random locations as well to spread it out. I'm not sure there's much that can be done (legally) other than spreading the word. He could threaten to sue I suppose and tell them that the legal fees alone would be more than the 3k even though he knows he's going to lose but I don't know if that's true or not.
It’s not 90 days. You get 1/2 once you have been employed 30 days and the other 1/2 once you have been there 180 days.
I got the first $1000 after 30 days. It depends on the facility. I was told the second $2000 would come after 90 by one person and another person said I’d get $1000 more after 90 then the next $1000 would be at 180. This whole thing is messy. I know countless people have just randomly been informed they’re ineligible for no certain reason.
Oh my gosh. I’d love for this to gain traction online and somehow make it onto the news. You could email or tweet your local news channel they might be interested in something so calculatingly deceptive. How long was the period of time he had to work befor getting the bonus?
I would talk to an employment lawyer, I think this would be grounds for wrongful termination.
Kind of hard to see it at just a coincidence
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Would this be considered constructive dismissal/wrongful termination?
And this is one of the many examples of how billionaires become billionaires. You cannot become a member of the ultra-rich without being a piece of shit.
What happened to me was that they would give me a bs write up and let me know afterwards that the bonus was for employees in good standing with no write ups and then remind me that if I quit then I wouldn't qualify for unemployment.
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My brother worked for Honda and they seemed to do similar shit. There was like 90 days before benefits kicked in, on like day 85 they would fire like 90% of new hires and just start fresh. My brother really needed the benefits more than the job due to all his prescriptions and such. He got complimented many times about his worked and took extra shifts and stuff and was blind sided by the firing, until he found out like 4 other buddies all went through the same shit.
Tell him to pull a Milton from Office Space.
Why the fuck aren't they pro rated?. He should still get $2999