By Sean Higgins. He is a research fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Excerpts:
"What exactly has Amazon done since the nation went into lockdown? It announced plans to hire an additional 100,000 people, made good, then said it would hire another 75,000. Before the outbreak, Amazon’s minimum hourly rate for U.S. employees was $15. It has since kicked that up to $17 and made overtime double pay, not time-and-a-half. All this while more than 33 million Americans filed for unemployment.
Amazon says it is also “waiving certain fees, pausing loan repayment . . . and relaxing our policies around shipping-related performance metrics” for selling partners to help them stay afloat.
Amazon contends that, like any other company, it is doing the best it can to respond to a crisis for which there is no road map. It has done the expected things, like distributing masks and other protective gear and providing temperature testing for employees arriving at work. Amazon is primarily hiring to staff its vast warehouses, which operate around the clock in staggered shifts, making social distancing easier than at many other businesses. It has also come up with some innovative ideas, such as rolling out a mobile app that, Amazon tells me, will allow employees to clock in and out rather than stand in line.
Amazon’s recent problems likely stemmed from overstaffing in an attempt to meet increased demand. This isn’t to say that Amazon shouldn’t be scrutinized like any other company and held to account when something bad happens. And if Mr. Sanders, Ms. Omar and other progressives want to exploit the crisis on behalf of their union allies, that’s their prerogative. But if ever there was an occasion to root for a particular business, this is the time and Amazon the company."
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