I have some karma to burn, so let's do this again. Underpay compared to what?
There has to be some comparison here. You can't say "underpay" and leave it at that.
You might try and weasel and say "underpay compared to a decent living wage". Well, I have news for you - even that's relative.
A fair comparison would be "underpay compared to the rest of the warehouse industry". Which begs the question - why do people go work for Amazon, then? Are they trapped by not being able to leave the small towns where Amazon hires? Doesn't sound likely. Could it be that their overall conditions are more or less on par, or quite probably somewhat better than the rest of the industry?
I'm going to call your bullshit and say what I think directly: Amazon is a cheap target for young idealists simply because it's visible, it's fashionable to attack, makes a lot of money overall, and most people attacking it have no idea what's a good pay for that kind of work because they never did that kind of work.
Maybe its a target because is a behemoth of a target.
Amazon is so big US states were competing in a bezos d*k sucking competition to have their hq built in their state.
A company famous for paying zero taxes and its biggest slice of workforce are being optimised like a computer program to squeeze every last $ they can produce at the expense of the workforce.
So if amazon is a bad target what else should be then? Or maybe everything is fine and the invisible hand is going to fix all of the problems?
That's a _very_ fair practice to attack, although to be honest once the rules have been written it would be kinda stupid not to play the game this way. But allowing cities to offer huge allowances and tax breaks is hugely unequal to other businesses in that area, and creates perverse incentives where the auction ends up with a likely negative value, just so some politician can brag that he brought X or Y or Z in his city.
To note that this is the opposite of free market: the crux of the problem is allowing politicians to write checks/tax deductions to businesses for purely political purposes.
States and cities competing to undercut each other in offering sweet deals for Amazon HQs and sports team stadiums had always felt extremely wrong to me. If anything has a natural right to behave like a cartel when negotiating against businesses, it is municipal and state governments.
Quite agree that Amazon is a cheap target: they do very bad things and they are able to do them at scale; one might argue even in a monopoly situation. Doesn't make stuff fairer. Rest assured it's not my only target, if that's what troubles you.
Amazon's choice to exploit workers might very well be an industry standard, but this doesn't make it a choice any less: Amazon boasts about leading on important social issues, but that's the real bullshit. They just do as the others, no virtue at all. Being in the strong position, they might have the opportunity to make the industry fairer, but they willingly decided not even to try.
I like how in your world megacorp automatically get the benefit of doubt, while people pissing in their pants because they cannot go to the bathroom are "relatively" fine.
That's true for every commercial transaction including every labor market transaction, and it's the reason why voluntary transactions are positive sum to both parties (ignoring the negative externalities to uninvolved third parties, and edge cases like a diminished ability to make an informed decision such as with a gambling addiction)
You paid $1000 for an iPhone because you thought the subjective value that it brings you is worth $1500. If Apple was asking you for $1501, you wouldn't make the purchase.
Google hired you as a dev for $300k because they think you bring more value to the table than $300k. If you were asking for more than what your value is to them, then they wouldn't hire you. Same for every other hiring arrangement including the ones Amazon makes and the ones you make in your personal life (such as if you hire a cleaner, book an uber, etc)
There has to be some comparison here. You can't say "underpay" and leave it at that.
You might try and weasel and say "underpay compared to a decent living wage". Well, I have news for you - even that's relative.
A fair comparison would be "underpay compared to the rest of the warehouse industry". Which begs the question - why do people go work for Amazon, then? Are they trapped by not being able to leave the small towns where Amazon hires? Doesn't sound likely. Could it be that their overall conditions are more or less on par, or quite probably somewhat better than the rest of the industry?
I'm going to call your bullshit and say what I think directly: Amazon is a cheap target for young idealists simply because it's visible, it's fashionable to attack, makes a lot of money overall, and most people attacking it have no idea what's a good pay for that kind of work because they never did that kind of work.