(Bloomberg)—For years, Jeff Bezos has made a faith of placing the shopper first at Amazon.com Inc. Now, with a contentious union vote behind him and the tip of his reign as chief govt officer nearing, the world’s wealthiest particular person says it’s time to focus extra on the welfare of the corporate’s staff as effectively.
“I believe we have to do a greater job for workers,” he stated in a letter to shareholders. “Whereas the voting outcomes had been lopsided and our direct relationship with workers is powerful, it’s clear to me that we want a greater imaginative and prescient for a way we create worth for workers—a imaginative and prescient for his or her success.”
Bezos is stepping down as CEO later this yr to turn out to be govt chairman, and it was clear that legacy was on his thoughts in his closing missive to traders.
The corporate he based is the world’s largest on-line retailer and cloud-computing firm and ranks extremely in polls of widespread manufacturers and trusted establishments. However Amazon has discovered itself challenged by regulators, labor unions and activists all over the world within the final yr, a few of whom make the case that the corporate reached its perch by aggressive enterprise techniques that left a path of vanquished opponents, shortchanged companions and burnt-out staff.
Within the letter, launched Thursday, Bezos argues that Amazon’s success emanates from its monitor file of invention and including worth to society. “Any enterprise that doesn’t create worth for these it touches, even when it seems profitable on the floor, isn’t lengthy for this world,” he stated. In a particularly back-of-the-envelope tally for 2020, he added up the corporate’s returns to shareholders, worker pay, earnings of the small sellers on Amazon and saved money and time from buyers and cloud-computing prospects. The sum: $301 billion.
Referring to workers, Bezos says he needs so as to add two components to Amazon’s customer-centric credo. “We’re going to be Earth’s Finest Employer and Earth’s Most secure Place to Work,” he stated.
Employees at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to affix the Retail, Wholesale and Division Retailer Union. Of the greater than 3,000 ballots solid, Amazon garnered 1,798 nos and the union simply 738 yeses. The RWDSU has vowed to contest the outcomes, which had been introduced final week.
The result adopted a hard-fought election that lasted seven weeks and attracted nationwide consideration from longtime critics of Amazon’s labor insurance policies, together with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. A lot of that criticism targeted on the lengthy hours and dealing circumstances on the firm’s achievement facilities. Amazon argues that it has employed tons of of 1000’s of individuals and pays them greater than twice the federal minimal wage and supplies well being advantages.
Within the letter, Bezos rejected portrayals of his firm as a typically brutal office for hourly workers. “If you happen to learn among the information stories, you would possibly suppose now we have no care for workers,” he stated. “In these stories, our workers are typically accused of being determined souls and handled as robots. That’s not correct.”
Bezos stated Amazon doesn’t set unreasonable efficiency targets and that 94% of the Amazon’s workers already say they’d advocate working there to a pal.
After he steps down from day-to-day administration of the corporate, Bezos has stated he hopes to give attention to invention and new initiatives, together with work with Amazon’s logistics groups on new packages for staff. He highlighted a couple of packages already underway, together with efforts to forestall repetitive stress accidents by ergonomic teaching and by adjusting the corporate’s scheduling software program to rotate workers by duties that use totally different muscle teams.
Amazon is No. 1 within the 2020 Digital Commerce 360 Prime 1000.
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