After a union battle at an Alabama warehouse, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that as executive chairman he will focus on making the company a better place to work.
Bezos made the disclosure Thursday in his annual letter to shareholders. He said he didn't take comfort in the outcome of the recent union election in Bessemer, Alabama, even though workers there overwhelmingly rejected a union.
“I think we need to do a better job for our employees,” said Bezos, who will be stepping down as CEO later this year and will be executive chair of the online shopping giant.
Part of his focus as chair will be to make warehouse jobs safer. He said about 40% of injuries are sprains and strains caused by repeating the same motions and are more likely to happen during a worker's first six months in the job. He said training may help those “working in a physical role for the first time."
Last week, workers in Alabama handed the online retail giant a decisive victory when they voted against forming a union and cut off a path that labor activists had hoped would lead to similar efforts throughout the company.
The union push was the biggest in Amazon’s 26-year history and only the second time that an organizing effort from within the company had come to a vote. But Bessemer was always viewed as a long shot since it pitted the country’s second-largest employer against warehouse workers in a state with laws that don’t favor unions. Alabama is one of 27 “right-to-work” states where workers don’t have to pay dues to unions that represent them.
However, some of the work practices claimed by those seeking a union were unseemly and Bezos defended the company against the worst of those allegations.
“If you read some of the news reports, you might think we have no care for employees. In those reports, our employees are sometimes accused of being desperate souls and treated as robots,” Bezos wrote. “That’s not accurate. They’re sophisticated and thoughtful people who have options for where to work.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has announced that 100,000 businesses have signed up for a new database that collects ownership information intended to help unmask shell company owners. Yellen says the database will send the message that “the United States is not a haven for dirty money.”
A new version of the federal student aid application known as the FAFSA is available for the 2024-2025 school year, but only on a limited basis as the U.S. Department of Education works on a redesign meant to make it easier to apply.
A steep budget deficit caused by plummeting tax revenues and escalating school voucher costs will be in focus Monday as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature return for a new session at the state Capitol.
The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years is on its way to the moon. The private lander from Astrobotic Technology blasted off Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, catching a ride on United Launch Alliance's brand new rocket Vulcan.
Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oil fell last year from record highs in 2022, when Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors helped worsen hunger worldwide, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.
Wall Street is drifting higher after reports showed the job market remains solid, but key parts of the economy still don’t look like they’re overheating.
The Biden administration is docking more than $2 million in payments to student loan servicers that failed to send billing statements on time after the end of a pandemic payment freeze.
The nation’s employers added a robust 216,000 jobs last month, the latest sign that the American job market remains resilient even in the face of sharply higher interest rates.
A U.S. labor agency has accused SpaceX of unlawfully firing employees who penned an open letter critical of CEO Elon Musk and creating an impression that worker activities were under surveillance by the rocket ship company.
