$19ish/hr seems like a perfectly fair mid-teens wage for warehouse work with a couple dollars tacked on to make up for the fact that it's a shitty, "fast paced", meat-grinder that doesn't give you enough time to take a piss.

The workers want less crappy working conditions. I understand that. The problem is that their pay is what it is in order to make up for the crappy working conditions.

I don't think unionization will help here. Warehouses can already be automated to a much greater extent than Amazon does. I suspect that at ~$19/hr Amazon is very close to the break-even point for replacing pickers with automation.

Edit:

Picking inventory is fully automated in some warehouses in places with lower wages than NYC (Summit Racing for example). It stands to reason that combined with the higher than typical wages, whatever the break even point is an Amazon warehouse in NYC is far closer to it than anyone else.

$19 is basically minimum wage in the NYC area. If even that.

They're occasionally the largest company in the world, headed by the richest man in the world. I'm sure they can find the money somewhere to pay their employees a decent wage.

You gave them a 2% raise, the article mentions $18.60. We don't know if this is before or after tax, so let's say it's before.

If they work 40h a week, rent a single bedroom apartment at ~$1600 and the cost of living for one is ~$800 this leaves 2976 - 2400 = ~576 a month without special circumstances. In this case they don't have a car, drinks or meals outside the home, going out (movies/etc.), alcohol, dog, sport membership or travel and certainly no family. If they have one family member at ~600 a month they are down 24 dollars a month so they'd better not. [1]

Simply seeing that Amazon is doing so mindbogglingly well for itself that the value of their assets has grown by 52.65% in 2017[2] and while still holding ~22 billion dollars in reserve[3], workers are not adding some value (as is required in a Keynesian capitalist system) but an insane amount of value. And it is all trickling up while workers cannot afford to have a family.

[1]: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Long-Island-NY-Unit...

[2]: https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/amzn/financials/...

[3]: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/256-billion-apple-cash-amazon-...