Amazon announces US$500 million in holiday bonuses for frontline employees

These bonuses come after strikes around the world for hazard pay, better health and safety guidelines, and better communication and contact tracing within warehouses.

Amazon announced bonuses for its employees the day before Black Friday, including more than US$500 million for its frontline employees.

Amazon employees in the United States and United Kingdom who are employed between December 1 and December 31 will be eligible for a bonus of US$300 (for full-time employees) or US$150 (for part-time workers).

The company also said it would be investing over US$750 million in additional pay for its frontline hourly workers. Whether this will come as additional pay or in some other form, like paid time off, is unclear.

Amazon provided a similar bonus in June, which it dubbed a “thank you bonus,” for its employees and partners who worked during the pandemic. The bonus included US$500 for full-time employees and US$250 for part-time workers.

The new bonus brings the total that the company has spent globally on bonuses and incentives in 2020 to over US$2.5 billion.

“Our teams are doing amazing work serving customers’ essential needs, while also helping to bring some much-needed holiday cheer for socially-distanced families around the world,” wrote Dave Clark, Senior Vice President of Amazon’s Worldwide Operations, in a statement released on Thanksgiving Day. “I’ve never been more grateful for—or proud of—our teams.”

These bonuses come after strikes around the world for hazard pay, better health and safety guidelines, and better communication and contact tracing within warehouses.

In October, Amazon workers in several cities in Germany took part in a union strike during its Prime Days sales event. The company claimed that the strikes did not have an effect on its ability to function. After the sales event, a British union argued that Amazon had cut social distancing guidelines during the increased sales period and that doing so had endangered employees’ health.

Later that month, Amazon announced that nearly 20,000 of its employees had contracted COVID-19.

In November, workers in Alabama filed to unionize, a move Senator Bernie Sanders referred to as “a shot heard around the world,” in a state known for being harsh on unions.

Amazon has a record of being anti-union, repeatedly citing its industry-leading US$15 per hour starting pay.“It is great that workers are getting more this holiday season, [but] it is not enough,” said Christy Hoffman, a general secretary for a trade union group called UNI Global union, in an interview with CNN. “To show it values its workforce, Amazon should collectively bargain wages and conditions with workers throughout its operations, rather than make one time unilateral gestures of appreciation.”

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