Amazon Pays Employees To Quit Rather Than Fixing Problems
May 5, 2014

This makes perfect libertarian sense, at least from Jeff Bezos' perspective. Rather than dealing with workers' complaints, they'd just as soon pay disgruntled workers to quit.

In the company’s annual letter to shareholders, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos revealed what has to be the most counterintuitive personnel policy in corporate America today: If an employee isn’t happy working at the online retail giant, they can earn up to $5,000 just for quitting.

Bezos describes it as one of the company’s “better ways to do things internally.” Called Pay To Quit, the program is “pretty simple,” Bezos says. “Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit. The first year the offer is made, it’s for $2,000. Then it goes up one thousand dollars a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is ‘Please Don’t Take This Offer.’”

I was at an Amazon shareholders' meeting in May, 2012, and there was a huge protest outside over the conditions in fulfillment centers, Amazon's relationship with ALEC, taxes, and their refusal to disclose political contributions.

Amazon has some issues they need to deal with, but it appears they'd rather cut a check to any workers who actually have complaints or point out problems rather than deal with the problems themselves.

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