GAGE PARK — Amazon employees at four delivery stations around the area are set to get a raise following walkouts at two of the facilities in December.
Newly hired employees at neighborhood delivery stations in Gage Park and McKinley Park, and in suburban Cicero and Skokie will now earn $18 an hour, up from $15.80, according to Ted Miin, who works at the Gage Park location and is a member of Amazonians United.
Other employees will also feel the effects of the raise, since people earn a gradual increase in pay — about 25 cents — every six months they’re with the company, Miin said. He said the pay used to be capped at $18.30 for employees who worked at the warehouses for three years, but has been increased to $19.75.
This raise comes nearly a month after a few dozen employees at the Gage Park and Cicero warehouses — 3507 W. 51st St. and 1500 S. Laramie Ave., respectively — staged coordinated walkouts Dec. 22 to publicize their demands for better working conditions and a pay raise. The Amazonians United Chicagoland group organized the rallies.
Miin called the raise “a big win” for employees considering it had only been a few weeks since the walkouts.
“The cause and effect is pretty clear,” he said.
Employees were already seeing success with their other demands of safer, more flexible working conditions in the warehouses over the past couple of weeks.
The new pay went into effect Sunday, and employees are set to see the results on their next paycheck, Miin said.
In a statement, Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha said the pay increase was the result of a wage review process.
“Amazon has always worked to ensure competitive wages.” The recent pay adjustments were part of a regular wage review process that occurred over several months and impacted employees at more than two dozen sites around Chicago,” he said.
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