Bezos also solemnly declared that one of the biggest threats to the company was a disgruntled and entrenched hourly workforce—like the unionized workers that impaired U.S. automakers with strikes and onerous contract negotiations. (Amazon later denied that Bezos said this.) He encouraged Niekerk and Onetto to focus on ensuring that FC workers who weren’t advancing within Amazon stayed for a maximum of three years. Amazon then made several changes in its warehouses to ward off this danger. Where previously workers had been eligible for small raises in their hourly wage every six months for five
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