Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has been having labor troubles for quite some time. The planned job cuts recently revealed around the Alexa division were big enough. But things seem to have gotten worse as two new rounds of labor trouble have emerged. Meanwhile, investors seem relatively sanguine about the whole business, and Amazon is up fractionally in Monday afternoon’s trading.
First, Amazon was hit with a lawsuit from three employees who are part of Amazon’s corporate research and strategy division. The lawsuit in question alleges that Amazon retaliated against them after they brought complaints of “chronic pay inequity issues” to Amazon’s attention. Plus, reports note Amazon also gives female staffers lower-ranking job titles for doing the same work as other, higher-ranking titles. At one point, one of the staffers in question found that another researcher was paid “…approximately 150%…” of the staffer in question’s pay. Once the staffer complained, said staffer was promptly demoted within a matter of weeks after raising the complaint.
Another Warehouse Joins the Strike Against Amazon
That bit was bad news enough, especially in these days of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scoring. But then, another matter that had been simmering somewhat came to a boil once more. A strike that’s been going on since June featuring Amazon drivers and dispatchers now expanded to a warehouse in Chicago. With the Chicago warehouse now in play, Amazon now has 25 warehouses experiencing striking conditions. The strikers note that they’re being exposed to a range of “unfair labor practices,” starting with low pay and carrying on to unsafe vans.
Is Amazon a Good or Bad Stock?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN stock based on 40 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 58.09% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AMZN price target of $175.51 per share implies 20.02% upside potential.
