Amazon's exit bonus program could threaten a unionization effort at an Alabama Amazon warehouse, according to a VICE report. Amazon offers bonuses of $1,000 or more to employees to resign as part of an ongoing voluntary resignation program, known as "The Offer." Such bonuses could be considered bribes under federal labor law, which could cause the ongoing union election in Alabama to be thrown out.

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• Amazon first mentioned the program in a 2014 shareholder letter. The program — invented by Zappos, the shoe company it acquired in 2009 — is meant to encourage non-enthusiastic employees to leave, as it "isn't healthy for the employee or the company."
• According to VICE, Amazon offers employees $2,000 for one to two "peaks" at the company (a peak refers to the holiday shopping season) and $1,000 for each year until they reach $5,000.
• Over the weekend, Amazon sent emails to workers at its Bessemer, Ala. warehouse offering them at least $2,000 to quit. Other employees presumably also received emails, as "Amazon runs this program nationally and has for several years," VICE notes.
• Since employers are barred under federal law from "improving the material conditions of workers" during union elections, it could cause a court to cast out the current election results. If union supporters lost this election, it could also allow them to petition the National Labor Relations Board to hold a second one.
• Mail-in ballots went out earlier this month to 5,800 Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Ala., who have until March 29 to decide whether to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. It would be the first Amazon union to form in the U.S.

Related:

• Over the weekend, dozens of rallies were held outside Amazon warehouses and distribution centers, as well as Whole Foods locations, across the U.S. to support the unionization effort.
• The demonstrations, held in nearly 30 states, were part of a "National Day of Solidarity" organized by the Southern Workers Assembly, a group of labor activists devoted to “unionism with a social justice agenda."

India’s Supreme Court issued a temporary halt on retailer Future Group's $3.4B sale to Reliance Industries, effectively handing Amazon a win as the case continues. Monday's verdict bars a final ruling from a tribunal until the high court hears Amazon's objections to the retail sale.

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• Amazon is seeking to block Future Group from selling its retail assets to Indian conglomerate Reliance.
• Reliance purchased Future Retail for $3.4B in August. In 2019, Amazon acquired a 49% stake in Future Group, which owns a small stake in Future Retail. This gave Amazon a 3.58% stake in Future Retail.
• Amazon claims Future Group violated a partnership contract. Following a lower court ruling that didn't side in its favor, Amazon has taken this case to the Indian Supreme Court in an attempt to block the deal; the company claims it will face “irreparable harm” if the acquisition moves forward.
• On Monday, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the National Company Law Tribunal, which must sign off on the deal, cannot “sanction” the acquisition until it fully hears the case in March. The court also asked for written statements from Future Retail.

Amazon was the most visited retail website worldwide in 2020, according to a new Fasthosts report. The internet service provider found that global retail ecommerce sales grew 27.6% last year, with Amazon comprising a big chunk of that growth.

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• Among ecommerce sites, Amazon claimed the highest monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly traffic, followed by Japan’s Rakuten. Its .com, de, and .co.uk domains all landed in the top 10 most visited sites.
• On average, Amazon.com received 2.6 billion monthly visits last year. On a daily basis, it clocked in at 92.2 million visits, more than the entire U.K. population.
• Across all websites and sectors, Amazon.com was the 12th-most-visited site worldwide. Google ranked first with monthly traffic of 86 billion, more than 10x the world's population.

Amazon removed any references to its employee relations being "good" in its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Amazon's latest Form 10-K, which outlines its operations and results from the last year, also removed previous references to Amazon unions, though it still mentions labor disputes as a potential risk factor.

Other changes:

• Amazon changed the title of a section, previously “Employees," to “Human Capital.” As Geekwire points out, the name change may sound dystopian but is an accepted term in the finance world. According to Investopedia, "the concept of human capital recognizes that not all labor is equal."
• The company removed a sentence that read: “We consider our employee relations to be good.” Different iterations of the sentence have been included in Amazon’s 10-K since the late 1990s.
• Amazon added a new paragraph on diversity, safety, and employee development. It renamed its Human Resources division to “People Experience and Technology.”
• The filing also says Amazon has hired 400,000 workers since February 2020 and spent $11.5B+ on COVID-19 related costs last year.

Amazon has partnered with MIT to improve and optimize its delivery routes for drivers. The entities are sponsoring a competition that asks academic teams to develop machine learning models, which will be able to predict delivery routes selected by experienced drivers.

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• The idea is to further Amazon's efforts to find the most efficient, safe, and sustainable delivery routes for drivers.
• Amazon will provide data, such as delivery locations, package dimensions, and travel times, to help the teams train their models, which are meant to optimize routes based on more specific "driver know-how."
• While Amazon already uses routing algorithms in its deliveries, the competition is meant to add new variables, data, and other changes that could improve them and make them more useful.
• The competition is led by Amazon’s Last Mile team and the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, or CTL. Amazon says it could interview well-performing team members for research positions in Last Mile, the company's developer of planning software for delivery fleets.
• First-place winners will receive $100K, followed by $50K for second place, and $25K for third. CTL will also publish papers describing the top-performing models.

Read This Thing

Every month, Inside Amazon will share an interesting, informative book or article we think you might enjoy.

Today's is a throwback to author/researcher Jim Collins, whose book “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don't” changed the trajectory of Amazon in its earliest days.

In 2001, Amazon was four years old and had yet to turn a profit. That's when Jeff Bezos personally called Collins and asked him to speak to his management team.

Collins' advice was to focus more on long-term decisions over short-term gains, which Bezos seemed to incorporate through his "thinking three years out" vision. Entrepreneur magazine's Chris Porteous explains further:

Collins' work suggests that a company should focus on building one thing to drive another.

'If you can get the compound momentum out of your flywheel in a world that wants you to do something fast and overnight, it is enormously powerful,' said Collins.

Indeed, the plan must have been very logical because it worked. The last quarter of 2001 was when Amazon first reported a profit.

With that knowledge built in, Bezos and his team at Amazon were able to make the necessary strategic changes in the business to establish their flywheel for success.

The lessons Amazon absorbed and that catapulted it to global domination are collected in the book. We don’t guarantee that after you read it, you will have a net worth of more than $182 billion, but we’re pretty sure you’ll have a better idea of how to build a healthy and thriving business.

Read "4 Classic Business Books Recommended by Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg."

QUICK HITS:

• This company is reinventing home and renters insurance. Get a quote to see how much you could save.*
• Amazon donated 190,000 bottles of water to the Texas cities of Georgetown and San Antonio to assist with post-storm relief.
• Two people were ticketed for trespassing and disorderly conduct Friday during a protest outside Amazon's new Brooklyn warehouse in East New York.
• Amazon's Smart Sticky Note Printer has reached its goal on the company's new Kickstarter-like Build It program. The Alexa-enabled printer will now ship to customers as early as July.
• CNBC's "Make It" profiled Francis Davidson's Sonder, a Jeff Bezos-backed startup that leases properties and is now valued at $1.3B.
• Amazon Prime debuted a new streaming channel, "The Coda Collection," with classic music documentaries and concert films for a $4.99/month subscription.
• Amazon Studios announced the leads for its upcoming rom-com film, "I Want You Back." They include Charlie Day, Jenny Slate, Gina Rodriguez, Scott Eastwood, Manny Jacinto, and Clark Backo.
• What are the costs of inefficiencies in your product release cycle? Read how top companies save over $1M each year.*

*This is sponsored content.

Tweet of the Day: Journalist Madhavan Narayanan shared his thoughts on the Amazon-Reliance court battle: