Amazon responds to backlash

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon, facing a backlash from longtime warehouse employees who say its $15 hourly minimum wage wouldn’t benefit them, will provide a bigger raise to those workers.

The company said Wednesday that some adjustments are being made this week, and workers who already made $15 an hour will get more than the $1 an hour raise promised last week. The amount will differ by warehouse and affect a small amount of employees, but Amazon declined to say how many.

When Amazon announced last week that it would boost its hourly minimum wage to $15, it also cut two benefits: monthly bonuses and a chance to own Amazon’s sky-rocketing stock, currently worth nearly $1,800 a share. Several employees told The Associated Press last week that they expected to earn less because of the cut benefits.

A worker at a Maryland warehouse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired, said employees were told Tuesday that they would get a raise of $1.25 an hour after Nov. 1. That’s 25 cents more an hour than what they were told last week.

CVS Health-Aetna merger OK’d

NEW YORK (AP) — The proposed $69 billion merger between CVS Health and Aetna is getting a greenlight from the Department of Justice, with some conditions.

The Justice Department on Wednesday approved the deal on the condition that Aetna moves ahead with its plan to sell its Medicare Part D prescription drug plan business, resolving some anti-monopoly issues.

Aetna announced last month it would sell the business for an undisclosed amount.

CVS announced plans to buy Hartford, Connecticut’s Aetna late last year. The deal is expected to give the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, drugstore chain a bigger role in health care, with the companies combining to manage care through CVS stores, clinics and prescription drugs.