Amazon, the multinational ecommerce retailer and one of the most valuable companies in America, has made a surprise announcement that it will implement a company-wide minimum wage that is more than twice the federally mandated minimum.

In a statement released through its corporate blog last week, Amazon stated that the company-wide minimum wage would be raised to $15 per hour as of November 1 of this year. This wage will be applied to both in-house employees and seasonal workers hired by temp agencies. The company states that 250,000 regular employees will benefit from the new minimum wage, and more than 100,000 seasonal workers will benefit during peak holiday operations.

While some have praised Amazon’s decision to more than double the federal minimum, the change doesn’t come without conditions.

Employees Will Lose Stock Allocations and Bonuses

Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon, said in a statement that “We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead. We’re excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us.”

Amazon has stated that workers currently earning $15 will receive a $1 hourly wage increase at the beginning of November. However, all employees will no longer receive stock awards that were previously offered by the company.

In previous policy, new staff were awarded two Amazon shares at their date of hiring and were then given a single stock option for every following year. The two initial awards (which were offered at no cost) will be sorely missed. Amazon shares currently trade at $1,889 per share.

Amazon has stated that its own internal research found that employees would prefer the immediacy of a wage increase. This does not consider the potential thousands of dollars’ worth of incentive pay that it has also offered up until this point.

A union representative for it’s workers in the UK stated that the loss of stock benefits and bonus payments were “a stealth tax on its own wage increase.”

Amazon Will Advocate for Higher Federal Minimum Rates

Amazon believes that its new strategy will benefit staff in the long term, and that initial negative feedback is unfounded. The company has also pledged to do what it can to advocate for a higher federal minimum wage.

Is Amazon’s decision to raise its minimum wage an inspired move, or is the company simply rearranging the distribution of worker compensation? Time will tell whether the decision will have any impact on the wider movement for an increased federal minimum wage in the U.S.