E-commerce big Amazon has apologized to a US lawmaker after falsely denying that a few of its drivers are compelled at instances to urinate in plastic bottles.
The flap began final week with a tweet from Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin.
“Paying workers $15/hr doesn’t make you a ‘progressive workplace’ when you union-bust & make workers urinate in water bottles,” Pocan tweeted, in an obvious reference to Amazon’s opposition to efforts to unionize a significant facility in Alabama.
Amazon’s official account shortly responded, saying: “You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us.”
But a number of information media then cited quite a few Amazon staff who stated that they had, in reality, been left with little selection however to use plastic bottles.
And the web site The Intercept stated it had obtained inner paperwork displaying Amazon executives had been conscious of the apply.
The employees’ testimony underlined the complaints of many Amazon staff — each in its processing services and amongst its drivers — about what they are saying is a relentless work tempo.
“We owe an apology to Representative Pocan,” Amazon stated in an announcement late Friday.
“The tweet was incorrect. It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers,” every of which, it stated, had dozens of restrooms that staff may use “at any time.”
Amazon continued: “We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed.”
It described the issue as “a long-standing, industry-wide issue,” including, “we would like to solve it.”
The apology didn’t fulfill Pocan, who responded Saturday on Twitter, saying:
“Sigh. This is not about me, this is about your workers — who you don’t treat with enough respect or dignity.
“Start by acknowledging the inadequate working conditions you’ve created for ALL your workers, then fix that for everyone & finally, let them unionize without interference.”
Workers at Amazon’s large processing facility in Bessemer, Alabama accomplished a vote Monday on whether or not to unionize — an initiative strongly resisted by the corporate. The consequence has not but been introduced.
Amazon has efficiently fended off unionization efforts elsewhere in the US, although most of its services in Europe are unionized.
The firm insists its employees take pleasure in good pay and advantages by US requirements.
