Amazon has made a rare public apology – but not to its workers, and without actual admission of guilt.
More than a week ago, the company was caught running for public rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) lies that his workers never feel the need to pee in water bottles (which is actually a well-documented issue at Amazon because of how it keeps its workers robotic and dismissed).
Now, late on the Friday night before Easter weekend, when few GeekWire) pay attention, the company Pocan apologizes – and no one else. Amazon only apologizes for not being “accurate” enough either – not that they actually create situations where workers pee in bottles.
In fact, Amazon goes so far as to suggest that the whole thing with a pee bottle is simply a deplorable status quo, pointing out that it’s a handful of times that delivery managers from other companies have also been caught in bottles, as well as a handful of remarks. on Twitter that supports Amazon’s views. You can almost hear Jeff Bezos say, “Why don’t these people blame UPS and FedEx? Let’s get more people thinking about it.”
The blog post also strongly suggests that this is just a problem for delivery managers, not Amazon’s warehouse workers – although an exposure by a secret reporter in 2018 found that Amazon warehouse workers were also forced to skip bathroom breaks, and ‘ a worker who spoke to journalists. just last week proposed bathroom breaks were still a problem in 2021. ‘You sit there and you have to go pee, but you do not want to do’ time off ‘,’ she said Motherboard.
Amazon is also currently facing a lawsuit over missed lunch. And most importantly, it all happens in the shadow of a vote in the Amazon trade union in Bessemer, Alabama, that could help shape the future of labor in the United States, let alone Amazon.
Amazon’s apology to Pocan is the kind of memo that needs to be annotated line-by-line, in part because one of the rules is actually pretty good – “Regardless of the fact that it’s in the whole industry, we want to solve it. We do not know how yet, but will look for solutions ”- but because it is over here at 01:00 and it turns out The edgeThe blockquote tool does not allow me to tweet, but I’ll give you the primary gut first:
Wednesday last week, the @amazonnews Twitter account tweeted the following Back to Representative Mark Pocan:
It was an end in itself, we are unhappy about it and we owe it to Representative Pocan.
First, the tweet was wrong. It did not consider our large managerial population and wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers. A typical Amazon fulfillment center has dozens of restrooms, and employees can walk out of their workstation at any time. If any employee in a performance center has a different experience, we encourage them to talk to their manager and we will try to rectify this.
Second, our process was flawed. The tweet was not properly investigated. We must adhere to an extremely high level of accuracy at all times, and this is especially so when we criticize the comments of others.
Thirdly, we know that drivers can find problems due to traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this was especially the case during Covid when many public toilets were closed.
This is a long-standing problem in the industry and is not specific to Amazon. We have included some links below that discuss the matter.
Regardless of the fact that it is industry-wide, we want to solve it. We do not yet know how, but will seek solutions.
We will continue to speak if we make a mistake, but we will also work hard to always be accurate.
Representative Pocan apologizes.
You can read the full version here. When you are done, go check it out Motherboard‘s interview with six female Amazon delivery managers, for whom the puddle situation is obviously much worse.