Amazon apologized to a U.S. congressman after mocking that employees sometimes washed in plastic bottles, saying it was an ‘own purpose’ and ‘wrong’.
In a tweet posted last month, Mark Pocan, a Democrat in Wisconsin, criticized Amazon for its union efforts and notes on working conditions, drawing particular attention to staff who did not have time to find and use a bathroom.
In response Amazon tweeted: “You do not really believe in fluffing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us. ”
It sparked a spate of negative reactions and several articles refuting Amazon’s position.
Most importantly, The Intercept has published a story setting out internal correspondence from Amazon executives about employees urinating, and in some cases defecating, while not being delivered.
In a blog post, Amazon said that its response “did not consider our large driver population, but only wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers”, suggesting that the issue is limited to its network of delivery managers only.
“It was an end in itself,” Amazon wrote. “We are unhappy about that and we owe it to Representative Pocan.”
The tweet is said to have not been “properly scrutinized” internally, but claims that issues in the bathroom for drivers were due to ‘traffic or sometimes rural routes’, which according to Covid-19 are related to the closure of public toilets.
Amazon then listed a number of tweets and news articles referring to the same issue involving businesses like Uber and UPS. Uber declined to comment. A UPS spokesperson could not be reached.
Amazon added: ‘Regardless of the fact that it’s in the whole industry, we’d like to fix it. We do not yet know how, but will look for solutions. ”
The apology comes because nearly 6,000 Amazon employees at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, are awaiting the outcome of a union vote. The count is expected to start early next week. If the union succeeds, it’s the first time Amazon workers in the country have reached collective bargaining power.
Supporters see the union’s drive, which has drawn significant political support, as a potential starting point for action in the US e – commerce giant’s workforce, which grew rapidly during the pandemic and now numbers more than 950,000.
This figure does not include the delivery managers, who are hired by third party contractors. This weekend, a number of executives vowed to walk away from work in protest of what they see as an unacceptable workload as Amazon continues to address the larger pandemic demand.
“197 stop, that’s ridiculous,” one driver said in a video posted to Reddit on Friday. ‘It is not realistic to do so within a reasonable time. How is it safe? ”
He added: ‘It must stop, we must unite. And by the way, yes, we all pee in bottles – we have to. ‘