Amazon hardly apologizes and says they will look for solutions for drivers who put in bottles

Amazon hardly apologizes and says they will look for solutions for drivers who put in bottles

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An Amazon Prime truck in downtown Seattle near Amazon HQ. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Amazon made a rare apology on Friday night and returned from comments made on Twitter last week in response to representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin about whether his delivery managers needed to urinate in bottles as it was difficult to get to bathroom to break.

The apology is an unusual acknowledgment by the Seattle company, which has recently defended itself aggressively against criticism on Twitter. It also comes as Amazon workers at a fulfillment center in Bessemer, Ala., Are considering having an association effort, with a vote expected sometime next week.

Here’s Pocan’s tweet on March 24 that settles things.

The official Amazon Twitter account @AmazonNuus shot back at Pocan:

Pocan responded that he believes Amazon’s workers. And, as GeekWire reported, thousands of other users on Twitter took part in the debate.

Amazon said Friday that the tweet was “wrong” and that “we did not consider our large driver population, but only wrongly focused on our fulfillment centers.”

The company also said the tweet was not properly investigated and called the process “erroneous”.

However, Amazon defended itself a bit, saying that drivers who have trouble finding toilets “are a long-standing issue in the industry and are not specific to Amazon.” It contains several links to related stories and tweets.

“Regardless of the fact that it is in the entire industry, we want to solve it,” the company wrote Friday. “We do not yet know how, but will seek solutions.”

Last week’s saga was an unusual PR pissing contest for Amazon, which usually avoids such controversies. The matter became of major importance after Recode reported this week that the answers came from above, led by none other than founder Jeff Bezos.

Historically, Amazon has rejected criticism of its Teflon shell. And the apology points to an increased sensitivity as labor tensions increase, Bezos hands over the leader’s lead to Andy Jassy, ​​the AWS chief, and ongoing investigation into the monitoring.

Here is the full apology as posted on the Amazon blog:

On 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.

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