Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has filed a motion to dismiss income inequality issues before the Senate Budget Committee, CNBC has confirmed.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent in Vermont and chair of the Senate Budget Committee, invited Bezos to appear before the committee as part of a March 17 income inequality hearing.
Bezos has been criticized by Sanders and other lawmakers for its labor practices during the coronavirus pandemic, including ending the pay-per-view for frontline workers, while Amazon is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the e-commerce boom fueled by pandemics.
‘I invited Jeff Bezos to testify in the Budget Committee next week to explain to the American people why he thinks it’s appropriate to spend a whole lot of money denying the dignity of workers at Amazon, while 78 billion dollars became richer during the pandemic, “Sanders wrote in a tweet.
The trial, titled “The Income and Wealth Inequality Crisis in America,” will also include testimony from Jennifer Bates, a worker at Amazon’s Bessemer Warehouse in Alabama, where employees are in the middle of a vocal union vote.
Sanders is a regular Amazon critic and the company has previously investigated the inequality between top executives and workers choosing, packaging and delivering packages to customers’ dreams. Following criticism from Sanders and other labor advocates, Amazon announced in 2018 that it would increase its minimum wage to $ 15 per hour.
An Amazon spokesman said in a statement to CNBC that the company supported Sanders’ efforts to increase the federal minimum wage. “We fully endorse Senator Sanders’ efforts to reduce income inequality with legislation to increase the federal minimum wage for all workers to $ 15 per hour, as we did in 2018,” the spokesman said.
Sanders also expressed support for employees at Amazon’s Bessemer plant who are currently voting on whether they want to join the retail, wholesale and department store union. The effort was also approved by several Democratic lawmakers, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and President Joe Biden.
Amazon vehemently opposed the union effort. Last month, it held mandatory meetings with workers at the Bessemer facility in which the matter against union declaration was set out. The company has also set up a website urging workers to do so “without fees.”