(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc has apologized to US Representative Mark Pocan and admitted to scoring an “own goal” in the initial denial of its suggestion that its drivers were sometimes forced to urinate in bottles during their delivery rounds.
“We know drivers can and will have trouble finding restrooms due to traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this was especially true during Covid, when many public restrooms were closed,” the company said in a blog post bit.ly/2PnoLKr.
The confession came a week after the Democrat criticized Amazon’s working conditions, saying in a tweet, “Paying workers $ 15 / hour doesn’t make you a ‘progressive workplace’ if you break unions and make employees pee in water bottles. . “
Amazon initially issued a denial, saying in a tweet, “You don’t really believe peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us. But it then ran those comments back.
“This was a proprietary goal, we are not happy about it, and we apologize to Representative Pocan,” Amazon said in its blog post, adding that its previous response only related to the staff in its warehouses or fulfillment centers.
The company said the problem was industry wide and it would look for solutions without specifying what they might be.
Amazon’s apology comes at a time when workers in an Alabama warehouse are waiting for a vote count, which could result in the online retailer’s first unionization in the United States and mark a turning point for organized labor.
Amazon has long discouraged attempts by its more than 800,000 US employees to organize. Allegations by many employees of a grueling or unsafe workplace have made uniting the company a major goal for the American labor movement.
Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by David Holmes