Amazon released an apology on Friday for a tweet last week denying claims made by some Amazon employees that they had been worked so hard that they were forced to urinate in plastic bottles instead of going to the toilet.
The tweet from the Amazon News account came in response to a message from Rep. Mark Pocan
Mark William Pocan White House Delays Release of Budget Plan Reporter Intercept: “Amazon’s management knew absolutely nothing about the ‘routine’ of drivers peeing bottles. MORE (D-Wis.), Who commented on claims of a “progressive workplace” by Dave Clark, Amazon’s chief consumer.
“Paying employees $ 15 / hour doesn’t mean you become a ‘progressive workplace’ if you dissolve unions and let employees pee in water bottles,” tweeted Pocan.
Amazon pushed back in its own tweet, writing, “You don’t really believe that pee in bottles thing, do you?”
“If that were true, no one would work for us,” the account added at the time. “The truth is, we have over a million incredible employees around the world who take pride in what they do, and have great wages and healthcare from day one.”
1/2 You don’t really believe urinating in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us. The truth is, we have over a million incredible employees around the world who take pride in what they do, and have great wages and healthcare from day one.
– Amazon News (@amazonnews) March 25, 2021
Amazon apologized for its response on Friday a blog postThis was an own goal, we are not happy about it and we owe our apologies to Representative Pocan. “
First, the tweet was not correct, Amazon said. “It failed to take into account our large population of drivers and instead falsely focused only on our fulfillment centers.” The company noted that these locations usually “have dozens of toilets and employees can leave their workplace at any time.”
“If an employee in a fulfillment center has a different experience, we encourage them to speak to their manager and we will work to resolve it,” added the multinational tech giant.
Amazon also said the tweet “was not closely scrutinized,” acknowledging the “need to hold ourselves to an extremely high accuracy bar at all times, and that’s especially true when we criticize others’ comments. ”
The company admitted that Amazon drivers, in particular, “may have trouble finding restrooms due to traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this was especially true during Covid, when many public restrooms were closed.”
“This is a long-standing, industry-wide problem and is not specific to Amazon,” the post added earlier, including a series of links for additional news stories about taxi service drivers and delivery company employees struggling to find accessible bathrooms. during work.
Amazon continued, “Regardless of the fact that this is industry wide, we would like to fix it. We don’t know how yet, but we will look for solutions. ”
Several Twitter users had criticized Amazon for its response last week, including Pocan himself, who tweeted, “And yes, I believe your workers. You not? “
Since 2018, some Amazon employees have made allegations that they were forced to pee into bottles, as well as other allegations of worker abuse, including that pregnant employees had to remain on their shifts for hours and were the target of repeated layoffs.