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- Amazon issued an apology Friday to Rep. Mark Pocan for a tweet he made last week.
- In the tweet, Amazon denied its workers urinate in bottles, despite being a well-known fact.
- Amazon said its tweet was inaccurate and delivery drivers sometimes pee in bottles.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Amazon apologized on Friday for a sarcastic tweet it sent last week denying the well-documented occurrence that its delivery drivers urinated on bottles while on the job.
The tweet was a response to Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, who said for the first time: “Paying workers $ 15 an hour does not make you a ‘progressive workplace’ when you blow out and make workers pee in water bottles. Water”.
Amazon responded, “You really don’t believe in peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us.”
Pocan, among other Twitter users, responded.
“Yes, I believe your workers. Don’t you?” Pocan wrote.
But in an apology posted on the Amazon News site, Amazon acknowledged that its tweet was “incorrect.”
“This was an own goal, we are not happy about that and we owe representative Pocan an apology,” the publication said.
Amazon said the tweet “did not address our large population of drivers and instead mistakenly focused only on our fulfillment centers,” adding that its fulfillment centers have “dozens” of restrooms and employees are free to use them. ” anytime”.
He also said drivers are having trouble finding restrooms due to traffic and being on rural routes, and that the problem has been compounded by the closure of public restrooms during the pandemic.
On Saturday, Pocan suggested that Amazon’s apology was not enough.
This is not about me, it is about your workers, whom you don’t treat with enough respect or dignity, “he said.” Start by acknowledging the inadequate working conditions you’ve created for ALL of your workers, then fix that for everyone, and finally, get them to unionize without interference. “
-Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) April 3, 2021
Read more: Frustrated Amazon employees criticize the company for encouraging them to return to the office
—Amazon News (@amazonnews) March 25, 2021
In 2018, Insider’s Hayley Peterson reported accounts of Amazon drivers urinating on bottles. Current and former drivers told Insider it was part of the job because they “didn’t really have time to go to the bathroom.”
In the apology, Amazon said it was a “long-standing, industry-wide problem and not specific to Amazon,” but that the company will look for ways to solve it. The post also included many tweets from people saying that delivery drivers who work for companies other than Amazon also pee in bottles while at work.
The Amazon tweet denying that workers pee in bottles came days before a major unionization vote at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, and the apology and acknowledgment came days after the vote had already taken place. The results of the vote, which took place on Monday, may not be known for days or weeks.
The combative tweet was one of several sent by Amazon accounts before the union vote.
“I often say that we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that is not entirely correct because we actually offer a progressive workplace,” he said. Dave clark, the executive director of Amazon’s global consumer unit, in response to Senator Bernie Sanders’ plans to meet with workers in Alabama.
The Amazon News account also lashed out at Senator Elizabeth Warren in a tweet after she accused the company of exploiting loopholes to pay low taxes.
“You make the tax laws @SenWarren; we just follow them,” the tweet read. “If you don’t like the laws you have created, by all means change them.”
Vox reported that the aggressive public relations strategy was the result of CEO Jeff Bezos telling executives to “defend themselves” from critics.
Friday’s apology said the company “will continue to speak out when misrepresented, but we will also work hard to always be accurate.”
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