Amazon apologizes to a Democratic congressman for wrongly answering him on Twitter

An Amazon warehouse worker in Bessemer, Alabama, on March 27. PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP

It may sound like an urban legend, but the kind that many Amazon workers are forced to urinate in plastic bottles due to lack of toilets or time has been heating up social networks in the US for weeks and has already jumped into the political arena.

While awaiting the outcome of the vote of 6,000 Alabama warehouse workers to form a union, a mobilization that faces fierce resistance from the company, complaints about technology's disdain for its employees have been echoed by Democratic politicians who they deplore the insufficient working conditions in their view.

The company has been forced to apologize for an irate tweet in response to criticism from Mark Pocan, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin.

Pocan wrote on March 25 on the social network: "Paying employees $ 15 an hour does not make you a pleasant workplace when you blow up unions or force pee in plastic bottles."

Pocan was responding to a tweet by Amazon super executive Dave Clark, in which he echoed a planned visit to the Alabama warehouse by Senator Bernie Sanders, the most left-wing of the Democrats and who is championing the fight for a minimum wage of $ 15 la hour.

President Joe Biden also defended that salary increase, until he had to resign to it so that Congress approved his stimulus plan.

That same March 25, Clark had tweeted: “I welcome Sanders and appreciate his fight for an advanced workplace.

I often say that we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that is not entirely correct because we already offer that welcoming work environment. "

Clark is known for his uncompromising defense of the company's reputation and is nicknamed

The Sniper

, for saying that he would go into hiding to catch lazy workers red-handed and fire them.

After Pocan's reply to Clark, came the reply from Amazon's corporate news account that same day: “Do you really think someone pees in bottles, really?

If so, no one would work for us.

The truth is that we have more than a million incredible employees around the world who are proud of what they do, with great salaries and health coverage from the first moment ”.

In a subsequent tweet, Amazon added: "I hope you can put forward policies that offer workers what we already give them."

On April 2, a week after the Twitter scuffle, the company apologized in a statement to the Democratic representative: "It was an own goal, we are not happy and we owe Congressman Pocan an apology."

"The tweet [on March 25] was incorrect, it did not take into account our large staff of drivers, and it focused only on our large distribution centers, which have dozens of bathrooms that employees can go to whenever they want," qualified the text.

Ergo, drivers and delivery men are forced to relieve themselves wherever and whenever they can, a complaint that not only concerns Amazon, but other big players in the

gig economy

.

"We know that drivers can and do have problems finding toilets due to traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been the case especially during the covid, when many public toilets have been closed," adds the statement from excuses;

"It is not a problem that affects only Amazon, but we are looking for a way to solve it."

Complaints about the shortage of toilet breaks, or the fact that they are timed as some employees report, are one of the arguments of workers in central Alabama to justify their attempt to form a union.

The delay in the scrutiny of the vote, which began on March 30, is surprising given the fact that it is such a small census of voters, and the delay contributes to fuel criticism.

The workers voted for seven weeks by mail, after Labor agreed with the staff - against the company, which required a face-to-face vote - to safeguard security due to the pandemic.

Although without citing the specific case of Amazon, Biden himself has expressed his support for the union struggle as it is "of vital importance" in order to be able to "bargain collectively" with companies.

To discourage union struggle and that pioneering union that would revolutionize Silicon Valley's discreet and ironclad corporate culture, Amazon would have resorted to heavy artillery.

To the controversy of the bathrooms can be added the alleged existence of false profiles of alleged workers on social networks, encouraging their colleagues to put their union struggle behind them;

an alleged army of trolls that is also making a lot of media noise.

McDonald's went so far as to create fake Facebook profiles to track employees who encourage protests demanding wage increases.

In Amazon's fight against its employees, the final chapter has yet to be written.