Amazon apologized for challenging a lawmaker’s claim that its workers urinate in bottles, admitting in a blog post on Friday that it was “incorrect” to deny the report. The online retailer said the problem affects drivers, not employees at its many warehouses in the United States.
Questions about whether Amazon workers operating under severe time restrictions sometimes resort to urinating in bottles from a 2018 book by British journalist James Bloodworth, who disguised himself to work briefly at an Amazon warehouse, documenting the difficulties of underpaid work in the UK. In his account, he found what appeared to be a bottle of urine hidden on a storage shelf, which he assumed was a worker’s solution to the difficulty of taking breaks to go to the bathroom in the huge facility.
Until its apology, Amazon had refuted these reports entirely. “You really don’t believe in this thing about peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us,” the company’s Amazon News account tweeted on March 24 in response to Rep. Mark Pocan’s criticism that the online giant was not enlightened in its workplace practices just because it offered a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour.
Even when Amazon denied these allegations, other journalists documented company employees who relied on bottles for relief. Last month, Intercept released internal Amazon documents that blamed workers for “urinating in public” and “defecating in public”, while a worker reported receiving an email from management telling drivers to check for “bottles of urinate “in their vans and report such” infractions. “
At the same time, Amazon fought a host of other claims about workers’ conditions, such as a lawsuit filed by the State of New York claiming that the company failed to protect workers of COVID-19. Investors are also lobbying Amazon for changes, including the CtW Investment Group, which represents pension funds for some 5 million unionized workers.
“Very important symbol”
Amid such challenges for Amazon, it is the reports of employees peeing in bottles that have attracted the public’s attention and sympathy. Bloodworth told CBS MoneyWatch this month that his description of finding a bottle filled with what looked and smelled like urine was a “disposable line” in a book on low-wage working conditions.
“It has become an iconic image because we are talking about the richest multinational in the world, led by the richest man in the world, and yet you have a workforce that, from experience, was afraid to go to the bathroom,” Bloodworth told CBS MoneyWatch earlier this month. “This is quite a shocking thing in the 21st century.”
The issue also attracted investor scrutiny. CtW Investment Group executive director Dieter Waizenegger told CBS MoneyWatch that its pension funds are concerned about workers’ conditions and that the company wants to ensure that these values are reflected in its investments. The investment group, which owns 900,000 shares of Amazon and manages $ 250 billion in assets, contacted Amazon about improving working conditions, such as improving health and safety protections.
“Peeing in bottles is basically a very important symbol, but it is part of a much bigger picture,” said Waizenegger. “If you invest in your employees and give them good working conditions and some sense of dignity and respect, they will work harder for you.”
Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment.
The experience of a former worker
While Amazon acknowledges that its drivers sometimes resort to urinating in bottles, it described a different situation in its warehouses.
“A typical Amazon distribution center has dozens of bathrooms, and employees can move away from their workstation at any time. If any employee at a distribution center has a different experience, we encourage you to speak to your manager and we work to fix it, “said the company on Friday.
But former warehouse workers say it can be a challenge to take a break for the bathroom, given its 15-minute intervals and the vast spaces they sometimes have to traverse to reach one. Chris Smalls, a former assistant warehouse manager at Amazon who was fired in March 2020 after organizing a shutdown for lack of precautions to prevent COVID-19 infections, said using the bathroom was not easy.
Workers “are tracked down to the second,” Smalls told CBS MoneyWatch, adding that the restrooms in the warehouse are usually a five to 10 minute walk from the workstation, making it difficult to use the bathroom within a 15-minute interval. If workers exceeded the break, managers would write them, Smalls said, which could lead to dismissal.
As a supervisor, he said the workers came to him with complaints of not having enough time to use the bathroom. “I would say, ‘You can use the bathroom’, but I had to warn you about the repercussions of the passing of time,” he said.
Once, Smalls added, human feces were found on a storeroom ladder, which he believed was due to a worker not being able to get to the bathroom in time.
Smalls said his recommendation would be for Amazon to stop tracking workers when they use the bathroom. “This time should not be used against them in any way,” he said. “This is a human right.”
All eyes on the Alabama warehouse
The latest analysis of Amazon’s work practices occurs when about 6,000 workers at a company’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, await the results of a vote last month on whether to join a union, representing the largest labor effort in the retailer’s history.
If the vote supports unionization, it could encourage more warehouse workers to join a union or demand better working conditions, experts say. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which led the union campaign in Bessemer, declined to comment because the votes are being counted.
Amazon’s initial response last month to Rep. Pocan’s criticisms, claiming that people would not work for the company if such stories were true, echoes the logic that other employers have historically used to not provide safe and hygienic workplaces, he said Professor Rebecca Givan, associate professor at the School of Business Administration and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.
“’If children did not want to work in the mines, why would they take this job? If people didn’t want to be sexually harassed, why did they work there? ‘”, She said, summing up these opinions. “It is an insult because it demeans workers who have bills and mouths to feed.”
Even if the union vote fails, Amazon will likely continue to face scrutiny from customers and other interested parties, experts say. A vote against unionization will also highlight the issues faced by low-income workers at a time of enormous wealth creation for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and investors.
“Many workers, especially those with lower wages, do not have many options,” said Givan. “I don’t think we will be able to conclude that these workers do not want a voice at work, but it is extremely difficult to organize” under current law.