Amazon takes a page from the Trump manual with anti-union strategy

Amazon takes a page from the Trump manual with anti-union strategy

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Amazon is removing a page from President Donald Trump’s manual with its recent public relations strategy, as the company tries to prevent an attempt to unionize its workers.

“Stuart Appelbaum, Director of Disinformation at RWDSU, in an attempt to save his long-decayed union, is taking alternative facts to a whole new level,” an Amazon representative said on Friday in a statement to the CNN’s Sara Ashley O’Brien. The statement O’Brien posted on Twitter said it was from Max Gleber, a spokesman for Amazon.

Amazon confirmed the veracity of the statement to Insider, but said it “should have been attributed to Drew Herdener, Amazon’s vice president of Worldwide Communications. Feel free to use your statement in your article attributed to it.”

Its workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are in the process of voting to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Amazon was described as aggressively anti-union and highlighted benefits for workers, such as the $ 15 hourly minimum wage.

“Alternative facts” is a phrase made famous by Trump’s aide, Kellyanne Conway, in 2017, when she told Meet the Press that “Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts”. Trump, meanwhile, is known for accusing critics of spreading “fake news”.

Amazon has mirrored Trump’s press strategy in other ways, such as criticizing several progressive politicians on Twitter.

The company has struggled with Senator Elizabeth Warren for several days.

“One of the most powerful politicians in the United States has just said he is going to break an American company so that they can no longer criticize it,” Amazon tweeted on Friday.

Warren previously replied to Amazon after it said that it pursued tax policies that it followed, in part tweeting that it would fight “to end Big Tech, so that you are not powerful enough to harass senators with arrogant tweets.”

Amazon also started fighting with Senator Bernie Sanders, culminating in Dave Clark, who serves as global consumer CEO at Amazon, tweeting that Sanders should “spare his finger-wagging speech until he actually does it in his own backyard.” “.

Earlier in the week, Clark said in a statement to Insider: “I often say that we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that is not right, because we actually offer a progressive workplace for our constituents: a minimum wage of $ 15 , health care from day one, career development and a safe and inclusive work environment. “

In a third fight on Twitter, Amazon faced Democratic Representative Mark Pocan. Pocan tweeted, “Paying workers $ 15 / hour doesn’t make you a ‘progressive workplace’ when you break the union and make workers urinate in water bottles.”

“You really don’t believe in this thing of peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us,” replied Amazon.

Eight Amazon drivers told Insider this week that they peed bottles during package delivery due to the company’s strict time limits. Some drivers said they also pooped in bags, while one said she had difficulty finding time or space to change menstrual pads while working.

Amazon did not respond to several requests for comment about workers urinating in bottles, which drivers described as common practice. The company declined to comment on its criticisms of politicians on Twitter or the use of the phrase “alternative facts” in a statement in addition to correcting the representative’s name.

Celine McNicholas, the director of government affairs at the Economic Policy Institute, told Insider that Amazon probably denied the “pee bottle thing” in an effort to be seen as a progressive employer amid Alabama’s union campaign.

“I think it is probably the only move they have – to say that this is not the reality,” said McNicholas. “Because the reality is shameful and disgusting.”

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