Documents show that Amazon is aware of drivers who urinate in bottles

In anticipation of Senator Bernie Sanders’ scheduled trip to Bessemer, Alabama, to support the Amazon workers’ unionization campaign there, Amazon executive Dave Clark called the $ 1 trillion giant “the employers’ Bernie Sanders” and insulted: “So, if you want to hear about $ 15 an hour and health care, Senator Sanders will speak downtown. But if you want to earn at least $ 15 an hour and get good health care, Amazon is hiring. “

Representative Mark Pocan answered for tweet: “Paying workers $ 15 / hour doesn’t make you a progressive workplace when you break the union and make workers urinate in water bottles,” echoing 2018 reports that Amazon workers were forced to miss out on toilet and urinating in the bottles. Amazon’s denial he was quick: “You don’t really believe in this thing about peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us. “

But Amazon workers I spoke with said the practice was so pervasive due to pressure to comply with quotas that managers often referred to it during meetings and in formal policy documents and emails, provided to The Intercept. The practice, these documents show, was known to the administration, which identified it as a recurring offense, but did nothing to alleviate the pressure that caused it. In some cases, employees even defecated in bags.

Amazon did not provide The Intercept with a statement prior to publication.

A January document, marked “Amazon Confidential”, details several infractions by Amazon employees, including “urinating in public” and “defecating in public”. The document was provided to The Intercept by an Amazon employee in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who, like most employees I spoke with, was granted anonymity to avoid professional reprisals.

The employee also provided an email sent by an Amazon logistics manager last May, who punished employees for defecating in bags. “Tonight, an associate discovered human feces in an Amazon bag that was returned to the station by a driver. This is the third time in the last 2 months that the bags have returned to the station with feces inside. We understand that DA’s [driver associates] they can have emergencies while on the road and, especially during Covid, DAs have been struggling to find restrooms during deliveries. “

“We noticed a recent increase in all types of unhealthy garbage being left in bags: used masks, gloves, urine bottles,” continues the e-mail. “By scanning the QR code on the bag, we can easily identify the promoter who had the bag last. These behaviors are unacceptable and will result in Level 1 Violations in the future. Communicate this message to your drivers. I know if it may seem obvious or something you shouldn’t be training, but be explicit when communicating the message that YOU CANNOT poop or leave urine bottles in the bags. “

An email Brown received from his manager last August has a section entitled “Urine bottle” and states: “In the morning, you should carefully check your van for trash and urine bottle. If you find urine flask (s), report it to your parent, support team or me. The vans will be inspected by Amazon during questioning, if urine flasks (s) are found, you will receive a level 1 infraction for immediate removal. “

Although Amazon technically forbids the practice – the documents characterize it as a “Level 1” violation, which employees say could lead to dismissal – drivers said it was hypocritical since they could not meet their quotas otherwise . “They give us 30 minutes of paid rest, but you won’t finish your job if you do it, no matter how fast you are,” a Massachusetts-based Amazon delivery official told me.

Asked whether the administration lowered quotas due to the practice, Brown said: “Not at all. In fact, over the course of my time there, our package and stop count has increased substantially. “

This got even more intense, officials say, as Amazon saw a huge boom in package orders during the coronavirus pandemic. Amazon employees said their performance is being monitored so closely by the company’s vast arsenal of employee surveillance that they are constantly afraid of falling short of their productivity quotas.

An email, provided to The Intercept by an associate driver from Houston who works for an Amazon contractor, alludes to the company’s cameras that can locate workers who leave urine bottles in the vans. “The data from these cameras can be sent to Amazon in the event of any incident on the road. (We had several serious accidents, a stolen van, drivers leaving urine bottles, etc. in the vans). “

The employee said: “Every day of my shift, I have to use the toilet in a bottle to finish my journey in time. This is so common that you will often find bottles of other drivers located under the seats of the vans. … The fact that Amazon is tweeting this is hilarious. “

Public reports that Amazon employees missed the bathroom originated in a 2018 book by British journalist James Bloodworth. That book, “Contractor: Six Months Undercover in Low-Salary Britain,” claimed that Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staffordshire, UK, resorted to urinating in bottles to meet production quotas. Although most of the employees I spoke with were drivers who delivered products, they said the practice was also common in factories.

The Amazon workers’ vote in Alabama on unionization has become a critical point for organized work. Although Amazon has publicly criticized Sanders, he is far from the only prominent politician to express support for employees’ right to form a union. Last month, President Joe Biden launched a video declaration saying: “Every worker must have a free and fair choice to join a union”, which “must be done without intimidation or threats by employers”.

The election, which ends on March 29, would determine whether the more than 5,000 warehouse workers will join the Retail, Wholesale and Warehouse Union. None of Amazon’s 800,000 employees in the U.S. are currently unionized.