Leaked memo proves Amazon knows delivery workers forced to urinate in bottles
Leaked memo on Friday proved that Amazon knew that its delivery workers have resorted to urinating in bottles despite having denied such reports on Thursday.
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Documents provided to the Intercept were published after the company denied its workers did not have access to bathrooms and were forced to use bottles and bags.
The official Amazon News Twitter account wrote on Thursday: “You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us. The truth is that we have over a million incredible employees around the world who are proud of what they do, and have great wages and health care from day one.”
The leaked internal memo shows the company has been aware of the problem for at least several months as it was sent in May 2020 and admonished workers for resorting to such measures.
“This evening, an associate discovered human feces in an Amazon bag that was returned to station by a driver,” the email reads.
“This is the 3rd occasion in the last 2 months when bags have been returned to station with poop inside. We understand that DA’s [driver associates] may have emergencies while on-road, and especially during Covid, DAs have struggled to find bathrooms while delivering. Regardless, DAs cannot, MUST NOT, return bags to station with poop inside.”
The email went on to say: “We’ve noticed an uptick recently of all kinds of unsanitary garbage being left inside bags: used masks, gloves, bottles of urine.”
The controversy has sparked a fresh wave of criticism on how Amazon treats its workers and its delivery drivers in particular.
Amazon saw a 37% increase in sales in one quarter alone in 2020 and executive Jeff Bezos’ net worth increased by $70bn during the pandemic.