Documents show Amazon is aware pilots are peeing bottles

In anticipation of Senator Bernie Sanders’ planned trip to Bessemer, Alabama to support the campaign to organize Amazon workers there, Amazon executive Dave Clark called the $ 1 trillion monster “Bernie Sanders of employers. “And mocked: “So if you want to hear about $ 15 an hour and health care, Senator Sanders will speak downtown.” But if you want to make at least $ 15 an hour and have good health care, Amazon is hiring. “

Representative Mark Pocan responded via Tweeter: “Paying workers $ 15 / hr doesn’t make you a progressive workplace when you unionize and have workers urinate in water bottles,” echoing 2018 reports that workers at Amazon were forced to skip bathroom breaks and pee bottles. From Amazon denial was quick, “You don’t really believe in the pee in the bottles thing, do you?” If it was true, no one would work for us.

But Amazon employees I spoke with said the practice was so prevalent due to pressure to meet quotas that managers often referred to it in meetings and in formal policy documents and emails, that were provided to The Intercept. The practice, these documents show, was known to management, who identified it as a recurring violation but did nothing to alleviate the pressure that caused it. In some cases, employees even defecated in bags.

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

A January document, labeled “Amazon Confidential,” details various offenses committed by Amazon employees, including “public urination” and “public defecation.” The document was provided to The Intercept by an Amazon employee in Pittsburgh, Pa., Who, like most employees I’ve spoken to, has been granted anonymity to avoid professional retaliation.

The employee also provided an email sent by an Amazon logistics area manager last May that berated 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 past 2 months that the bags have been returned to the station with crap inside. We understand that DA [driver associates] may have emergencies on the road, and especially during Covid, ADs struggled to find a toilet during childbirth. “

“We have noticed an increase recently in all kinds of unsanitary waste left in bags: used masks, gloves, bottles of urine,” the email continues. “By scanning the QR code on the bag, we can easily identify which DA was the last in possession of the bag. These behaviors are unacceptable and will result in level 1 infractions in the future. Please communicate this message to your drivers. I know this might sound obvious, or something you shouldn’t need to frame, but be explicit when communicating the message that they CANNOT poop or leave urine bottles in bags. “

An email Brown received from his manager last August contains a section titled ‘Urine Bottle’ and states, ‘In the morning you should carefully check your van for garbage and the urine bottle. If you find any urine vials, please let your manager, support staff or myself know. Vans will be inspected by Amazon during debriefing, if urine bottles are found you will receive a level 1 offense for immediate disembarkation. “

While Amazon technically bans the practice – documents qualify it as a “level 1” violation, which employees say can lead to dismissal – the drivers said it was dishonest because they could not meet their standards. quotas otherwise. “They give us 30 minutes of paid breaks, but you won’t finish your job if you take it, no matter how fast you are,” a Massachusetts-based Amazon delivery employee told me.

When asked if management has relaxed quotas in light of practice, Mr. Brown replied, “Not at all. In fact, during my time there our number of packages and stops actually increased dramatically. “

It got even more intense, employees say, as Amazon saw a huge boom in parcel orders during the coronavirus pandemic. Amazon employees said their performance was so closely monitored by the company’s vast arsenal of employee monitoring that they were constantly worried about not meeting their productivity quotas.

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

The employee said, “Every day of my shift I have to use the toilet in a bottle to complete my commute on time. It’s so common that you’ll often find other drivers’ bottles located under the seats of vans. … The fact that Amazon tweets this is hilarious. “

Public reports that Amazon employees skipped bathroom breaks come from a 2018 book by British journalist James Bloodworth. This book, “Hired: Six Month Undercover in Low-Wage Britain,” alleged that Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staffordshire, UK, resorted to urinating in bottles in order to meet production quotas. While most of the employees I spoke to were drivers who delivered products, workers said this practice was also common in factories.

The vote of Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama on whether to unionize has become a critical issue for unions. While Amazon has publicly criticized Sanders, he is far from the only leading politician to voice support for employees’ right to form a union. Last month, President Joe Biden released a video statement saying, “Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a trade union”, which “should be done without intimidation or threats from employers”.

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