Amazon mocked idea its drivers urinated in bottles – but leaked documents show they did

Amazon has tweeted a statement suggesting that its workers do not urinate into bottles while working, despite numerous reports to the contrary.

Ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders’ appearance in Alabama to support a unionisation drive of Amazon employees Dave Clark, an executive for the shopping giant, tweeted that the company was a “progressive workplace” and claimed it was the “Bernie Sanders of employers”.

That post was quote-tweeted by US congressman Mark Pocan, who said: Paying workers $15/hr doesn’t make you a ‘progressive workplace’ when you union-bust & make workers urinate in water bottles.

In response to Mr Pocan’s tweet, the official Amazon press account replied: “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 “peeing in bottles” claim from numerous sources. In 2019, a spokesperson from the GMB union said that 600 reports were made from Amazon warehouses to the Health and Safety Executive in four years, which included “workers using plastic bottles to urinate in instead of going to the toilet, and pregnant women have been forced to stand for hours on end, with some pregnant women being targeted for dismissal.”

Prior to that, the claims were highlighted in journalist James Bloodworth’s book Hired: Sixth Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain who surreptitiously worked at the company and described the warehouse as similar to a prison or an airport.

Following Amazon’s tweet, The Intercept revealed internal documents from Amazon that detailed ‘infractions’ from employees that included “public urination” and “public defecation”, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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An email from Amazon in May also said that employees were defecating into bags.

“This evening, an associate discovered human faeces in an Amazon bag that was returned to station by a driver. This is the 3rd occasion in the last 2 months when bags have been returned to station with poop inside”, the email reads.

“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”.

Motherboard also shared images of two bottles filled with urine from a driver. "We’re pressured to get these routes done before night time and having to find a restroom would mean driving an extra 10minutes off path to find one," the employee told the publication.

"Ten to fifteen minutes to find a bathroom can add up, meaning 20 to 30 minutes there and back all together."

Amazon’s tweet was shared on the r/AmazonDSPDrivers subreddit, with many ridiculing the claim. “We should all tweet pictures of our piss bottles to Amazon”, one user commented.

The Independent has reached out to Amazon for further comment, but the company did not respond by time of publication.

Amazon’s relationship with its employees and delivery drivers has historically been rocky, as it was accused of using surveillance technology on workers to stop them forming unions and to boost worker productivity according to a research paper released by the Open Markets Institute. 

The United States Federal Trade Commission also made Amazon pay  $61.7m in a fine, after it was found that the company was with holding delivery drivers’ tips paid by customers to supplement wages –effectively stealing money from its employees.

Amazon said at the time that it “disagree[d] that the historical way we reported pay to drivers was unclear”, but was “pleased to put this matter behind us”.