By Harry Nuttsaac
Among a huge push for the first unionized Amazon warehouse, Jeff Bezos has made yet another attempt to hurt organizers where it hurts. Amazon has been an extremely anti-union company since its inception and, despite the best efforts of organizers across the country, not a single warehouse has been able to unionize in the face of Bezos’ pressure. However, because of the immense wealth of Bezos, the growth of Amazon itself in the face of a global pandemic, and the worsening conditions of Amazon workplaces, the push of organizers in Alabama has become the largest the company has ever seen and has garnered national recognition. Despite support from across the country, organizers still face pressure from Bezos in the face of ample anti-union propaganda throughout warehouses.
One of the ways in which Amazon workers have suffered is the lack of flexibility from Amazon: workers must continuously work and no unofficial breaks are allowed, including piss breaks. Because of this, pee bottles have become commonplace among Amazon employees and images of them have started spreading across the internet. Bezos has taken note of this, however, and has already initiated plans to remove all bottles of any kind in order to prevent employees from using them against the company. Amazon will also refuse to supply workers with water themselves, so the lack of bottles in workplaces puts workers at risk for dehydration.
Multiple news networks have reached out to Bezos for official statements and justifications of these decisions. In response to questions regarding how customers may view these decisions, Bezos told reporters, “Everyone will understand this mandate. No one wants piss bottles around their office.” When asked why they couldn’t just allow bathroom breaks, Bezos replied, “Money.” In a later portion of his interview, Bezos elaborated on Amazon’s overall policies: “We don’t like people here at Amazon, we would prefer all of our employees be robots. We’re actually working on that right now. For the time being, we have to deal with human beings. That doesn’t mean we should have to deal with their piss bottles. If this union vote doesn’t go away soon, we’re gonna start taking out bathrooms entirely.”
The Medium 