Online retail behemoth Amazon hit back at Bernie Sanders, rejecting his claims alleging poor working conditions at distribution sites.
The company on Wednesday issued a statement defending itself from Sanders’ “inaccurate and misleading accusations,” claiming the Vermont senator “continues to spread misleading statements about pay and benefits.”
Responding in a furious tweet storm, Sanders shot back at the company daring them to release pay info and calling their warehouses “one of the most dangerous places to work in the U.S.”
Amazon’s warehouses are one of the most dangerous places to work in the U.S. According to the NCOSH, seven Amazon workers have died on or near the job since 2013. I will be asking OSHA to investigate unsafe working conditions at Amazon fulfillment centers.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 29, 2018
.@amazon, if our claims about wages and working conditions at Amazon are inaccurate then prove it.
Make public the number of people you hire through temporary staffing agencies like Integrity Staffing Solutions and make public the hourly rate and benefits those workers earn. https://t.co/TMDSthqpUF
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 29, 2018
Sanders has waged a crusade on Amazon for years, criticizing CEO Jeff Bezos over work conditions at his company’s distribution centers, despite the billionaire’s enormous wealth.
For a company like Amazon which holds an unbelievable amount of wealth and power to treat its workers this way is simply unconscionable. This is the kind of corporate greed that is destroying the social fabric of our country. https://t.co/xYTqPdOjw4
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 30, 2018
On Wednesday Sanders also claimed Amazon was paying workers to tweet positive stories, based on reports the company offered $50 gift cards to employees in exchange for nice words on Twitter.
Amazon is paying some of its employees to tweet positive stories about the company. Hmm, why is that? pic.twitter.com/ucIHGN6w56
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 29, 2018
Yesterday Sanders issued a tweet soliciting horror stories from Amazon workers who’ve worked at warehouses.
Are you a current or former Amazon employee? Please share your experiences with Sen. Bernie Sanders. https://t.co/fQzm3SuyXA
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 28, 2018
Read Amazon’s full statement:
Senator Sanders continues to make inaccurate and misleading accusations against Amazon.
We have been in regular contact with his office and have offered several opportunities for Senator Sanders and his team to tour one of our fulfillment centers (FCs). To date he has still not seen an FC for himself.
Instead, Senator Sanders continues to spread misleading statements about pay and benefits. Amazon is proud to have created over 130,000 new jobs last year alone. In the U.S., the average hourly wage for a full-time associate in our fulfillment centers, including cash, stock, and incentive bonuses, is over $15/hour before overtime. We encourage anyone to compare our pay and benefits to other retailers.
Senator Sanders’ references to SNAP, which hasn’t been called “food stamps” for several years, are also misleading because they include people who only worked for Amazon for a short period of time and/or chose to work part-time — both of these groups would almost certainly qualify for SNAP.
In addition to highly competitive wages and a climate controlled, safe workplace, Amazon provides employees with a comprehensive benefit package including health insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plans, and company stock. The company also offers up to 20 weeks of paid leave and innovative benefits such as LeaveShare and RampBack, which give new parents flexibility with their growing families. With LeaveShare, employees share their Amazon paid leave with their spouse or domestic partner if their employer does not offer paid leave. RampBack gives new moms additional control over the pace at which they return to work. Just as with Amazon’s health care plan, these benefits are egalitarian – they are the same for fulfillment center and customer service employees as they are for Amazon’s most senior executives.
While Senator Sanders plays politics and makes misleading accusations, we are expending real money and effort upskilling people with our Career Choice program. Career Choice is an innovative benefit that pre-pays 95 percent of tuition, fees and textbooks (up to $12,000) for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether they’re related to skills for jobs at Amazon or not. We have over 16,000 employees who have participated in Career Choice.
No one knows what it’s like to work in one of our fulfillment centers better than the skilled and dedicated people who do it every day. That’s why we are encouraging all employees to take Senator Sanders up on his request and respond with their actual experience (Sanders’ form only asks for negative experiences — see below, but we hope he is also interested in positive ones).
