Just days before the vote at its Bessemer fulfillment center, Amazon hits back on critics in a potentially historic union vote.
And the online giant is using Twitter to get its message across. Via its Amazon News account, the company slammed Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Over the weekend and responded to a tweet accusing the company of exploiting tax law.
What followed was a back-and-forth over tax law and allegations of Amazon’s union tactics.
Amazon’s response echoes previous statements by the company promoting its own minimum wage of $ 15 an hour and accusing Democratic lawmakers of abandoning workers.
Find full coverage of Alabama Amazon’s union efforts here
Vox reports that the tweets may have been prompted after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressed his dissatisfaction over the past few weeks with the company’s employees not being more aggressive in dealing with criticism.
It should be noted that Amazon paid no US federal income taxes for two years in 2017 and 2018. This was due to loss carryforwards from unprofitable years, tax credits on research and development investments, and the fact that Amazon pays people in stock options, which the INC says often causes deductions for employers when employees exercise those options.
Last week, Amazon retail chief Dave Clark tweeted that Amazon had become the “Bernie Sanders Employer” with its $ 15 minimum wage. Sanders visited the Birmingham area on Friday to support the union with rapper killer Mike and actor Danny Glover.
“If you pay workers $ 15 an hour, you will not become a ‘progressive workplace’ if you break up union and urinate workers in water bottles,” US Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., Tweeted Back.
“You don’t really believe how to pee in bottles, do you?” Amazon News replied. “If that were true, no one would work for us.”
The company’s drivers responded with their own stories.
The National Labor Relations Board will begin counting the votes of more than 5,000 ballot papers Tuesday on whether workers are represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Union (RWDSU).