On Wednesday, Amazon made a rare statement in response to political attacks made by socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who has repeatedly claimed for months that the company has poor working conditions.
“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,” Amazon said in a statement. “To date he has still not seen an FC for himself.”
“While Senator Sanders plays politics and makes misleading accusations, we are expending real money and effort upskilling people,” Amazon continued. “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 responded by firing off multiple tweets and by writing a nearly 1,000-word statement criticizing the company, saying, “All over this country, many Amazon employees, who work for the wealthiest person on Earth, are paid wages so low they can’t make ends meet.”
“Thousands of Amazon employees are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing because their wages are too low, including 1 out of 3 of its workers in Arizona and 2,400 in Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to The New Food Economy,” Sanders continued. “Bottom line: the taxpayers of this country should not have to subsidize employees at a company owned by Mr. Bezos who is worth $155 billion. That is absurd.”
Sanders continued in his statement by saying that on September 5 he is “going to introduce legislation to end the absurdity of middle-class taxpayers having to subsidize large, profitable corporations, many of which are owned by billionaires.”
“If Amazon, Walmart and other corporations won’t pay their workers a living wage, our bill would establish a 100 percent tax equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers,” Sanders said. “The American taxpayer should not be subsidizing the richest people in history so they can underpay their employees.”
