Amazon has fired back against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s claims about the company’s poor working conditions, inviting the firebrand congresswoman to tour the facilities and see it “for yourself.”
Amazon’s David Clark, senior vice president of worldwide operations, made the invitation on Twitter after Ocasio-Cortez accused the e-commerce giant of creating “dehumanizing conditions” for its employees.
“Is that culture of ‘strict performance’ why Amazon workers have to urinate in bottles & work while on food stamps to meet ‘targets’? ‘Performance’ shouldn’t come at the cost of dehumanizing conditions. That’s why we got rid of sweatshops,” she wrote.
AMAZON BLASTS OCASIO-CORTEZ, SAYS 'WE DON'T WANT TO WORK IN THIS ENVIRONMENT IN THE LONG TERM'
But Clark shot back, claiming that such allegations “aren’t true” and invited the congresswoman to the visit the company to get a sense how the employees are treated.
“.@aoc these claims simply aren’t true. We are proud of our jobs with excellent pay ($15 min), benefits from day 1, & lots of other benefits like our Career Choice pre-paid educational programs. Why don’t you come take a tour & see for yourself...we’d love to have you!,” he tweeted. The post was retweeted under Amazon’s official PR handle as well.
The latest exchange came after Amazon’s spokesman slammed the New York Democrat and other lawmakers in the state for creating a hostile environment to make business – culminating in the company’s decision to pull out of the project to build its planned headquarters in the borough of Queens in New York City. (Ocasio-Cortez's district includes parts of Queens and the Bronx.)
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“If you talk to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it's 'Never Amazon,'” Jodi Seth, the head of policy communications for Amazon, told NBC News in an interview Thursday. “If you talk to [New York City Councilman Jimmy] Van Bramer, it's unions.”
Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the decision, even as others noted that this actually means a loss of well-paying jobs in the state.
“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” she tweeted.
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Seth added that while it wasn’t “any one incident” that prompted the company to back out of the state, the virulent political climate that occurred over the past three months was what led to the decision.
“It was that the environment over the course of the past three months had not got any better. There were some local and state elected officials who refused to meet with Amazon and criticized us day in and day out about the plan,” she said in the interview.
