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Seattle (AP) - The world's largest online retailer Amazon has apologized to a US MP after a Twitter dispute about where and how employees relieve themselves.

Amazon: "own goal"

On the Easter weekend, the multibillionaire Jeff Bezos' group admitted in a message that delivery drivers sometimes couldn't find toilets and thus confirmed for the first time reports that employees urinate in bottles under high time pressure in stressful everyday work.

The fact that this was initially denied via an official Amazon Twitter account was an "own goal".

Democrat Pocan: no "progressive job"

The conflict began the week before last with a critical tweet from Democratic Party MP Marc Pocan: "Paying employees $ 15 an hour doesn't make you a" progressive workplace "if you crack down on unions and employees urinate in water bottles".

Amazon is rowing back

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Amazon had initially countered in an unusually sharp tone on Twitter: "You don't really believe the thing about peeing in bottles?"

And further: "If that were true, nobody would work for us."

Now the Bezos group showed itself to be reasonable: "We apologize to MP Pocan".

The statement does not contain an apology to the employees concerned, but Amazon announced that it would tackle the pee problem.

"We will look for solutions"

"We don't yet know how, but we will look for solutions." However, the company also emphasized that this is an industry-wide problem that is not limited to Amazon and is exacerbated by the closure of public toilets in the Corona crisis have.

Leaked documents increase pressure

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Amazon had come under even more pressure in the past few weeks.

Shortly after the dispute with the politician Pocan, the investigative portal "The Intercept" published leaked documents from an Amazonlogistics manager, which, among other things, made it clear that no bags with "human faeces" are tolerated in the delivery centers.

Amazon initially did not comment on this when asked and did not address it in the current statement.

The company's working conditions have recently been in the focus, as a vote in Alabama could mean that a US union could join Amazon for the first time.

© dpa-infocom

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Amazon Notice - Sorry to Pocan

Report "The Intercept"