An undercover author says he has witnessed Amazon fulfillment workers peeing into bottles to stay on target for production quotas.
The undercover author, James Bloodworth, took a job as a fulfillment worker at a UK warehouse to see firsthand the conditions that Amazon workers are subjected to.
He told The Sun newspaper that workers are so afraid to take a restroom break that they peed into bottles to stay on quota.
“For those of us who worked on the top floor, the closest toilets were down four flights of stairs,” Bloodworth told The Sun. “People just peed in bottles because they lived in fear of being disciplined over ‘idle time’ and losing their jobs just because they needed the [restroom].”
The job turnover rate at Amazon is high due to the strict rules that workers must meet production quotas daily. In one case in the United States, a young father-of-2 collapsed and died in a fulfillment center in Virginia in 2013.
In 2017, Amazon faced fines after two workers died in as many months in Indiana.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined Amazon just $6,000 after the death of a 52-year-old worker at a fulfillment center in Pennsylvania.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world with an estimated self worth of about $112 billion.
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