Jeff Bezos refuses Bernie Sanders invite to Senate hearing on income inequality amid union push by Amazon staff
Jeff Bezos will not discuss issues related to income inequality before the Senate after Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders had invited the Amazon CEO to appear in front of the Senate Budget Committee as part of a hearing on income inequality on March 17. Sanders is the chairman of the same committee. Amazon confirmed the news as did Mike Casca, a spokesperson for the veteran senator.
On Friday, March 12, Amazon told the committee that Bezos will not be able to attend the meeting scheduled for next week, Casca informed CNN. The company, however, issued a statement in which it expressed its support for a $15 minimum wage, a policy it implemented for its own employees many years ago. “We fully endorse Senator Sanders’s efforts to reduce income inequality with legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers, like we did for ours in 2018,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNN.
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Sanders is known to be a frequent Amazon critic and went after the company earlier for the disparity in pay between top executives and workers who deliver packages to customers. Amazon had announced raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour following the criticism from Sanders and others.
Sanders, a socialist, along with other lawmakers had also criticized Bezos for Amazon’s labor practices during the Covid-19 pandemic, including stopping hazard pay for frontline workers, while the e-commerce giant remained one of the biggest beneficiaries of the boom that e-commerce saw in times of the pandemic. The hearing is set to include testimony from Jennifer Bates, an employee of Amazon who is at the center of an initiative to unionize one of the company’s warehouses in Alabama.
The Washington Post first reported about Sanders’ invitation to Bezos, who will step down as Amazon’s chief executive this year. In a statement to CNN on Friday, Sanders said: “Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world, is in many respects emblematic of the unfettered capitalism that we are seeing in America today.” The decision on Bezos not attending the hearing, titled “The Income and Wealth Inequality Crisis in America,” came after that.
Bezos, the richest man on the planet, was invited to testify “to explain to the American people why he believes it is appropriate for him to be spending a whole lot of money denying economic dignity to Amazon workers in Bessemer who want to form a union, while he has become $78 billion richer during the pandemic and is now worth $183 billion,” according to Sanders.
Recently, three Democratic senators besides Sanders -- Cory Booker, Bob Menendez and Sherrod Brown -- wrote a letter to Bezos urging him to provide sick leave and time-and-a-half hazard pay to its workers, among other measures, during the coronavirus outbreak. Sanders, 79, also wrote in a tweet on Friday: “I have invited Jeff Bezos to testify in the Budget Committee next week to explain to the American people why he thinks it’s appropriate for him to spend a whole lot of money denying economic dignity to workers at Amazon, while he has become $78 billion richer during the pandemic.”
I have invited Jeff Bezos to testify in the Budget Committee next week to explain to the American people why he thinks it's appropriate for him to spend a whole lot of money denying economic dignity to workers at Amazon, while he has become $78 billion richer during the pandemic. https://t.co/EFOadKKJxH
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 12, 2021
Sanders criticized Bezos, 57, in a statement announcing the hearing next week, accusing the latter of engaging in an “union-busting campaign against Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama to stop them from collectively bargaining for better wages, benefits, and working conditions”. He also previously announced support for the workers' right to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Last month, around 6,000 workers at the Alabama warehouse started voting on whether or not to set up the first American union at the e-commerce company that could see further unionization in the US and that too at one of the world’s top companies. The voting runs through March 29.
“What you are seeing right now in Bessemer is an example of the richest person in this country spending a whole lot of money to make it harder for ordinary working people to live with dignity and safety,' Sanders told The WaPo.
CNBC reported saying Amazon had staunchly opposed the unionization initiative. “Last month, it held mandatory meetings with workers at the Bessemer facility stating the case against unionizing. The company also set up a website urging workers to “do it without dues”, the report said.