Every day 36 million amazon packages are delivered. Amazon is arguably the most well-known company in the US. With this reputation and their widespread advertisements claiming that they pay their workers 15 dollars per hour, many would think they treat their workers well, but they don’t.

Amazon pays its workers $14.99 an hour. That’s pretty good right! But the conditions they go through during work are really bad. A 2018 poll taken by Truthout.org found out that 14% of all Amazon workers avoided taking bathroom breaks because they were afraid of not meeting work expectations and not getting paid. This also brings up the question and rumor that Amazon workers pee in bottles.

According to some people, Amazon workers pee in bottles. Mark Pocan a democrat from Wisconsin tweeted “workers urinate in water bottles”. Soon after the official Amazon Twitter account responded “If that were true, nobody would work for us.”. But after further evidence, Amazon admitted that sometimes their workers have to actually pee in plastic water bottles. That means that workers of Amazon sometimes have to get out a plastic water bottle and pee into it to meet work wages and quotas. Amazon is even aware that its workers pee in bottles and don’t care, as long as they’re making deliveries or packaging goods they don’t care if they are put in uncomfortable and complicated positions. That means that the Amazon worker you sometimes see driving around may be very uncomfortable and unhappy.

Amazon workers suffer more injuries and accidents in Amazon warehouses than other companies’ warehouses. A Union-backed safety data showed that in Amazon warehouses 5.9 serious injuries for every 100 workers, which means that almost 51,684 Amazon workers get severe injuries in Amazon warehouses. And 80% of all warehouse incidents and accidents happen in Amazon warehouses. So that means that if you take a job at Amazon you are more likely to get into an accident than if you worked in Walmart or Target.

In conclusion, Amazon workers and drivers are not treated fairly and when you order those cute shoes you want or this new video game for your friends have, think about what the workers have to go through just for something that you’ll probably throw out in a day. Instead of buying from big corporations, buy from small businesses and help support them instead.