Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has decried worker conditions at one of the world's most valuable firms. | Source: Saul Loeb / AFP
A senior vice president at Amazon.com invited Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tour the company’s facilities to dispel her claim that Amazon employees are subjected to “dehumanizing conditions” at work.
The brouhaha erupted after Ocasio-Cortez flippantly tweeted that “Amazon workers have to urinate in bottles and work while on food stamps” in order to meet the company’s brutal performance targets.
The newbie lawmaker then linked to a Newsweek article suggesting that Amazon is a heartless sweatshop that abuses its employees.
“‘Performance’ shouldn’t come at the cost of dehumanizing conditions. That’s why we got rid of sweatshops.”
In response, Dave Clark, the senior vice president of operations at Amazon, vehemently denied AOC’s claims on Twitter. Clark insisted that Amazon pays its employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour and offers generous benefits.
Clark then invited Ocasio-Cortez on a tour of the company’s facilities to prove that workers do not suffer “dehumanizing conditions.”
“These claims simply aren’t true. We are proud of our jobs with excellent pay ($15 min), benefits from day 1, and lots of other benefits like our Career Choice pre-paid educational programs.
Why don’t you come take a tour and see for yourself … we’d love to have you!”
Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to the invitation, and her rep has not issued a statement on the matter.
As CCN.com reported, Ocasio-Cortez led the liberal charge to chase Amazon out of New York, where it had planned to build a second headquarters.
The new facility would have created 25,000 high-paying jobs and would have fueled a massive economic boom to the industrialized borough of Queens, New York. When Amazon pulled out of the move, Ocasio-Cortez celebrated and blithely declared victory.
Ocasio-Cortez, a former bartender, has been widely criticized for chasing tens of thousands of high-paying jobs out of the New York City area.
Local businessman Josh Bowen, the owner of the John Brown Smokehouse in Queens, blasted AOC. He says her frivolous, radical activism has hurt his financially-challenged community.
“Our dumb, glory-seeking politicians decided this was their hot-button issue, f–king over our people for political gain.
This is not Shangri-La over here. We needed this! We needed this! This was a gift.”
On February 16, Ocasio-Cortez doubled-down on her gleeful celebration after chasing Amazon out of New York.
Speaking at a delayed inauguration event in the Bronx, the self-proclaimed socialist dismissed the 25,000 jobs that Amazon took when it pulled out of the HQ2 deal, calling them “scraps.”
“We do not have to settle for scraps in the greatest city in the world. We saw this week when we fight for ourselves and we say: ‘It’s not just about any job. We need to have dignified jobs.’
We need to create dignified jobs in New York City ― jobs that pay well. Jobs that contribute to communities.”
According to Amazon’s own figures, the 25,000 jobs that Amazon had planned to create at its now-defunct New York headquarters had an average salary that topped $150,000 a year.
Last modified: September 23, 2020 12:26 PM
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