BIG BROTHER JEFF
Recruits pro-Amazon staff for tweet campaign
These Amazon warehouse workers don’t take food stamps, they don’t pee into bottles — and they’re getting paid to tweet about it.
Looking to deflect mounting reports of brutal working conditions at its giant fulfillment centers, Amazon this month has quietly recruited at least 16 gung-ho “FC Ambassadors” who are taking to Twitter to push back against various workplace complaints.
“No peeing in bottles here,” tweeted Jeremy, a Texas-based FC Ambassador, pushing back against reports that fulfillment center employees were under so much time pressure that the men had to urinate into empty soda bottles.
“We like to use the good oldfashioned restrooms,” Jeremy responded.
All of the ambassador Twitter accounts appear to have been created in August — and they all sport a bright-orange Amazon smile logo, replete with a package emoji in the name.
They also look as if they’re armed with the same sets of talking points — hitting back, for example, at Bernie Sanders’ recent criticism of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ wealth, which recently ballooned past $150 billion, making him by far the world’s richest person.
“Did you know that Amazon pays warehouse workers 30% more than other retailers?” a FC Ambassador named Shaye said in a typical tweet, failing to cite the source of the information. “Much better than some of my previous employers.”
“Hey Jack,” another ambas- sador recently tweeted, responding to speculation that “a bunch of bots/actors” were operating the ambassador accounts.
“I’ve never been an actor nor do I run off batteries; I’m just a regular normal human being,” the ambassador said.
Amazon officials admitted to orchestrating the guerrilla Twitter campaign — but only after it was discovered earlier this week. The e-commerce company insisted the accounts are operated by employees with warehouse experience.
“The most important thing is that they’ve been here long enough to honestly share the facts based on personal experience,” an Amazon spokesman told The Post in an email.
Amazon’s fulfillment centers — which in recent years have occasionally made the news by sending overheated, exhausted workers to the hospital — have lately been slammed by a flurry of exposés.
In April, undercover UK journalist James Bloodworth worked at an Amazon fulfillment center in England and likened the conditions to being in prison.
“For those of us who worked on the top floor, the closest toilets were down four flights of stairs,” Bloodworth wrote.
The Sun of the UK, meanwhile, reported workers peeing into bottles out of fear that taking a bathroom break would cause them to lag behind performance targets.
Now the tech giant’s new online campaign has been branded as “Orwellian” by critics.
“While we do work with robots (& they’re SOOO cool btw) not all of us are bots,” tweeted @AmazonFCKara.
“Isn’t it kind of Orwellian to have people searching for amazon work conditions to try and change the public opinion about it?” a critic of the company responded.