I recognize that labor laws are a complicated subject, and I recognize that their advocates don't always have the best interests of workers at heart. Nevertheless, I do wonder how far things have to go before we collectively agree that Amazon treats its workers inhumanely.<p>- Paying people so little that they resort to living in tents? No.<p>- Union-busting? No.<p>- Requiring near-total abnegation of basic bodily functions? No.<p>So where's the line? Does someone have to die of exhaustion? 10 people? 1% of workers?<p>A hallmark of totalitarianism is when a government deems itself to have power over the bodily functions of individuals. It may be useful to apply this analysis to private entities as well.
I can't imagine this is limited to Amazon. Bathroom access became impaired with fast food/restaurants and municipalities closing off bathrooms to the public.<p>My neighborhood park hasn't had a working bathroom or water fountains since last year.
In general I think this is more of a burden to women than men. I have no problem using a bottle on long drives, and my male friends have been mostly the same. But I've known women for whom it would be a deal breaker and would leave the job on that account.<p>This is based in both gender and sex, in that it's less convenient for the female sex and the female gender tends to be more modest.
The person ultimately in control of whether or not they were peeing in bottles of course already knew at the time of the event.<p>I probably dislike Amazon more than most here, but I think the trend is to blame them for a lot more than that which falls under the heading of their responsibilities.<p>This feels like a bad argument to make, when there are so many vastly better and legitimate criticisms of Amazon (such as their operating an entire on-prem data center for the CIA to store their drone killing and torture site videos, et c).