An Amazon worker in Edinburgh has said it was right the company apologised for denying delivery drivers need to urinate in bottles.
Amazon has apologised for a tweet it sent to a US politician more than a week ago denying the company’s employees work so hard they must urinate in empty water bottles.
One current employee who works across Edinburgh and the Lothians, who asked to remain anonymous, said he's aware of it happening among the workforce.
"The delivery targets are tough," he said, adding: "Sometimes you aren't going to be able to find somewhere to go [to the toilet] and still be able to meet them."
"Don't get me wrong i'd rather have the job than not and there's probably worse places to work," he said.
Amazon admitted that some delivery drivers might have had to urinate in bottles and it vowed to improve their working conditions.
The matter was first raised on March 24 by a US politician, who responded to a tweet by an Amazon executive that said the company was a progressive workplace.
“Paying workers $15/hr doesn’t make you a ‘progressive workplace’ when you union-bust & make workers urinate in water bottles,” Mr Pocan said in his tweet.
Amazon responded: “You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us.”
In a blog post on Friday night, Amazon apologised to Mr Pocan and acknowledged that delivery drivers “can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes”.
The online shopping giant said it was an industry problem, and shared news articles of reports of drivers from others companies doing similar.
“Regardless of the fact that this is industry-wide, we would like to solve it,” the company said.
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“We don’t yet know how, but will look for solutions.”
A recent campaign in Scotland has called on Amazon to sign a neutrality agreement to allow workers to join a union "without fear".
The campaign has launched a public petition, calling on politicians to ask Amazon to back the calls.
"If Amazon fail to commit to this statement, our politicians should pull all public Amazon contracts with Amazon Web Services and stop paying out millions in public money – our money – to Amazon," the campaign says.
