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Amazon has been in the news again lately, as more and more employees are coming out and revealing details about the inhumane working conditions and quotas that some of them have to deal with. Currently, votes are being counted in an election to determine whether or not workers at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, will form a union. And Amazon is being accused of union-busting.

The company has always been very strongly anti-union in the US and appears willing to do pretty much anything from letting its workers unionize, including (allegedly!) straight-up lying. So much so that among real Fulfillment Center worker posts, they’ve (allegedly!) mixed in completely fake social media accounts where ‘employees’ defend the company and lambast unions. All with a big smile.

Now, people are calling out these fake people and their ridiculous profiles that not only sound fake (corpo-speak much?), some of them actually use stock or manufactured images for photos! Twitter has even banned a handful of these propaganda accounts that were pretending to be happy Amazon staff members. Bored Panda has collected some of the most egregious examples of Amazon (allegedly!) trying to manipulate its employees to have anti-union sentiments over the years. Scroll down to see the Brave New World we’re all living in and have a read-through and upvote the funny comebacks and reactions to the latest Amazon jobs-related scandal.

People have been calling out fake Twitter profiles that rush to defend Amazon and criticize unions

Image credits: timjsully

Image credits: timjsully

For instance, one account used a stock image for a profile pic

Image credits: timjsully

Image credits: timjsully

While another profile, confirmed to be fake by Amazon, used a photo created on a website

Image credits: MunsonGoober

People have been posting jokes and memes about the fake pro-Amazon profiles ever since

In a follow-up interview with Bored Panda, Imgurian Somethingslightlyclever who works at Amazon, told us that it's not at all surprising that Amazon are ducking the serious issues and that they might be behind the fake profiles. "They aren't very inventive with their PR," the Amazon worker opened up to Bored Panda.

The Imgurian is "very pro-union" and doesn't understand the anti-union rhetoric that Amazon and some Americans favor. "I mean, why wouldn't you want a voice? I figure a union is basically turning your job from a dictatorship to a democracy. I think they crush unions for that same reason. To keep us under their heel. It's a lot easier to treat your employees [badly] and pay them less when they have no voice."

The Amazon employee opened up to us about how the company has a "weird environment" and there's always "a camera on you," tracking you "every second" of the day. "For productivity or accuracy or just to know where you are. It does feel like prison sometimes."

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If the Bessemer warehouse workers end up joining the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, this would be the very first union at Amazon in the United States. The situation is different across the pond in Europe where many workers are unionized and the working conditions are, frankly, better than for many Americans.

Some of the fake accounts were spreading straight-up misinformation. For example, Twitter user AmazonFCDarla said that she didn’t like unions because they allegedly don’t give people the ability to opt out of dues. Meanwhile, Alabama, a right-to-work state, allows its workers to opt out of paying these dues.

According to Gizmodo, Darla’s profile photo might look real, but it’s most likely fake, probably created on the Generated Photos website. Gizmodo nearly managed to replicate her exact look. 

Amazon confirmed to the BBC that Darla isn’t an official company Ambassador (which are real employees paid to promote and defend the firm). “It appears that this is a fake account that violates Twitter’s terms. We’ve asked Twitter to investigate and take appropriate action,” a spokesperson told the BBC.

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Most of the accounts suspended by Twitter had been made a few days ago, had very few followers, and tweeted out only Amazon-related posts.

However, it’s not just made up, robotic corpo-sounding Amazon employees that have been defending the company. Some real staff members, including executives, have been doing so too. In short, they denied allegations about workers having to urinate in bottles, said that employees are proud of their jobs “and have great wages and health care from day one.”

#12

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pauldavis avatar
Paul Davis
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

hundreds of dollars was the smallest amount of money Jeff Bezos could possibly imagine

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The exhausting working conditions at Amazon are probably nothing new to you, Readers. We’ve recently written about them right here and here if you need a refresher about the endless unfulfillable quotas, urinating in bottles, and pressure to work during your breaks.

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