Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos declined a request from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, on Friday that he affirm at an upcoming Senate Budget Committee Hearing on income inequality.
The conference, scheduled for Wednesday, will analyze issues identified with wealth and inequality in the midst of a continuous push among Amazon warehouse laborers in Alabama to unionize. Sanders welcomed Bezos to affirm close by a worker from the stockroom at the focal point of the unionization push.
Pundits have focused on Bezos, the world’s richest man, for the tremendous expansion in his personal net worth in the midst of a economic downturn during the Covid pandemic. An Amazon agent said Bezos would be not able to go to the hearing.
“We fully endorse Senator Sanders’s efforts to reduce income inequality with legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers,” Amazon said in a statement first obtained by Bloomberg.
Amazon raised its lowest pay permitted by law to $15 each hour in the midst of pressing factor from Sanders and different officials. The e-commerce giant has contended its compensation and advantages, which incorporate a retirement plan as well as healthcare, vision and dental coverage, are superior to those of adversary organizations.
Sanders has over and again approached Amazon and other significant US organizations to expand pay for their laborers.
“I have invited Jeff Bezos to testify in the Budget Committee next week to explain to the American people why he thinks it’s appropriate for him to spend a whole lot of money denying economic dignity to workers at Amazon, while he has become $78 billion richer during the pandemic,” Sanders wrote on Twitter regarding the invitation.
Sanders and other Senate Democrats pushed for the consideration of an action in President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that would have slowly expanded the government the lowest pay permitted by law to $15 each hour throughout the next several years.
The Senate parliamentarian managed the action couldn’t be remembered for the bill. Senate legislators later dismissed Sanders’ alteration that looked to incorporate the wage hike anyway.
In February, Amazon officially supported the push for an expanded government minimum wage.