US Senate Committee to Hold Hearing on Amazon Labor Practices

The U.S. Senate Budget Committee plans to hold a hearing on Amazon’s labor practices with an appearance from a key union organizer, Christian Smalls, Reuters writes.

This comes as the chair of the panel urged the White House to end federal government contracts with the retail giant over its alleged anti-union activity.

Senator Bernie Sanders has said Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, along with Sean O’Brien, President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, will speak with the panel.

This comes as Sanders urged President Joe Biden to issue an executive order cutting off federal contracts to Amazon. Sanders’ logic is that Amazon has become a “poster child” for anti-union behavior which is illegal, while also “taking billions in federal contracts,” the report says.

Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos has been invited to testify, too, but hasn’t said if he’ll be there or not.

The Amazon Labor Union was formed recently after workers at a New York City Amazon warehouse voted to form it, with Smalls, an ex-employee who had been fighting for higher pay and job security, as the leader.

Amazon was against the union, accusing it of threatening workers unless they voted to organize.

This was denied by the labor group.

In related news, PYMNTS wrote that Amazon has teamed with Starkey, a hearing aid maker, to help users of the Fire TV Cube streaming device hear their programming better. The Fire TV Cube is reportedly the first streaming device from a U.S. company that can turn a hearing aid into a Bluetooth headphone, calibrated to a person’s hearing needs.

Read more: Amazon Pairs Fire Cube, Starkey Hearing Aids

This will make the Cube compatible with Audio Streaming for Hearing Aid, an open-source protocol for communicating with hearing aids.

According to Peter Korn, Amazon Director of Accountability for Devices, connecting to a hearing aid from a streaming box is tough because people do not usually sit close to the TV.