Sanders urges Biden to cut Amazon out of US federal contracts
US Senator Bernie Sanders has called on President Joe Biden to block Amazon from receiving federal contracts over the company’s "illegal anti-union activity."
In a letter to President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Sanders urged the president to issue a new executive order that prevents any company that violates labor law from being eligible for government contracts.
However, in his letter, the senator specifically called out Amazon, which has run aggressive anti-union campaigns against workers attempting to organize.
"As you may know, Amazon, one of the largest and most profitable corporations in America, is the poster child as to why this anti-union busting Executive Order is needed now more than ever," Sanders said in the letter, which was initially reported by Politico.
"Mr. Bezos and his company have done everything possible, legal and illegal, to defeat the union effort," Sanders also said in his remarks on the Senate floor.
Amazon recently spent millions to fend off a union drive at one of its New York City warehouses, where workers voted to form the company's first union.
Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board accused the company in January of illegal tactics during the union drive by workers at Staten Island warehouse JFK8.
"The NLRB issued a complaint against Amazon alleging that the company repeatedly broke the law by threatening, surveilling, and interrogating their Staten Island warehouse workers who are engaged in a union organizing campaign," NLRB Region 29 Regional Director Kathy Drew King said in a statement to Insider's Isobel Hamilton.
Amazon workers from more than 100 other US work sites have expressed interest in unionizing.
Biden has not explicitly endorsed the fight to unionize Amazon, but one of his stated promises was to become the “most pro-union president.”
In an interview, Sanders said, “All I am asking the president to do is what he explicitly stated that he would do during the campaign. It’s the right thing to do. And this is a time when working people need to know that the president is on their side.”
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