Amazon's Jeff Bezos turns down Bernie Sanders' invite to testify on US' income inequality

Days after the US Senator and Chairman of Senate Budget Committee Bernie Sanders invited Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to a hearing on "income inequality" among workers in America, Amazon on Friday said that Bezos will not be testifying before the Budget Committee. Sanders had invited Bezos to the hearing seeking the latter's "explanation" on his denial over the "economic dignity that workers at Amazon deserve in Bessemer who wish to form a labour's union."

The office of Bezos sent a reply to Sanders' invitation that read "We fully endorse Senator Sanders' efforts to reduce income inequality with legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers as we did for ours in 2018." It must be noted that the hearing will also include the testimony of an Amazon employee Jennifer Bates – who has been vouching to form a workers' union at one of Amazon's workhouses in Alabama.
 
America for the past few months has witnessed a rise in demand from workers to have unions in the companies where they are employed. At Amazon, these demands have become the epicenter of developments that involve corporate America and the worker groups.
 
President Joe Biden supports workers who wish to form unions

The recent elections have also empowered the hopes of workers with President Joe Biden extending his support to the workers in Amazon's Alabama, to form a union. Before Sanders announced that Bezos will not be able to testify before the Senate,  a US daily quoted him as saying "Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world, is in many respects emblematic of the unfettered capitalism that we are seeing in America today."

Meanwhile, this is not the first time that Sanders has been vocal for workers' rights and the inequality they face in terms of income. He earlier this year also traveled to Bentonville, Arkansas where he addressed Walmart's annual shareholder meeting and highlighted aspects of the company's treatment of its workers. Sanders referring to the image of Bezos that is of the 'wealthiest person in the world' further said "Bezos was invited to testify "to explain to the American people why he believes it is appropriate for him to be spending a whole lot of money denying economic dignity to Amazon workers in Bessemer who want to form a union, while he has become $78 billion richer during the pandemic and is now worth $183 billion."