One of the fired staff, Emily Cunningham, a person expertise designer who is a component of the group Amazon Workers for Climate Justice, had supplied on Twitter to match donations as much as $500 to Amazon warehouse staff. She mentioned a “‘lack of secure and sanitary working situations’ places them and the general public in danger.”
Cunningham mentioned late Monday that she was fired Friday afternoon.
Maren Costa, a principal person expertise designer who can also be half of the worker climate group, mentioned she was additionally fired Friday. Costa has retweeted criticism from Cunningham, in addition to from teams supporting the activist warehouse staff, about Amazon’s policies on defending warehouse staff. Costa, too, supplied through Twitter to match donations as much as $500 for warehouse staff “whereas they wrestle to get constant, enough protections and procedures from our employer.”
Amazon fired the employees for “repeatedly violating inside policies,” spokesman Drew Herdener mentioned in a press release.
“We support each worker’s proper to criticize their employer’s working situations, however that doesn’t include blanket immunity towards any and all inside policies,” Herdener mentioned.
Amazon’s exterior communications coverage prohibits staff from commenting publicly on its enterprise with out company justification and approval from executives. Herdener beforehand mentioned the coverage didn’t enable staff to “publicly disparage or misrepresent the corporate.”
(Amazon chief government Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Submit.)
“As a result of of how efficient we’ve been in getting Amazon to take management within the climate disaster, they’ve wished me gone for some time,” Cunningham mentioned.
Costa believes she was fired for her outspokenness as effectively.
“They had been focusing on essentially the most seen leaders in an try to silence everybody,” Costa mentioned Monday evening.
Amazon fired Costa in a video name whereas she labored at house, together with her 13-year-old son within the subsequent room. After the decision, her son requested if she’d been fired for her climate activism, she mentioned. When she informed him she was, he requested if she regretted it.
“I mentioned, ‘No, I don’t. In no way. I’m doing this for you,’” Costa mentioned.
Final month, Amazon fired Chris Smalls, a warehouse employee in Staten Island, after he raised considerations to a number of media shops, together with The Submit, about working situations. New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James known as the firing “disgraceful” and requested the Nationwide Labor Relations Board to research the incident, and 5 U.S. senators, together with former Democratic presidential candidates Cory Booker (N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), despatched Bezos a letter elevating considerations about Smalls’s firing.
Amazon mentioned the dismissal was associated to Smalls’s ignoring a request from his supervisor to remain house after contact with a employee who examined optimistic for the coronavirus.
Late final yr, Amazon warned Costa, who additionally denounced the corporate’s climate practices, that she risked being fired for “talking about Amazon’s enterprise in a public discussion board.”
In January, greater than 350 staff engaged in a mass defiance of firm communications coverage to support Costa and others, calling out Amazon for its climate coverage, its work with federal businesses and its makes an attempt to stifle dissent in a put up on Medium.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted his support of these staff on the time for “courageously talking out” and “telling Jeff Bezos to finish his hypocrisy.”
For the previous month, warehouse staff in Europe and the USA have sounded alarms that the corporate wasn’t taking sufficient steps to guard them from the virus. Employees complained about policies that push them to fulfill the per-hour fee at which the corporate needs orders fulfilled, a follow that they fear discourages secure sanitary practices corresponding to washing arms after a cough or sneeze. Others have complained about “stand-up” conferences, the place staff stand shoulder-to-shoulder firstly of every shift.
Amazon has since taken steps to handle these points, together with giving warehouse staff masks and checking the temperatures of staff as they start shifts, sending staff house for three days in the event that they register 100.four levels Fahrenheit or increased, the corporate mentioned.
Regardless of shedding her job, Cunningham mentioned she has no regrets.
“I do know I’m going to be okay,” she mentioned. “These occasions are going to require us to be our bravest, greatest selves.”