Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice have threatened to strike because Amazon is not doing enough to promote climate action.
Nearly 1,000 Amazon employees plan a walkout to protest climate change
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business
Updated 1934 GMT (0334 HKT) September 9, 2019New York (CNN Business)
Nearly 1,000 Amazon employees have pledged to walk out in protest of what they say is their company’s inaction on climate change.The collective known as “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice” posted a letter online Monday declaring that Amazon should lead on the issue because it’s “one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world.”
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For example, the group wants Amazon to stop donating to politicians and lobbyists who deny climate change. It also wants Amazon to stop awarding contracts to fossil fuel companies. And the group wants the company to test electric vehicles in cities that are most affected by the company’s environmental impact. The group said it was “critical” for Amazon to emit zero emissions by 2030.
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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/09/business/amazon-employee-climate-change-walkout/index.html
I just have one question.
Given Amazon’s alleged reputation for working employees to the limit of their endurance, how did 1000 employees ever manage to find the personal time and energy to develop outside interests? For shame Bezos, your shareholders expect more from you.
I bet they prefer shipping overseas sales by sail ship, and domestic delivery by horse and carriage.
Electric vehicles are not climate neutral by any stretch of the imagination. – As if it even mattered.
Now let me guess this is not your average rank and file Amazon guy sweathing it out in a warehouse.
No, this is liberal management and technical staff with nice A/C offices and a fat salary, who can afford to 45% more for their domestic electricity.
Let’s start by cutting the office A/C to “save the planet” and making them cycle to work.
This sort of liberal whining is always about changing someone else’s lifestyle in areas which don’t hit them personally.
Greg, dead nuts right on!!! If they dump their air conditioning, I might believe they are serious, but otherwise they are self-serving panderers.
Union or Management…
Unions have a right to strike (during contract negotiations) but not for Climate Issues
Climate is no right to strike.
Management should be docked an equal amount of pay to 125% of the highest paid union position per day
Management should be fired, period.
Simple solution for Amazon:
Get rid of all employee parking.
Stop selling products or packaging that contain plastic. Use hemp twine to seal boxes.
Also ban all employees from eating meat. Vegetable and insect protein only.
And set a strict maximum allowable BMI to get rid of all employees who clearly eat too much. Saving the planet takes some serious sacrifices.
Or who have more than 2 children.
Initiate an emergency self imposed life elimination for each of the 1000 protestors and immediately save the world of their poorly structured carbon footprints.
“this is liberal management and technical staff with nice A/C offices and a fat salary,”
Or they were recruited via an unofficial eat employees gripe site.
Exactly Greg, the fruit loop middle management and low level exec’s that have been through the greenwash education system in the last 15 years. You could pick them out of a line up no trouble.
“No, this is liberal management and technical staff with nice A/C offices and a fat salary, who can afford to 45% more for their domestic electricity. ”
Um, no. mid level management and IT professionals (as decision support for management), are actually excluded from being able to unionize. Management negotiating with a union representing management employees would be considered a conflict of interest.
And since they can’t unionize, they have no legal protections against being fired for going on strike.
In the US, in the corporate environment, personal contracts are extremely rare below the CXO/President/Vice President executive level. Everyone between the senior executives and the hourly employees is working at will, so no contract protects them from being fired for striking either.
I don’t know about you, but every job I’ve ever worked on, I’ve signed a contract.
The closest I’ve ever been to the CEO’s office was on the first day tour.
There is no law that protects anyone from being fired if they strike. What usually happens is that as part of the negotiations, the union insists that everyone who struck be re-hired.
MarkW September 10, 2019 at 4:43 pm
There is no law that protects anyone from being fired if they strike.
Wrong.
By the way, I was a Teamster when I worked at Sikorsky aircraft. Federal workers who are in unions have different laws.
Besides I don’t think Amazon is unionized.
https://employment-law.freeadvice.com/employment-law/employment-law/union_strike.htm
michael
This is not a union action. Amazon is not unionized. These are some nutcases who want to make a political statement. If they walk out, there will be 1000 spots open for new employees at Amazon.
Yeah, a letter to all office employees saying that because of this petition you are setting A/C thermostats to 82 degrees in all office buildings for a trial period of 1 month. The fellow employees will make the lives of petition-signers living hell until they quit.
To quote President Trump….”You’re FIRED !” D”OH !
Or the more colorful: ‘Don’t let the door hit you in the a$$!’
Joel, I’m in the “Dog House{…..gotta be nice ….lol
That is just what I was thinking. Go on strike and you are history, fired, just plain gone.
Another example of patients trying to take over the asylum…
Please don’t say “patients”, Greg. It is so demeaning , we prefer to call them health care clients nowadays, or “person affected by health care services” 😉
I apologize..
I guess “lunatics” is right out.
“Inmates” is the time-honored term in that phrase. Why rewrite it?
Nowadays I hear “get your ducks lined up” and want to scream. Please.
“Service Users”
Fire the lot of them — I’m sure there are 1000 people looking for jobs and willing to work.
Don’t be so sure about the pool of available workers. Amazon is looking to hire many thousands more to handle seasonal shipping and the unemployment rate is historically low at 3.7%.
Instead, make they walk or bike to work by closing the employee parking lot.
Na, 1,000 employees with zero skill set can be replaced in a week.
1,000 out of 647,500 total employees as of 2018. That’s around 0.15% of the company population. Bezos won’t even notice them missing.
Did all 3 members of “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice” sign the manifesto?
Nope. Nobody signed it.
Gordon,
Not necessarily in AOC’s district.
not in AOC’s neighborhood. Full employment there.
The first thing that they can do is take matters in to their own hands and stop using fossil fuels. It will have a large impact (on their lives).
Maybe they need to walk out, and guided right into a classroom where they get educated on real climate science instead of propaganda and fake climate news.
A few simple questions for them….. How do they all get to work? Are they all vegans? How will all the delivering be done?
Interesting question embedded in your question – can you find any food that does not have the taint of fossil fuel?
How many employees does Amazon have? Surely enough to make 1000 a pretty insignificant proportion.
In USA 647,500 it swells by 100,000 seasonally at xmas time.
In 2018, they had 647,500 employees. link
This article says there are around 65,000 corporate and tech employees in the US.
This isn’t going to affect Amazon’s operations. It is, however, a public relations nightmare. I’m guessing Amazon knows how to handle that.
The Regan Solution is in order.
Give ole Jeff another reason to automate your job and put you in the unemployment line.
I wonder if Bernie is behind this?
So, from all of the Charm Schools/Management classes I was sent to there is a simple formula for this threat to Amazon: 1. analyze the claimed problem and decide if it is in the shareholders interest/impact to engage in any mitigating activity, and 2. if there is no shareholder interest/impact, nip this revolution in the bud (see Gordon Weir above). Where does all of this global warming/climate change/climate crisis/Trump Derangement Syndrome/Brexit/Green New Deal end?
Amazon should send these employees last class on a slow boat to China.
Fire them all.
You don’t have to fire them they aren’t turning up to work 🙂
unavailability to work
1000 employees have just placed their names on the first to fire list.
I strongly support these raging Leftists, in there desire to force Left leaning companies to practice what they preach. Because they will either go under trying to ride the Unicorn, or they will admit it doesn’t exist.
For far to long the hypocritical Left has gotten a free pass. It’s time they lead from the front, or get out of everyone else’s way.
~¿~
I couldn’t agree more! :<)
Amazon isn’t a left-leaning company, comparatively. Bezos is a libertarian sympathizer.
Sack ’em and advertise their jobs- no way can you have people dictating stuff like this. I’d shut the company before I gave in, then ask them how they felt about being responsible for thousands of job losses. If they feel this strongly, why not leave and set up their own carbon free company? Probably because they wouldn’t have a bloody clue what to do and would faint at the thought of risking their own money. Out of interest, Amazon must save loads of carbon emissions indirectly because we all used to have to drive around buying the stuff they deliver…..
Or maybe advertise their jobs first . . . and see it any withdraw their support for the strike, climate action, or whatever they call it . . . then sack ’em.
Note: Our K-12 schools and universities may not be teaching the 3 R’s, but they certainly have effectively taught students how to protest, bitch, moan, and physically attack teachers, police, firefighters, EMT’s, ICE, and anyone who disagrees with them about anything. ‘Glad I retired nearly 25 years ago!
Three “Rs”
Reading
Writing
Arithmatic
Bryan A
Reading
Riting
Rifmetic
Chairman Mao would be proud of all this ‘climate revolution’ hogwash. The climate crisis they want so bad is starting to really look like China’s Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 when 3 million or more died. This was to attack the Four Olds– old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits–in order to bring the areas of education, art and literature in line with Communist ideology. The climate emergency crisis revolution has similar ends, firstly to get rid of evil fossil fuels and cripple society, and then to impose their political will over all aspects of western life and the redistribution of wealth from those who create it. Once that is in place, we would truly be back in a type of dark age. Literally… in a dark age.
“The climate crisis they want so bad is starting to really look like China’s Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 when 3 million or more died.”
And let’s not ever forget China’s “Great Leap Forward” of 1958-1960, which killed 45 million people.
How about a protest outside the $15 million beach side estate of the Obamas and the Head in the Sand Promoter in Chief.
The entire basis of Amazon is to replace local stores where someone might travel and make multiple purchases with a system where someone drives to your house and drops off a single package. I just bought some replacement razor blades. They came in a box about 6 times the size it needed to be with 6 feet of packing paper to prevent damage and movement. If Amazon employees are concerned about climate change they should demand the company close down and lose their jobs.
You’d think the largest business in the world would have more appropriately sized shipping boxes right? I’ve often wondered if it’s employees that DGAF or if it’s some weird corporate policy.
The smaller the shipping box, the more likely it is to get lost in transit.
They probably did a study to pick the minimum size box based on probability of loss and average value of contents, to minimize profit loss.
~¿~
Also, their big standard shipping labels won’t fit on small boxes.
More box sizes mean your storage and handling costs increase.
At the volumes that they buy, the difference in cost between a box that is an 8 inch cube and one that is a 10 inch cube comes down to the price per square inch of cardboard, which is dirt cheap.
More box sizes also makes the packing of shipping crates more complex, which means the chances of an individual crate not being fully packed increases.
“The entire basis of Amazon is to replace local stores where someone might travel and make multiple purchases with a system where someone drives to your house and drops off a single package.”
But an Amazon driver covers a compact area and delivers, conservatively, 12 packages in an hour (one every five minutes), or 96 a day. The distance between each of those stops is on average, say, four blocks, or 388 blocks—round up to 400. Add to that 1000 blocks (30 miles) to get to and from the warehouse. Total milage = 1400 blocks.
The average customer would drive, say, five miles, or 100 blocks, to get to and from a local store. So 96 customers would drive 9600 blocks, much more than an Amazon driver (1400). And they’d spend an hour doing so, or 960 labor hours, vs. 8 for the Amazon driver.
I’m sure some economists have published far better estimates and assumptions than this crude work-up. But I think I’m in the ballpark.
Single packages? You’re doing it wrong, then. Fed Ex/UPS drop by our house with 1) multiple boxes, 2) each loaded with several different items. He then rolls to the next house, and repeats the procedure.
Do you really get just one package? Then you ARE a problem.
I work in this industry. It’s dominated by petulant children. They thrive on group think. They can’t go to the bathroom without someone holding it for them.
If they walk out of work without clearing the day off with their bosses, they should all be fired.
I am guessing if you fire them you have to pay them out entitlements, if they don’t turn up for work in most countries they are considered delinquent and forgo there entitlements. It’s hence probably cheaper to do nothing.
If an employee is fired fired for cause, he is not eligible for benefits like unemployment. An employer has no right to be absent from his work to participate in a protest not union-related. Protesting how management spends management money is a fireable offense. That is a matter between management and shareholders, not the workers.
They have no right to attend union-related protests either, unless such a right is spelled out in their employment contract.
Zero emissions by 2030….it’s always 10 years
Yep- because it means they won’t have to answer for anything and they don’t have to actually DO anything- they just walk around with bloody silly placards demanding other people do something. I do think we’ve pampered our kids to the point where they think that everything will be done for them- myself included!
They are planning to abuse the whole purpose of what Strikes are for, normally it is for wages, pensions, better work conditions and so on.
This “strike” will only have them get fired, since they have no cause for work stoppage. Not being at the office or the warehouse can be used as grounds for dismissal, not doing what being hired for.
And to be clear, that’s fired ‘for cause’, not because of layoffs, downsizing, or that the job is no longer needed. No unemployment benefits.
For a meaningful reduction in CO2 emissions, these 1000 employees should demand that Amazon stop delivering goods produced within coal-powered factories in China. That would turn their business model upside down.
I think they should quit and go huddle together in one of their mom’s basements and vape themselves to…
I suspect they are almost all in Seattle.
From the net …
“Nearly 950 Amazon employees who work at its Seattle headquarters and other locations plan to strike on Sept. 20 to convince the company to demonstrate ‘real climate leadership,’ they announced Monday morning.”
In a related story, 100 million workers remained at their workstations to protest not getting their packages on time.