Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Amazon has finally lost patience with their employee climate warriors, after they extended their activism to include complaining about Amazon’s alleged Coronavirus shortcomings.
Amazon fires employees who spoke out about coronavirus and climate change
By Zoya Teirstein on Apr 14, 2020
…
Last Friday afternoon, Amazon fired two of its tech employees after they publicly criticized its coronavirus policies. Those employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, both user experience designers with 21 years of service at the company between them, were among the leaders of an internal worker group formed in December 2018 with the aim of pressuring Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to commit to more ambitious climate targets. The group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), has recently widened its focus to embrace the struggles of frontline Amazon employees at fulfillment centers across the country.
Cunningham and Costa were fired after they wrote tweets criticizing the company for putting workers and the public at risk and offering to match up to $500 in donations to a fund for Amazon warehouse workers exposed to COVID-19.
I'm matching donations up to $500 to support my Amazon warehouse worker colleagues. "The lack of safe and sanitary working conditions" puts them and the public at risk.
— Emily Cunningham (@emahlee) March 27, 2020
It's bad ya'll…
THREAD https://t.co/bvR5mUF85H
I am matching donations to $500 to support my Amazon warehouse colleagues and their communities, while they struggle to get consistent, sufficient protections and procedures from our employer. DM or comment for match. https://t.co/sK6EKP9KHi # via @Chuffed
— marencosta (@marencosta) March 27, 2020…
Read more: https://grist.org/justice/amazon-fires-employees-who-spoke-out-about-coronavirus-and-climate-change/
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice been making ridiculous demands since at least last September, pressuring Amazon apply a climate morality test to everyone Amazon engages with, so I’m not about to take their Coronavirus claims at face value.
Having said that, employee safety is a hot-button issue, especially so if the concerns about Coronavirus safety are genuine. Even if the concerns are not genuine, wannabe climate warriors might use fake concerns about Coronavirus as cover for disrupting Amazon’s business.
Either way, I doubt we’ve heard the last from Amazon’s employee climate warriors.
You know, back when I was an employee I respected that my employers were not right-wing nutcases like me. After I retired I felt free to nutcase to my heart’s content.
But in the left-wing culture of activist knight-errantry this courtesy does not apply.
Amazon sells food and products that is from dumpsters that people advertise on their website. It gets delivered and looks authentic.
Those are third parties, not Amazon. Amazon is the platform they use, but those kinds of things are not being shipped by Amazon, to my knowledge. Amazon shuts them down when such things are brought to their attention.
As long as Amazon HQ eremains based in Seattle, they are open to this kind of employee blackmail attempts. They should just up and move to Midland-Odessa, the heart of the Permian Basin and cheap energy to run their AWS servers.
Bezos’ rocket launch services is just short 180 miles drive down I-20/10 from Odessa. If they don’t like, they can be crash test dummies on Blue Origins.
“Either way, I doubt we’ve heard the last from Amazon’s employee climate warriors.'”
I think we have.
Because now they are Amazon ex-employee climate warriors, eh?
I love reading about just desserts.
Thanks for the morning mirthiness, Eric.
I would have fired her for saying “y’all”, personally.
Speaking of house cleaning Peter Dutton Minister of Home Affairs doesn’t miss the opportunity to talk about the need as reported in The Australian today (16/4/20)-
‘Peter Dutton says backlash against the World Health Organisation and calls for Australia to demand reforms should extend to other UN organisations that “aren’t acting in the global interest”.
The Home Affairs Minister reaffirmed the government’s position that it will not follow US President Donald Trump’s lead and halt funding to the WHO over its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak from China, arguing the body plays an important role in healthcare in the Pacific region.
Mr Dutton labelled the WHO’s position on the safety of wet markets “incredulous”.
“It’s a huge mistake, and they need to reassess what their advice is because it’s clear now that there have been a number of instances, if you go back through SARS, etc, and this is a significant problem that the world’s awake to,” Mr Dutton told 2GB Radio.
“We’ve got to call any of these organisations out when we see it and there are other bodies within the UN that I would argue, aren’t acting in the global interest, aren’t acting certainly in the interest of countries like Australia.’
Peter is hard conservative so the watermelons and usual suspects will know exactly where he’s coming from here.
I heard on local Seattle talk radio a couple days ago, from one of the very few libertarian hosts, Dori Monson, a recording of an interview with the head of the WHO. He is so in China’s pocket that he pretended he didn’t hear a question about Taiwan, even though it was obvious he did. He completely ignored further questions about Taiwan and hung up on the interviewer.
Is there a more blatant conflict of interest?
Bye Felicia.
Hopefully both of these two just got a good hard lesson in what it means to be employed and not unemployed. Not only were they stupid in their social media attack, but it can’t be erased–so bye, bye any new job too. No company is going to hire anyone that defames their old company on social media for it may and probably will happen again.
What I don’t understand and I’m not that old…so bear with me here…why is it that people feel they are entitled to do this in the first place? Look, I work for a good company, not the best, but then there is no BEST company because it is a matter of opinion. Thankfully, my industry is one of those listed as “essential” and I still have a job and damn lucky to have one. Because even in my essential company things are not all that great. With every market down, with whole industries now scratching harder to just stay afloat and loads more put out of business for good and some looking at the chopping block in the next quarter–why stick your neck out for the ax? Has the sense of entitlement so overwhelmed the ego that you can’t figure that out? Or is was that even a consideration? Well no-one is “safe” and no-one ever has been “safe” either….ever. Like ever. You can be fired, walked out, let go..etc. So lesson learned I would hope.
And hopefully this is a lesson for those that believe themselves to BE safe. Business is not what you may think it is–its business. The minute you affect the bottom line (and especially now) you are gone. Best to keep that in mind. Companies don’t “owe” you jack.
Uni teaches the dear little petals they’re agents for social change and we know exactly what direction that takes nowadays. OTOH biz teaches you the boss doesn’t pay you the customers do and they’re a miserable bunch of tightasses and largely interested in bang for buck. The boss is simply the go between with that or you’re all off down the road. You wouldn’t expect a bunch of taxeaters to know much about that so discount their lectures accordingly. So many consumer eggsperts and so few profitable long term suppliers.
Agents for social change must not like to eat very much or live with a roof over their heads. Or pay bills.
Must be nice to live in an Ivory Tower and dictate to all the little people below how to make it in the world. And if they are using celebrities as examples:
How quickly those celebrity types forget the struggle to be the first at the Trader Joe’s dumpster in the morning so they would have something to eat for the day. Or work 18 hour days on a crappy TV pilot only for it to be cancelled and they get enough to maybe pay for bus fare to the next audition.
/sarc
There actually is, or was, a BEST company. This was the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company.This ran electric trams from 1997 till some time in the 1950s or 60s. Eventually it became the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking, when municipalized, and then the trams were killed. It is now the Brihan Mumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking, but is still known as ‘BEST’.
So there!
LOL!
touche.
🙂
There actually is, or was, a BEST company. This was the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company.This ran electric trams from 1997 (sic) till some time in the 1950s
Obviously the BEST company. What other company can brag about operating time travelling Trams!!!
From government employees, to corporate boardrooms to the Amazon Warehouse floor, the world is full of people who take positions solely to push their own agendas.
That being said, worker safety is very important and should be a priority.
How ’bout that. Amazon got my letters!
Simple employment strategy.
1. Hire the best people you can.
2. Be generous.
3. Fire the unhappy ones.
3. Fire the
unhappyungrateful ones.Fixed!
The “AMAZONIANS UNITED” logo is very much like the graphic designs used by Communists for decades. As one who grew up with the “red scare”, which was and is a very real threat, I would not support or believe in any movement in any way that used any manner of design or medium that is suggestive of Communism. I don’t believe reporting coming out of China. Anyone who does is either in bed with the criminal government, or is borderline criminally naive. If I were head of a mainstream news organization, I would make sure that any reporting done by that organization of news coming out of China was bracketed by plain language that all statements made by Chinese news agencies or governmental officials are not to be taken as true. The only newsworthy content of such statements are that they were made, and that their factual content should be doubted.
I bet these two will have to go full time into advocacy work because no business is going to want to hire them.
I tell folks all the time, don’t make yourself expensive.
Mods: Please change ‘k….d’ to scrapped, if that is what was worrying your system. Many thanks.
“pressuring Amazon apply a climate morality test to everyone Amazon engages with”
Amazon engages with all of their customers, donn’t they?
Anarchist leadership skill is better suited to country takeovers for thug rewards than your typical sales and marketing department for a retailer.
Where do you suppose union members end up after committing acts of violence—the union organization.
Why must so many people treat Covid-19 as if mere exposure to it equates to a death sentence? Maybe the strident voice of the lamestream media with their ever present body counts? Perhaps the draconian lock-downs occurring almost everywhere?
Jeff Bezos and the Amazon board must live in fear of unionization.
I have no idea what a customer experience officer does. All i want is for Amazon to deliver my goods as quickly as possible and they do that pretty well. Empower your warehouse employees Amazon, look after them and sack all the climate warrior customer experience officers and you will continue to do well. Try running a “climate morality test” past me as someone Amazon “engages with” and I suspect the company will have a whole lot fewer customers. I order books from Amazon, it is none of their business what my politics, morals or ethics are as long as I pay them for their services. A few other on line sellers also need to wake up to this.