Amazon is accused of threatening employees who speak against its stand on climate issues.
According to a Vox article, despite the company’s proclamation of its intention on stopping climate change, it seems it is not following through by its actions. Instead, it is using sacking threats to prevent employees from speaking out about its unethical dealings in the oil and gas industry.
In September 2020, Amazon employees were among tech company workers that staged the walkout protest. It was led by the Sweedish teenage activist, Greta Thunberg.
Two employees associated with Amazon have been under fire within their company. They had been fingered as the leaders of the internal group that led the protest. Further, they criticised their employers for supporting gas and oil company extractions with its cloud computing projects.
The company claims that it rather wants to contain controversies and possible revolts internally. But by threatening to sack the employees, people are seeing it as an attempt to take away their freedom of speech. As well as probably hide some secrets.
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (ACEJ) said through a spokesperson, Maren Costa:
“This is not the time to shoot the messengers … This is not the time to silence those who are speaking out.”
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Maren who is a member of the above-mentioned climate activist group said she had also been invited by Amazon’s HR. They allegedly told her that her press releases on the environmental issues were in conflict with the company’s rules. Then they told her that it could lead to “corrective action” and possibly “termination”.
Employees have come out to criticise this new tactic that Amazon is using. They also offer under-fire employees support and promise them that their collective voices will not be shut down completely.
There have been results right from the staged protest in September showing that the employees are being heard.
In 2019, Amazon had to change its policy to allow employees to give public opinions without approval from above. As long as they get approval through an intranet company page that requires them to give business justification for their request.
Also, the company mentioned that it plans to cut down on its carbon emissions by 2040.
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