Almost 1,000 Employees at Amazon in Seattle to Stage Walkout for Climate Change
“As employees at one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, our role in facing the climate crisis is to ensure our company is leading on climate, not following”
On September 20th, almost a thousand employees at Amazon in Seattle are planning to walk off the job to protest the company’s lack of action on climate change. The event is being timed to coincide with the appearance of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg at the United Nations.
Louise Matsakis reports at Wired:
Amazon Employees Will Walk Out Over the Company’s Climate Change Inaction
Over the past year, tech workers across the country have walked out to protest a wide range of issues. Google employees objected to the handling of sexual harassment claims. Riot Games workers demonstrated against forced arbitration. And WayFair staff left their desks after learning that the retailer profited from migrant detention centers run by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Now it’s Amazon’s turn.
Over 900 Amazon employees have signed an internal petition pledging to walk out over their employer’s lack of action on climate change. The demonstration, scheduled to start at 11:30 am Pacific time on September 20, will mark the first time in Amazon’s 25-year history that workers at its Seattle headquarters have walked off the job, though many are taking paid vacation to do so.
Most of the workers who have signed on so far work in Seattle, but employees in other offices, including in Europe, have indicated an interest in the event as well. The protest is part of a global general strike led by 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg taking place ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23.
Evie Fordham of FOX Business says that the employees also have demands because of course, they do:
More than 900 Amazon employees plan strike over climate change inaction
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.
“As employees at one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, our role in facing the climate crisis is to ensure our company is leading on climate, not following,” Amazon Employees for Climate Justice wrote in a Medium post. “We have to take responsibility for the impact that our business has on the planet and on people.”
The employees have three main demands from Amazon. They want zero emissions by 2030 including by piloting electric vehicles in communities most impacted by pollution, zero custom Amazon Web Services contracts for oil and gas companies and zero funding for lobbyists and politicians they believe deny climate change.
Here’s an excerpt from a letter this group recently posted online, via Twitchy:
“Young people all around the world have been striking from school to call attention to the climate crisis. We’re answering their call to walk out because our role, as employees of one of the largest companies in the world, means we need to push for a climate plan that gets us to zero emissions company-wide by 2030,” said Bobby Gordon, a Finance Manager at Amazon in Seattle.
Employees want Amazon to commit to zero emissions by 2030 and pilot electric vehicles first in communities most impacted by pollution. Climate science reports show that the world needs to reach net zero emissions by 2050 in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.
They also made this video:
We want Amazon to commit to zero emissions by 2030 and pilot electric vehicles first in communities most impacted by pollution. We should be leaders reaching zero first, not sliding in at the last moment.
Pledge to walk out with us: https://t.co/Ubcm6G2XWQ pic.twitter.com/vGmLIs9rnY
— Amazon Employees For Climate Justice (@AMZNforClimate) September 9, 2019
Have you noticed that the left adds “justice” as a suffix for all of their pet issues? Do they believe adding that word confers some legitimacy?
Featured image via YouTube.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I’m pretty sure this is sufficient to simply fire all 1,000. It’s not a labor dispute, it’s a willful refusal to work on political grounds.
I’ll bet Amazon is realizing that if they moved a lot more of their operations to the middle of the country, not only would they be more centrally located, they wouldn’t have to put up with this kind of crap from their employees.
Roll in the robots ….
I guess they think that saving the climate is the ultimate goal, but I wonder how many of them used fossil fuels to get to work?
What do they really want? Do they think Amazon should not use trucks and planes to deliver packages? I guess they don’t think!
Are these employees independently wealthy? Trust babies with an inflated sense of self-importance? Suddenly everyone thinks the four square feet of earth they stand is their “platform” to “make a statement” to everyone else. If it wasn’t that Amazon actually deserves this, they would keep that facility closed for a month to “make a statement”, or even restaff with robots. Some people just don’t deserve a chance in life.
almost a thousand employees at Amazon in Seattle are planning to walk off the job to protest the company’s lack of action on climate change.
Wow, that must be damn near the entire technical staff of Amazon’s Department of Planetary Physics.
More climate fascism.
If they are so concerned about the climate, shut off the AC and heat in the warehouse and let them work under those conditions. Of course, the best move is to fire them all. Bezos doesn’t come across as the most caring or compassionate person.
If they are going to be SJW robots rather than employees, maybe they should consider that they are replaceable by mechanical robots who can do their jobs better than they can, at lower cost and without the need for air conditioning, breaks, holidays, vacations….
though many are taking paid vacation to do so
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
That’s NOT a walk-out! That’s “We’re taking the day off to protest.” They want to sound all big and bad and stickin’-it-to-the-man, but they’re not putting anything at risk.
Anyone that simply walks off the line when they’re scheduled to be working, though? Fired. PTO or not. (If Amazon doesn’t have an “approved by a supervisor” clause in their PTO policy, they’re idiots.)
This is the leftist way. They virtue signal so long as as someone else ends up paying for it.
They are not satisfied having a job, they want Nanny State coverage so they don’t suffer for their causes.
And it’s all based on faulty political information disguised as environmental movements. The whole climate change industry is built on politics and creating wealth for the “right” people, those who donate to the National Socialists.
Wait, that autistic bug-eyed child of the corn is going to the UN? And we have how much of our tax money siphoned off to pay for that idiotic organization?
walk out and don’t come back
Climate alarmism is just so blatantly obviously contrived. It astounds me how many people actually fall for this crap.
I am becoming convinced that most of the legalization of marijuana is aimed at making the lower intelligence folks more easy to fool and manipulate like this.
A person who thinks for themselves is not desired by either political party, but it’s especially true for the leftists.
The Conservatives should be fighting this BS over climate just using logic to point to all the flaws and what the true aims of the left is in this movement. By not fighting any of it, despite how much bull is being thrown, they are capitulating and making out as if this is not part of the natural changes the world always goes through. Trump touches on this and a few other Republicans do, but not nearly enough.
The left is criminal in the way they push this. I’m so sick of the lies which just don’t add up to what they are trying to sell.
They want THC to replace alcohol as the go-to social intoxicant. Stoners are easier to control than drunkards (but a lot less fun).
To this old goat, the area has become unrecognizable. ?
Just wait until Rainier decides to burp again. Puget Sound will become Puget Swamp in about 2 hrs. It will lend a whole new meaning to “carbon footprint.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Glacier
That’s 1000 people to stupid to have a say if they cant discuss the Milankovitch cycle. I’d fire every last one of them. Ray Kroc always said hire people smart than yourself to proe how smart you were.
The crazies have taken over Seattle. Fire them all.
This is example A of why Amazon should build more headquarters in the South. People go to work and don’t even get paid as much. They also complain a lot less about whatever external flavor of the week the left can gin up.
Well, Amazon is always hiring. And who are these pinheads, anyway?
“lack of action on climate change”
Because, just doing nothing isn’t acceptable. Because, if you’re not with us you must be against us. Because, there are no innocent bystanders!
I’d suggest buying some AMZN stock and voting your proxy, but, at $1831.35/share this morning that’s probably not going to work for many, is it?
Then again perhaps it’s just fair payback to Bezos’ for his execrable Washington Post.
If the climate scam er, um, I mewan crisis is WWII, why don’t we attack India and China?
Travel to Southwest Florida. They plow tracts of land every year, build strip malls, rent some stores out, the stores fail , rinse lather, repeat. No one ever questions the impact as they tear the vegetation down. No one ever proposes increasing green space as a solution for C0 emissions.
Many of the climate elitists have been exposed having admitted it’s a plot to eliminate capitalism
Many doomsday scenarios face man, from planet X to the next great impact asteroid with many more colorful ones popping up every day.
In my opinion, the one that’s actually likely: Economic collapse due to crippling regulations placed on fossil fuels. When the truck drivers can’t feed the families and the trucks stop moving, we will realize that thanks to the industrial revolution we’ve managed to overpopulate the planet to the point that we can only sustain these numbers via carbon based fuels. This is true at every stage of the food chain from production to distribution. Say what you will about GMO, but any economic disruption that threatens the supply chain could result in widespread famine.
Communists just love a good famine. To them, Iowa is pretty much the Ukraine.
Justice? More like Just-Us!
You can’t be woke enough for the SJW crowd. Odds are Jeff either passed up a ‘request’ for cash, or the SJW bunch is planning on passing the hat to him.
I think former Amazon employees would be more accurate.
I’m sure that brick and mortar businesses are giggling. I know I am.
A little reading on the subject of “Climate Catastrophe.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-09/armstrong-climate-change-has-been-routine-scare-tactic-1930s
Thanks for the link Mikey.
take a lot of solar panels and storage cells to run a distribution center 24/7.
City falls apart around them, they worry about the climate in the year 2100.
“Nearly 950 Amazon employees who work at its Seattle headquarters and other locations…”
Walking out from behind a desk at HQ won’t have much impact on Amazon operations. Walking off the line at a fulfillment center warehouse would. I imagine there’s much more support for the walkout at HQ than there is at the distribution centers in “other locations”.
By way of example, some orders I place with Amazon are shipped from a warehouse(s) in Kent, WA, which is about 20 miles south of Seattle. I grew up in the Green River valley area and what was once rural farm land and pasture for dairy cows, is now a warehouse district. To this old goat, the area has become unrecognizable. 😉
The banner photo on the About Amazon blog is of Amazon’s HQ in Seattle if you’re curios. https://www.aboutamazon.com/amazon-hq-tours/
If the photo of the distribution center above were replaced with a photo of the Amazon “spheres”, it would make for a more realistic perspective on the planned walkout. Amazon employees working in a sphere (bubble) somehow seems apropos. https://www.seattlespheres.com/
Amazon should fire each and everyone that walks out to participate in this stupidity. Failing that, they should move this particular facility to flyover country where this kind of foolishness is rare.
Snowflakes all of them. They all deserve to be fired.