{"id":14523,"date":"2020-05-05T10:58:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T17:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14523"},"modified":"2020-05-05T10:58:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T17:58:49","slug":"amazon-engineer-quits-after-he-snapped-when-the-company-fired-workers-who-called-for-coronavirus-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/05\/amazon-engineer-quits-after-he-snapped-when-the-company-fired-workers-who-called-for-coronavirus-protections\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon engineer quits after he \u2018snapped\u2019 when the company fired workers who called for coronavirus protections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>PUBLISHED MON, MAY 4 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/annie-palmer\/\">Annie Palmer<\/a> <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/annierpalmer\" target=\"_blank\">@ANNIERPALMER<\/a> (cnbc.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Tim Bray, a senior engineer at Amazon, resigned on Friday over concerns about the company\u2019s decision to fire workers who were outspoken critics of its labor practices.&nbsp;<\/li><li>In a blog post, Bray said he \u201csnapped\u201d when he learned Amazon fired Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, two former user experience designers who criticized Amazon\u2019s climate stance and treatment of warehouse workers.<\/li><li>Amazon has also fired multiple warehouse employees who criticized working conditions at its facilities.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/106120247-1568065487828gettyimages-685334504.jpg?v=1568065556&amp;w=678&amp;h=381\" alt=\"Nikol Szymul staffs a reception desk at Amazon offices discretely tucked into a building called Fiona in downtown Seattle, Washington on May 11, 2017.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nikol Szymul staffs a reception desk at Amazon offices discretely tucked into a building called Fiona in downtown Seattle, Washington on May 11, 2017.Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tim Bray, a senior&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/?symbol=AMZN\">Amazon<\/a>&nbsp;software engineer, has resigned from his role at the company after five years, citing \u201cdismay\u201d over Amazon\u2019s decision to fire outspoken critics of its labor practices.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a fiery&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tbray.org\/ongoing\/When\/202x\/2020\/04\/29\/Leaving-Amazon#p-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blog post<\/a>, titled \u201cBye, Amazon,\u201d Bray, a vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said his last day at the company was Friday. Bray said he \u201csnapped\u201d after Amazon&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/14\/amazon-fires-two-employees-who-were-critics-of-its-labor-practices.html\">fired<\/a>&nbsp;Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, two former user experience designers who criticized Amazon\u2019s climate stance and, most recently, its treatment of warehouse workers amid the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/coronavirus\/\">coronavirus<\/a>. Amazon has said it fired Costa and Cunningham for \u201crepeatedly violating internal policies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about employees frightened of Covid-19,\u201d Bray wrote in the blog post, adding that \u201cremaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bray did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon declined to comment on Bray\u2019s resignation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before he resigned, Bray had shown support for an employee advocacy group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, which Cunningham and Costa were also a part of. He also signed onto an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@amazonemployeesclimatejustice\/public-letter-to-jeff-bezos-and-the-amazon-board-of-directors-82a8405f5e38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">April letter<\/a>&nbsp;to CEO Jeff Bezos and Amazon\u2019s board of directors, which received more than 8,700 signatures, calling on the company to develop a comprehensive climate change plan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cunningham said she commends Bray for \u201chis integrity\u201d and for \u201cdoing the right thing\u201d by resigning from his role at AWS. Bray\u2019s resignation could spark similar moves from other corporate Amazon employees who want to see meaningful changes made at the company, Cunningham added.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think people in general want to work for companies that they feel proud of,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cAmazon has an incredible opportunity to lead both in the coronavirus crisis and with the climate, but it has to start by listening to workers instead of firing us.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that it supports workers\u2019 rights to protest and criticize their employer\u2019s working conditions, \u201cbut that does not come with blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to Costa and Cunningham, Amazon has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/14\/amazon-fires-two-employees-who-were-critics-of-its-labor-practices.html\">fired multiple warehouse employees<\/a>&nbsp;who criticized the working conditions at its facilities during the pandemic. The company continues to face widespread criticism over its decision last month to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/03\/30\/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html\">fire Chris Smalls<\/a>, a warehouse worker who organized a strike at its Staten Island, New York, facility. Smalls said he was fired for organizing the strike, but Amazon said it dismissed Smalls because he violated social distancing rules while he was supposed to be under quarantine after being exposed to a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Amazon warehouse workers across the country have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/03\/26\/amazon-warehouse-employees-grapple-with-coronavirus-risks.html\">called for the company<\/a>&nbsp;to put in place greater safety protections, including closing down facilities where there are positive cases for additional cleaning. Warehouse workers have staged protests at facilities in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/01\/amazon-workers-plan-strike-at-michigan-warehouse-for-covid-19-protections.html\">Detroit<\/a>, Illinois and Staten Island, and they participated in nationwide strikes held last week.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The workers\u2019 calls have recently sparked a response from growing numbers of corporate Amazon employees. Earlier this month, Amazon employees participated in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/16\/amazon-employees-plan-online-walkout-over-firings-work-conditions.html\">\u201csick out\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;to show support for Costa and Cunningham, as well as warehouse workers. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice estimates that \u201cwell over 500 tech workers\u201d participated in the sick out, the group previously told CNBC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Amazon has previously said it has gone to \u201cgreat lengths\u201d to keep facilities clean and make sure employees are following necessary precautions, such as washing their hands, using hand sanitizer and practicing social distancing.&nbsp;It&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/02\/amazon-will-start-taking-workers-temperatures-and-provide-face-masks.html\">has also started<\/a>&nbsp;taking employees\u2019 temperatures when they report to work and has supplied them with face masks. In the company\u2019s latest earnings report, Amazon&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/05\/01\/amazon-investors-may-want-to-take-a-seat-heres-what-that-means.html\">said it would invest<\/a>&nbsp;its expected $4 billion second-quarter profit in coronavirus-related efforts, such as purchasing additional safety gear for workers and building out its coronavirus testing capabilities, among other things.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bray said he believes Amazon\u2019s messaging around its efforts to keep workers safe, saying he has \u201cheard detailed descriptions from people I trust of the intense work and huge investments.\u201d&nbsp;However, he said he also believes the repeated outcries from warehouse workers, adding that the criticism of the conditions extends beyond its response to the coronavirus crisis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day, the big problem isn\u2019t the specifics of the Covid-19 response,\u201d Bray said. \u201cIt\u2019s that Amazon treats the humans&nbsp;in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/106516122-200501sabrewer.jpg?v=1588349557&amp;w=750&amp;h=422\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PUBLISHED MON, MAY 4 2020 Annie Palmer @ANNIERPALMER (cnbc.com) Tim Bray, a senior engineer at Amazon, resigned on Friday over concerns about the company\u2019s decision to fire workers who were outspoken critics of its labor practices.&nbsp; In a blog post, Bray said he \u201csnapped\u201d when he learned Amazon fired Maren&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/05\/amazon-engineer-quits-after-he-snapped-when-the-company-fired-workers-who-called-for-coronavirus-protections\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14524,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14523\/revisions\/14524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}