Amazon Vice President Resigns Over Company’s “Chickens***” Coronavirus Response
Richard Moorhead
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A Vice President of e-commerce giant Amazon has resigned over the company’s treatment of its warehouse workers, citing the firing of whistleblowers of warned of coronavirus risks in the company’s workplaces in a blog post.
Tim Bray announced his resignation as a VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services on Monday.
He mentioned several ethical points of disagreement with the company’s management in a blog post, and explained why the company’s treatment of coronavirus whistleblowers was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He describes company responses to worker-organized events over safety concerns as callously indifferent; merely firing Amazon warehouse workers who were sharing their safety concerns.
“Management could have objected to the event, or demanded that outsiders be excluded, or that leadership be represented, or any number of other things; there was plenty of time. Instead, they just fired the activists.
Snap! At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn’t go publicly rogue, so I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. I’m not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people.“
Bray described the employee firings as “chickenshit” when asked to describe the actions of Amazon’s corporate overlords.
While the coronavirus-related recession has destroyed the wealth of small businesses, it’s been a jackpot for the global mega-commerce monopoly. Oligarch Jeff Bezos’ personal wealth has grown by $24 billion in the midst of the pandemic, making the company’s owner the wealthiest person in the world once more.
New York Amazon worker Chris Smalls(since fired by the global monopoly) has been the most publicly visible protestor, leading a walkout at the company’s Staten Island warehouse. Leaked communications from Amazon’s corporate executives revealed the company hoped to depict the New York man as “not smart, or articulate.”
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