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.

It’s bad ya’ll…

THREAD https://t.co/bvR5mUF85H

— Emily Cunningham (@emahlee) March 27, 2020

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.