Amazon fired two highly visible employee activists who regularly criticize the company's position on climate change and conditions inside its fulfillment centers. The employees were terminated for "repeatedly violating internal policies," an Amazon spokesperson said. They helped form the organization inside Amazon over a year ago.
Amazon has fired at least three employee activists this month who criticized the company's response to the coronavirus pandemic. The third employee, Christian Smalls, organized a walkout at a New York fulfillment center calling for broader safety precautions after several of his coworkers tested positive for the virus.
Amazon says Smalls was fired for breaking quarantine, a claim several U. The string of firings come as Amazon faces immense pressure to keep up with a surge in orders and criticism for its handling of the crisis. Cunningham spoke during Amazon's annual shareholder meeting last year, addressing CEO Jeff Bezos directly and calling on the company to implement a more aggressive strategy for reducing its carbon footprint.
After Amazon Employees for Climate Justice began agitating, Amazon unveiled the size of its carbon footprint for the first time and launched the Climate Pledge , programs the company says were already in the works before the activist group formed. The initiative is a promise to reach carbon neutrality by , 10 years ahead of the deadline set by the Paris Agreement. Cunningham and her peers continued to push for broader environmental reforms.
More recently, Cunningham and Costa have been critical of conditions inside Amazon's warehouses, where a growing number of COVID outbreaks have put the company under a microscope. Amazon is rolling out temperature screening across its warehouses and Whole Foods grocery stores to identify workers who may be ill.
