Amazon executives conspired to smear fired worker who led protest over Covid-19 safety conditions

[Delicieuxz]

Amazon executives conspired to smear fired worker who led protest over Covid-19 safety conditions

Quote

Amazon’s top lawyer crafted a strategy to scapegoat the man who organized a protest at a New York warehouse, calling the African-American ex-employee ‘not smart, or articulate.’ President Obama’s ex-spokesman helped carry it out.

Chris Smalls was fired on Monday, after he led up to 50 of his colleagues at a Staten Island warehouse to walk out in protest over what they described as unsafe working conditions at the mammoth facility, including the lack of protective gear for the workers. A number of political and media figures, including Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), condemned the firing.

 

Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky’s strategy to deal with the fallout was to propose “strongly laying out the case for why the organizer’s conduct was immoral, unacceptable, and arguably illegal, in detail, and only then follow with our usual talking points about worker safety,” according to the notes from a daily meeting of the company’s top executives – including CEO Jeff Bezos – obtained by Vice on Thursday.

 

“He’s not smart, or articulate,” and the press focusing on him will put Amazon “in a much stronger PR position,” Zapolsky argued.

 

 

Amazon also owns Whole Foods, which asked its employees to donate their accumulated sick days to other employees who are sick, rather than Whole Foods just offering paid leave to its staff who require it.

 

There is a Change petition than calls on Whole Foods to provide its employees with paid leave during the CV-19 chaos. The petition has 260.5k signatures and claims to have been successful in getting Whole Foods to provide paid leave for all its employees: Bezos to give all his employees at Whole Foods & more paid time off during Coronavirus

 

No doubt, it would be easy for Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, to simply pay sick costs out of his own pocket:

 

 

[WereCatf]

4 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Amazon executives conspired to smear fired worker who led protest over Covid-19 safety conditions

Literally not a single person on the entire planet is surprised.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Off Topic

 

I'm interested to hear why this is tech worthy discussion? Literally about nothing tech related.

[GreatnessRD]

It's sad how much power money holds over the world. Even sadder to see people lose reason and logic to protect the money. 

[Delicieuxz]

50 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

-> Moved to Off Topic

 

I'm interested to hear why this is tech worthy discussion? Literally about nothing tech related.

I just forgot there are two general discussion forums, one for tech-related stuff and one for non tech-related stuff.

[Monkey Dust]

I'm not sure 'Amazon being evil' is news. We know they're evil, but they're just too convenient for us to stop buying from them, and avoiding Amazon web service would be pretty much impossible anyway.

[RonnieOP]

Im curious what a lot of workers expect their employers to do here.

 

Not defending amazon or bezos but its not like they have some secret access to masks or anything.

 

I know plenty of people who would be more then happy to have a job right now. Seems weird that people with jobs dont want to work.

 

Not defending their attempts to smear the employee either but also find it asinine they are trying to mislead people into thinking that saying a person is "not smart" is somehow related to the workers race.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

Im curious what a lot of workers expect their employers to do here.

 

Not defending amazon or bezos but its not like they have some secret access to masks or anything.

 

I know plenty of people who would be more then happy to have a job right now. Seems weird that people with jobs dont want to work.

 

Not defending their attempts to smear the employee either but also find it asinine they are trying to mislead people into thinking that saying a person is "not smart" is somehow related to the workers race.

With the money Bezos has, he could afford to scare up masks for his employees, even if he had to hire people to make them.

 

It's not so much not wanting to work as being afraid that working without protections could make them ill or die.

[RonnieOP]

3 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

With the money Bezos has, he could afford to scare up masks for his employees, even if he had to hire people to make them.

 

It's not so much not wanting to work as being afraid that working without protections could make them ill or die.

But getting masks isnt just about money right now. Even if you can afford to pay 10x the going rate the supply is so low while demand is at an all time high.

 

Does he have the money to make them? Of course. But that wouldnt be over night. And if he did do that those masks would be much better used at hospitals.

 

I 100% understand the worry of the risks though.

[LogicalDrm]

11 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Well, it is somewhat tech related considering Amazon is one of the largest estores for tech.   It's partly what has caused a slowdown in delivery dates.

No. Amazon is a webstore. Fact of them being webstore doesn't make it tech. I'm also somewhat tempted to just merge this to main COVID-19 discussion.

[LankyBastard]

I hope this turns into a landmark retaliation lawsuit that paves a way for more protections against things like this.  It's illegal to fire someone for complaining about working conditions not meeting state or federal safety standards, and if there's not verbiage in there to cover for a literal pandemic, there should be.  As much as I can hope though, I doubt it will come to fruition any time soon, especially with the courts stacked the way they are right now.

On another note, I know plenty of people who used to work directly for or do subcontracts for Amazon.  Amazon does all kinds of shady stuff behind closed doors where no recording devices are allowed, like holding meetings about how to prevent delivery drivers/warehouse workers from unionizing, and how to fire people and make it look like it's not retaliation.  They break contracts with people that do work for them on the regular, and end up paying up small percentages of what they owe them because they know people need the money and they can pay lawyers to keep things tied up infinitely in court.  They've also fired pretty much anybody that hasn't signed their more recent contracts, just so they could force any they re-hired to sign stricter contracts with all kinds of crazy non-compete clauses and such (what DOESN'T compete with Amazon... ).

If there's one thing Amazon is good at, it's squeezing the people who work for them for everything possible.  That's entirely how Bezos got so rich in the first place, and now he has decades of practice to know how to get away with it.  Even in a time like this, the only way I could see things change is if it is forced through legislation, and even then, I'm sure they'll figure out new sleazy ways to do business.

[Arika]

8 minutes ago, LankyBastard said:

I hope this turns into a landmark retaliation lawsuit that paves a way for more protections against things like this

It won't. Amazon will settle out of court and spend as much money as they can to stop anything from going through that would mean treating employees like people