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Criticizing Amazon.com Inc.

"We support every employee's right to criticize their employer's working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies."
"We terminated these employees for repeatedly violating internal policies."
Amazon.com Inc. statement

"I truly believe Amazon can play an incredibly powerful and good role during COVID-19."
"But to do that, we have to really listen to the workers who are on the front line, who don't feel adequately protected."
"Who fear getting coronavirus, or giving it to their families and the wider public."
Emily Cunningham, Amazon user experience designer

"[Amazon respected Mohamed's right to protest.]"
"This individual was terminated as a result of progressive disciplinary action for inappropriate language, behaviour and violating social distancing guidelines."
Kristen Kish, Amazon spokeswoman

Workers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse walked off the job in March. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

In the United States, labour leaders, along with U.S. senators and a handful of Amazon's own workers have publicly expressed concern that the company has been lax in focusing their attention on keeping employees safe, even as COVID-19 cases appear here and there in dozens of the company's facilities in the U.S. and Europe. Walkouts have been staged at Amazon warehouses in New York, Illinois and Michigan to bring public attention to the situation.

In response, Amazon has dealt with some of the more impassioned activists in its ranks by terminating three of them known to vocally criticize working conditions in Amazon's warehouses. At the same time the company defends its work in ensuring their warehouses are safe, contending it faithfully follows public-health guidelines limiting employee contact at its facilities, supporting employees diagnosed with the coronavirus.

Amazon Warehouse: Image Credits: Johannes EISELE / AFP / Getty Images

It has attempted to consolidate loyalty to the brand and to the coveted jobs at a time when unemployment is soaring in other industries forced to shut down as non-essential producers by offering temporary raises and enticing overtime in warehouses during the pandemic. Two women, Emily Cunninghan and Maren Costa were fired by the retailer. They were outspoken leaders in Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.

A third employee who worked in a warehouse in Minnesota -- Bashir Mohamed -- was fired as well, last week. The two employees who worked at Amazon's Seattle headquarters had taken their criticisms voicing concerns about worker treatment during the coronavirus pandemic on Twitter. The two headquarter employees, according to Amazon, had been terminated for speaking publicly on company matters, thus violating the company's policy that prohibits employees from such activities.

Emily Cunningham, news conference  (Ted S. Warren/AP)

The two women were among workers who defied a stricter corporate policy on employees speaking in public, unauthorized by Amazon. Predictably, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka denounced the terminations as "outrageous". His opinion was that "Amazon needs to stop retaliating and start making sure employees are safe, working in sanitary conditions with proper protections".

Leaders of the largest American labour groups, along with New York politicians, sent Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos a joint letter criticizing the decision to fire Chris Smalls who had led a walkout at the company's Staten Island warehouse. In its defence, the company revealed Smalls had been terminated for violating company-ordered quarantine following contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

A worker hauling boxes at an Amazon warehouse in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 14.