Amazon Employees Organized a Walk Out to Question the Company on Issues of Layoffs and Climate

On Wednesday the 31st of May 2023, hundreds of Amazon employees walked out in their numbers to demand a renewed commitment to reducing carbon emissions to zero and also asking for a flexible remote work policy.

The walkout featured two groups of which some were Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and the other group marched for Amazon layoffs which they said was unfair. The groups are questioning Amazon executives to look into their actions which they said are leading the company in the wrong direction.

One of the participants who is a Seattle-based Amazon employee said, "It's definitely concerning how low the morale is—there's a lot of distrust in leadership right now."

According to statistics, it's been said that over 1000 employees participated in the walkout in Seattle and 2000 Amazon staff have moved to support the movement in their respective countries where Amazon operates.

Amazon has a total of 350,000 workforces and 65,000 reside near Seattle. And 300 participated in Wednesday's walkout event in Seattle.

About Wednesday's walkout, Brad Glasser the spokesman of Amazon said that the company is moving to hit its goal of being "net carbon zero by 2040."

“While we all would like to get there tomorrow, for companies like ours who consume a lot of power, and have very substantial transportation, packaging, and physical building assets, it’ll take time to accomplish,” he said. “We remain on track to get to 100 percent renewable energy by 2025 and will continue investing substantially, inventing, and collaborating both internally and externally to reach our goal.”

This is not the first time the event is being held. A similar event took place in 2019, where Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group arranged a walkout ordering the company to release its carbon emissions data. After that action, Amazon publicly approved plans set for renewable energy and net-zero carbon emissions known as the "Climate Pledge".

But that didn't stop as Amazon employees still complained that the company tends to be shifting commitments towards its goal on climate. It was also recorded that Amazon removed language from its website that promised to get carbon emissions for half of its shipments to net zero by 2030. The news was one of the key factors that boosted the enthusiasm of workers who participated in the walkout on Wednesday.

To further make more employees attend the walkout, colleagues who attended the event had to send Slack messages and emails to other Amazon staff.

The message

“Amazon is actively accelerating this crisis on our watch, through our work, and each one of us has the opportunity and responsibility to do something about it,” read one email that employees said was widely distributed internally.

“We need to have a different Amazon,” read another employee's email. “One that doesn’t merely slowly swap gas vans for their EV versions, but one that actually centers business decisions around sustainability. Very soon, building our operations to rely on the Prime Air air freight system, where there is no carbon-zero version, is going to seem pretty foolish.”

Amazon, while defending its actions, made it known that the Shipment Zero goal was removed because it was displaced by the Climate Pledge which addresses Amazon's whole business rather than specifically shipping.

Employees who came out in their numbers for the walkout were destabilized when Amazon rejected a letter written by employees asking the company to reverse its return-to-office mandate.

“I cannot believe that a company in this day and age that claims to be an innovative leader in its space would do that to one of its most precious resources, its employees,” a walkout organizer named Pamela said at the walkout rally on Wednesday.