‘FELT UNSAFE & AFRAID’
AN Amazon worker claims she was fired in seconds after being "silenced" for raising coronavirus concerns and warehouse worker safety issues.
Maren Costa said the company let her go after she started raising awareness about workplace conditions during the COVID-19 crisis.
She was fired for circulating a petition asking the company to improve conditions for warehouse workers, increase hazard pay, and implement additional safety measures.
Costa and fellow designer Emily Cunningham had previously pressurized the company with their 2018 campaign "Amazon Workers for Climate Justice."
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"It was very brief. You know, my 15 years at Amazon was ended in about a 30-second, literally a 30-second phone call," Costa told CBS News on Wednesday.
"Amazon’s greatest fear is workers coming together, workers organizing, workers talking to each other, and workers speaking up together," she said on Wednesday. "That’s why Emily and I were fired.
"Warehouse workers reached out to us because of how unsafe they felt in warehouses and how afraid they felt not only for their own health, but for their families and for the larger public as well.
"Amazon’s internal message to all of the workers [is] 'These frontline workers, the warehouse workers, they are heroes. And we’re doing everything we can and everything is just going swimmingly well,' you know?"
Costa said it "wasn’t going swimmingly for them at all" and urged CEO Jeff Bezos to take action in the candid interview this morning.
Her comments come after a month of protests and organized strikes through April and the deaths of at least two employees.
Costa also highlighted that Amazon allegedly treats its warehouse workers differently from people who work on it's primary campus.
"When we found one case of COVID on the entire campus, the campus was shut down and everybody was sent home.
"When warehouse workers stay home for fear of the coronavirus, they just send more bodies in."
An Amazon spokesperson said that employee's were allowed to highlight issues but there were protocols to be followed.
“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," she told The Sun.
"We terminated these employees not for talking publicly about working conditions or safety, but rather, for repeatedly violating internal policies.”
Amazon's Head of Operations Dave Clark has also refuted Costa's claim that employees are targeted for raising concerns.
"Well, I can tell you we have a zero tolerance policy for retaliating against people or for any number of issues," Clark told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
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"I’ve been here 21 years and I’ve never seen anybody fired for complaining or raising a concern."
Amazon has previously told The Sun that they have ramped up COVID mitigation measures in their various facilities and that the disgruntled protestors are only a small fraction of their workforce.
The Sun has contacted the company for comment on Wednesday morning.
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