Amazon Employees For Climate Justice announced in a Medium post on Monday that they plan to walk out of work on September 20 as part of an international action on climate change. Even if only a few people were doing this, it would still be a big deal. But as of now, close to one thousand Amazon employees plan to walk out. That’s huge.
As some background, Sept. 20 is the first day of the week-long “Global Climate Strike,” which is a movement led by students. You’ve probably heard of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who recently sailed to New York for the United Nations Climate Action Summit? Thunberg started these demonstration walkouts when she herself was a student.
What does Amazon Employees For Climate Justice want? As explained in their open letter, and in the video embedded in the bottom of this post, the group is primarily protesting their employer’s inaction on climate change. In terms of specifics, they want Amazon to stop donating to lobbyists and politicians who deny climate change, which shouldn’t be a tall order in today’s age.
"As employees at one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, our role in facing the climate crisis is to ensure our company is leading on climate, not following," the group wrote on Medium.
The employees want Amazon to be emission-free by 2030 and call this step “critical.” The group also wants Amazon to stop giving contracts to fossil fuel companies, as well as to start testing electric cars in cities that are already being harmed by Amazon’s own environmental impact.
Amazon’s demonstration, which is scheduled to begin at 11:30 AM PST on Sept. 20, will be the first time in the corporation’s history that workers at this location have participated in a walkout. While other tech giants have seen walkouts, like Google over how the company handled sexual harassment allegations, this will be the first time in 25 years that Amazon employees are participating.
That said, this isn’t the first time employees have expressed frustration and disappointment in Amazon’s inactions on climate change. For example, back in May more than 7,600 employees signed a letter asking the company to deliver a plan in response to climate change.
Most employees planning to walk out so far are from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.
Wired reports that many are taking vacation days in order to participate. This is a big reminder of how important worker rights are for
all employees—it’s fundamentally unfair that part-time or contract employees who don’t get paid time off may risk their jobs if they participate in a strike.
Speaking of unfair: Will Amazon retaliate against striking workers? A spokesperson told
CNET, in short, the answer is no. Why? Because they can use their PTO however they’d like, basically. "Amazon employees receive an allotment of paid time off every year, and they can use this time as they wish,” the spokesperson explained.
Beyond this point, Amazon also told CNN Business that it’s an “important commitment” to reduce the human impact on climate change. The company also claims it has sustainability teams at work on reducing its environmental impact.
You can check out Amazon Employees For Climate Justice’s video below, courtesy of YouTube:
And if you want to hear more about climate change, check out the Making Progress interview with Gov. Jay Inslee below, who (rightfully) calls climate change what it really is: a climate crisis.