Today, Amazon employees are preparing to stage a walkout in objection to the company’s recent return-to-office requirement, staff reductions, and its environmental track record.
This planned protest is anticipated to involve around 1,900 employees across the globe, with approximately 900 of them assembling outside the Spheres, the impressive glass domes that serve as the focal point of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.
Employee groups, including the influential Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, have spearheaded the effort to organize the walkout. This worker organization has persistently advocated for the company to address its stance on climate change.
According to the group, the walkout’s purpose is to draw attention to the “lack of confidence in the decision-making of company leadership.”
Amazon has recently undergone its greatest downsizing effort in its 29-year existence, resulting in the elimination of 27,000 positions spanning various divisions such as cloud computing, advertising, and retail since the previous autumn.
Additionally, on May 1, the company mandated that corporate employees return to the office at least three days per week, effectively discontinuing the remote work setups that some employees had adapted to during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To sway Amazon’s leadership, employees had actively called on the company to reconsider its return-to-office requirement and formulated a petition directed at CEO Andy Jassy and the S-team, a closely-knit assembly of senior executives spanning various domains within Amazon’s operations.
The staff members argued that the policy directly contradicts Amazon’s stated commitments to diversity and inclusion, affordable housing, sustainability, and the pursuit of being recognized as the “Earth’s Best Employer.”
