One of Amazon ’s top cloud engineers has left his $ 1 million dollar - per - twelvemonth job in protest over the company ’s manipulation of worker concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic . In a blog berth , he adduce Amazon ’s “ chickenshit ” answer to employee protestation of the company ’s less - than - ideal conditions for thetens of thousands of doer on storage warehouse floors .
Tim Bray , who ’d hop on board as a VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services following a four - yr run at Google , published ablog postearly Monday morning laying out his posture on some of the troupe ’s unfathomable treatment of storage warehouse workers , explicate that , “ remaining an Amazon VP would have meant , in consequence , signing off on actions [ he ] despised . ” Rather than proffer his tacit correspondence , Bray submit on May first , after close to six years with the fellowship .
Bray ’s umbrages with the party take jolly like a rundown the company ’s big hits of employee mistreatment over the past few months . The lynchpin that recoil thing off , apparently , set out last September , when reports came out that the tech giant was looking tofirethe employee who ’d organized apublic strikeagainst the society ’s abysmal position on climate - touch on consequence .
Photo: (Getty)
Per Bray , the coronavirus just brought this simmer of labor - related rage to something of a boil :
tight - forward to the Covid-19 era . Stories surfaced of unrest in Amazon warehouses , workers raise alarms about being uninformed , unprotected , and frighten . prescribed statement claimed every possible safety precaution was being take . Then a worker orchestrate for better safety conditions was fired , andbrutally insensitive remarksappeared in leak executive group meeting notes where the focusing was on defending Amazon “ talk points . ”
thing only continued to escalate after those notes were leaked . Last month , Amazon officiallylet goEmily Cunningham and Maren Costa , two Amazon employees that were at the forefront of in public critiquing the company ’s stance on clime issues . A few days after the firings , another warehouse worker—28 - twelvemonth - erstwhile Bashir Mohammed — waslet goafter calling for increased protective cover against the pandemic . That firing came just days after one Amazon storage warehouse worker haddiedof coronavirus complications from stipulation within the ship’s company ’s storage warehouse .
In his blog , Bray explained that these action at law on Amazon ’s behalf were what lead to his eventual “ snap , ” and used some choice words to describe the firings :
“ Chickenshit . ”
“ Kill the messenger . ”
“ Never hear of the Streisand effect . ”
“ design to create a climate of fear . ”
“ Like painting a sign on your brow saying ‘ Either guilty , or has something to hide . ’ ”
“ At the end of the day , the big problem is n’t the specifics of Covid-19 answer . It ’s that Amazon treats the human beings in the warehouses as fungible units of pick - and - pack potential , ” he break on . “ Only that ’s not just Amazon , it ’s how 21st - century capitalist economy is done . ”
Amazon did not immediately respond to Gizmodo ’s request for comment on Bray ’s post .
Bray added that he ’s ultimately confident that Amazon is , in fact , exploit to “ prioritise ” storage warehouse safety , citing “ detailed descriptions ” heard from masses he trusts within the company . That allege , these change are only come aftermultiple deathshappening on storage warehouse floors , not to mentionnegative pressfrom New York ’s Attorney General , along withmore backlashfrom more than a dozen other AG ’s . It ’s gettingharder and harderto take the technical school heavyweight at its Logos , but allow ’s hope , for the worker ’ sakes , there ’s a bit of verity there .
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