
Bye, Amazon - grey-area
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-Amazon
======
jillesvangurp
It's a wake up call, or at least an attempt at that, for the likes of Amazon
that if they are looking to have reputable people, like Tim Bray, associate
themselves and their name with you, there are certain standards that have to
be met.

Amazon, MS, Google, Apple, etc. rank among the most wealthy companies in the
world and they've each had to deal with internal pressures where their
employees voiced concerns about certain things or where there was some kind of
whistle blower situation. And they each dealt with it in their own ways.

IMHO firing whistle blowers is the kind of action that should be called out as
very negative and not something to be apologetic about.

So, I admire what Tim Bray is doing here and fully understand that he's having
a hard time justifying working for what he's diplomatically not quite calling
out as a __holes; though the undertone is quite clear.

Of course as he is pointing out, he's in a position where he can afford to do
so financially. But then, being able to and actually doing are two things and
he's showing some back bone here by 1) walking away and taking a hit
financially, and 2) writing about it in the hope that leadership steps up and
acts to correct the situation: compensate individuals affected, offer to
rehire them, and discipline executives involved in pushing this through.
Unlikely to happen, but one can hope for someone with a backbone stepping up.
It would be the right thing to do. At the minimum, they've just been exposed
for what they are and that might have consequences elsewhere for them.

~~~
la6471
I don't think many people in amazon agree with Tim Bray. The pragmatic ones
know that these kind of stories have a heavy political overtone , but more
importantly amazon probably have better conditions than all other retailers in
the world. Granted it is not perfect but a more meaningful way to change the
condition of minimum wage or low wage laborers is through legislative changes
or basic income schemes.

~~~
Wilem82
> more importantly amazon probably have better conditions than all other
> retailers in the world

That's not possible, the US has the worst worker protection laws in the world,
it's really quite an undeveloped country in that regard.

~~~
vinay427
Source needed on that first claim. I've spent a decent amount of time in some
developing countries and I came out with no confidence that these types of
labor laws are ordinarily enforced, if they even exist. I think you grossly
overestimate these protections for relatively low-skilled labor outside of the
developed world.

I'm not taking the claim you replied to at face value (it's exceedingly
extreme to even be plausibly true) but they at least included a "probably" to
allow for some doubt.

------
xenocyon
My personal snapping point as a consumer occurred several years ago, over
something that's definitely not anecdotal:

When Amazon employees are frisked at the end of their shift (which is a
practice that applies to at least some warehouses), they are not paid for the
time they spend waiting in line to be frisked. This is not an anecdote; indeed
Amazon fought and won a court case insisting that it has the right to not
compensate employees for this time. (See [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
usa-court-amazon-com/u-s-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-
amazon-com/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-amazon-warehouse-worker-wage-appeal-
idUSKBN1WM1FI))

~~~
specialp
Yes for me too. The fact that Amazon is so cheap that they want employees to
sit around for 20-30 minutes after their shift unpaid to get searched to make
sure they aren't stealing blew me away. It is one thing if Amazon wants to do
this and pay their employees, but to not pay is wrong.

And they felt so strongly about this they appealed a case all the way to the
Supreme Court... That was the snapping point for me too and I have not ordered
from them in a long time.

~~~
pathseeker
Where do you draw the line? Should people be compensated for their commute?
It's an interesting debate that has emerged in airports as well:
[https://www.talbottlawfirm.com/does-an-employer-have-to-
pay-...](https://www.talbottlawfirm.com/does-an-employer-have-to-pay-
employees-for-time-spent-in-security-screenings-u-s-supreme-court-to-decide-
this-issue/)

~~~
ashtonkem
Commute is partially under the control of the worker, where I decide to live
has a huge impact on how long my commute is. I can freely decide to trade
commute for money, making it my responsibility.

Waiting in line to be frisked is something mandated by the employer. They
control whether or not I have to do it, and how long the lines are. Since it’s
under their control, it’s their financial responsibility.

~~~
kortilla
That’s a bit disingenuous when short commutes are literally not affordable to
some of the people we’re talking about.

~~~
afiori
But no employer would force you to have long commutes.

It may be impossible in some cases to have short commutes, but if, even by
chance, you managed to move in the same building as your office no one would
force you to go through the metro.

Commutes are clearly a grey area, waiting times to be let "free" are less so.

------
hourislate
Completely anecdotal.

It's possible some Amazon Warehouses are run better than others. A friend who
recently got a job (5 weeks ago) at one of Amazons warehouses (NJ/NYC area)
has only praise for the way things are run. They take his temperature 3 times
a day, provide a mask, constantly monitor social distancing, clean washrooms
every hour, enforce social distancing in any break rooms, work areas, etc. He
says it's never an issue with breaks, lunch, etc. He has mentioned that they
encourage him to keep an eye out for other positions he might have an interest
in since he is eligible (after 30 days)to apply (he has some skills that can
be more useful to Amazon).

I was always under the assumption from what I have read that Amazon was a
sweat shop. It seems that at least his facility is run very well.

~~~
pwinnski
Bray didn't quit over the conditions in the warehouses, he quit over Amazon's
brazen and dishonest firings of organizers.

It's possible that if _every_ Amazon warehouse were run as well, those
organizers would not have arisen, but it's Amazon nastiness toward them that's
most alarming.

~~~
toasterlovin
Have you considered the possibility that Amazon actually treats their workers
okay and that it's the organizers are dishonest? Why does the presumption of
evil only go in one direction?

~~~
pietrovismara
Just compare the incentives for both parts to be dishonest and you have your
answer. What would workers gain from being dishonest except the risk of being
fired or retaliated upon?

And why, if organizers are lying, can't Amazon just disprove them by showing
to the public their perfect working conditions?

Finally, isn't it a natural instinct to side with the weaker element in a
fight?

Does Amazon really need your support, or are the workers one paycheck away
from homelessness in need of it?

~~~
shadowgovt
> What would workers gain from being dishonest

Union representation and improved compensation and employment benefits.

Not to say either party is being honest or being dishonest. But it's clear
there's plenty to gain on both sides by, on the one hand, painting organizers
ad bad employees, and on the other hand, painting working conditions as worse
than they are.

~~~
paypalcust83
Peeing in Coke bottles because of a lack of bathrooms and allowances for
biological needs might be a sign.

~~~
DonHopkins
What?!? Now I'm canceling that case of Coca Cola I just ordered on Amazon
Prime.

------
stupidcar
> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers
> are weak and getting weaker...

Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always
astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to
the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of
employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility.

This gets to the heart of the idea of "privilege", and why it can be so
difficult to see yourself as privileged. Because it often involves nothing
more than being given a basic level of trust and respect that, once you have
them, can seem like a bare minimum, not something that you would need to fight
for.

~~~
supergeek133
I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a
management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g.,
food service, warehouse, retail sales).

For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of
the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this
occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This
was meant to be illustrative, not an exact ratio.

This makes companies take extreme policy measures for the few instances of
this that impact everyone, because the financial impact is so
disproportionate.

Now, the argument can (and is) made that pay is a factor. "If you pay me more
I won't act like this". But depending on the business (e.g., a local pizza
place) there is no affording that.

~~~
oppositelock
I can confirm this, having first hand experience with it. We hired many low-
skill workers at a big tech company that you've heard of about ten years ago.
These workers received a couple of weeks of training, and then were set to do
a rather simple, menial, repetitive job.

These workers didn't sell products, but did very low level tech work, but the
entire operation was mired in drama. For example, we had a strict no drugs
policy, and no weapons policy on campus, zero tolerance. So, say that one of
your employees comes up crying that she is getting fired because she did
heroin during work hours, and she needs to money for her unborn child (this
happened!), or a guy gets angry at being fired because he was pulling out his
new .45 from his waistband to show his cubicle neighbors. We had a LOT of this
stuff, and as a result, many zero tolerance policies.

It's difficult to understand how many hard living, disadvantaged people there
are in this country, even in wealthy areas like the Bay Area of CA, who bring
their rough living to work with them. What do you do as an employer? Do you
tolerate this to be friendlier to the employees, and someone gets killed,
making you liable? Do you come down like a hardass and dehumanize them even
more, but cover your butt? Neither choice is good, but it's the latter that
usually happens.

~~~
johnmaguire2013
Maybe you can work on your hiring practices? Even for low-skill jobs, you can
hire for soft skills.

edit: I am being downvoted and don't know why. Can you please explain what's
wrong with this idea? I think the parent paints a false dichotomy.

For example - another option is to deal with problematic individuals on an
individual basis. You don't have to ruin the entire company culture.

~~~
oppositelock
For some really annoying grunt jobs, you're not going to hire the most
disciplined, most educated people with a good work ethic. People willing to do
tedious, crappy work have no other options usually, and you also can't be too
picky, or you won't hire anyone. These jobs typically have low value as well,
so if you tried to pay more, the whole project may not be cost effective and
won't happen.

You definitely need to treat people with as much respect as possible, but in
some jobs, you have to have all these rules in place knowing you'll get people
who aren't model citizens. I was never in the HR org chart here, never saw
finances, but I suspect the people that I mentioned were paid near minimum
wage. Few stuck around more than six months, and those who did, moved onto
better jobs. It was all very structured and regimented. I would never fire
anyone for trying to make their workplace better, assuming they did it in a
non-disruptive way.

------
simonebrunozzi
> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers

Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know,
so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this.

The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth
(e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's
not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... Very few people
would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on
principle.

Again, assuming this is all true, I admire Tim for this move, and plaude him.
I had my issues with Amazon when I was there (2008-2014), some of them made me
uncomfortable, but I would have never had the courage to walk away.

It also potentially damages Tim's ability to get hired in the future, as some
other large organization might not like his behavior with Amazon and be
reluctant to bring him on board. At the same time, hopefully there are smaller
startups that want exactly this type of courage and rectitude and will hire
him for his talents.

Good luck, Tim.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I think you can trust that it's the real reason, because either way it's going
to make him radioactive for the next gig like this.

No large company keeps its hands completely clean. Defense contracts, Chinese
censorship, exploiting addiction, anticompetitive behaviour, sexism, the list
goes on.

Having a public figure at your company that's willing to martyr themselves to
push the knife in just a little deeper when you have a scandal is a dumb idea.

~~~
krig
What an utter disaster this society is if having a conscience makes you
"radioactive" to employers. I can only aspire to be as radioactive as
possible, then.

~~~
YayamiOmate
Well, this is interesting because, subset of people deciding one is
"radioactive" is very small compared to whole society, but in general the
society is selforganized. There is no oppression. People have money and power
because other people give it to them.

I guess people collecitvely want to have black characters in power to do the
dirty, making their live easier overall. I don't see other reason "western"
societies don't change people in power when they actually can.

~~~
scruffups
<< society is selforganized. There is no oppression.>>

Self-oppression? Sure. But it does not mean that oppression doesn't exist.
It's just that it is self caused, and self here refers to society as a whole.
Oppression exists whether it's self-inflicted or inflicted by one/many upon
another/others.

~~~
rmrfstar
It's tough to call it self-oppression when our governance mechanisms are
literally unresponsive to 90% of the public.

See [1] pdf page 10.

[1]
[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf)

~~~
scruffups
I understand. But a significant percentage of people keep voting for stooges
and corporatists. What do you call that? Maybe not your self but the
collective self is responsible, no?

------
paganel
The right thing to do.

I've never met Tim and I will probably never meet him, I only know that he was
one of first programmers/computer people whose blog I started reading back
when I got into programming (more than 15 years ago, closer to 20) and as such
one could say that I looked up to him. I'm glad that I chose the right person
to "look up to".

------
ssklash
I'm shocked that so many bright, talented engineers go to work for Companies
like Google and Amazon and Facebook. While I'm glad some see the light about
the real mission of these companies (it's not about "connecting people",
"providing delightful customer experiences", "doing no evil" or any of that
BS) and ultimately quit, but what concerns me is how so many clearly
incredibly bright and talented people are able to ignore so many red flags and
go to work for these companies. Google and Facebook are about acquiring
personal data to sell ads, that's it! You're not adding value, no matter what
interesting, complicated, bleeding edge, world-class problems you're solving.
The world is worse off for all of it, and you're helping.

~~~
joeys7
Back when I was in university, I feel like they really brainwashed me to think
these tech companies were making the world a better place. I was too naive. I
think a lot of young software engineers started out like me.

There’s also the fact that these companies are so big, they have a lot of
variation inside them. For example at Amazon Music, there really isn’t a lot
of evilness there, it’s just getting people to pay up for music streaming.
Still some unfairness in the music industry for smaller artists, but that’s
often the labels stepping on them.

A lot of us at Amazon knows this company is kinda evil now. I was thinking
about resigning over these recent firings, but another activist convinced me
to stay so we can continue pushing the company to be less evil.

Essentially if we are willing to resign from a job, we have nothing to lose so
we can take bigger activism risks.

~~~
pm90
Same. When I was in college, all my peers talked about FAANG's in glowing
terms. Doesn't help that these companies often recruit heavily from
Universities, so you have alum networks that talk about how great the
companies are etc. Its quite an evil genius. When people finally do get a job,
they often realize its not always the cool shit that they heard about; most
often than not its some uncool shit that brings in a ton of money.

This isn't to discount the amazing engineering work that these orgs tend to
do. But look at their workforce numbers and tell me with a straight face that
all their engineers are working on solving tough engineering problems and not
just a cog in the optimization machine.

~~~
pathseeker
That's just because 5+ years ago Amazon/Facebook/Google weren't "giant evil
shit-lords" so-to-speak. They were cool even among industry folks. It wasn't
long ago that having Google on your resume meant something was special about
you.

Facebook/Google/Amazon aren't really cool in colleges anymore either.

------
mercury_craze
Amazon is a great evil.

It will not be remembered as a company that has had been a positive influence
on the world but as a company that has treated its employees (both hourly and
salaried) with contempt, driven independent stores out of business and refused
to play on a level playing field both through its shady business practices or
its refusal to pay tax.

Well done to Tim Bray for acting according to his conscience. Hopefully this
sets an example to other Amazon employees and other tech workers working in
similarly morally compromised organisations.

~~~
enitihas
Which is the mythical company treating their low-skill workers far better than
Amazon? Does the rest of big tech even employ their non professionals
directly? Which of big tech directly employ their janitors and treat them much
better than Amazon warehouse workers? Which of big non tech company does this?

>its refusal to pay tax.

What do you even mean by this? Companies can't refuse to pay tax. They have to
pay tax as per law. If you mean they are using legal mechanisms to not pay
their maximum possible tax, how is that different from Apple or other big tech
keeping money in tax heavens.

> driven independent stores out of business

And which big/successful comapny doesn't drive out competitors out of
business? Google/FB have driven local newspapers out of business by sucking
away all the ad money. MSFT squashed all the competition by extremely evil
business practices.

> It will not be remembered as a company that has had been a positive
> influence on the world

Again, which is the mythical company you are using as a benchmark here?

~~~
mercury_craze
Ignoring the bad faith questioning, I dont have to provide a gold standard in
order to criticise Amazon. Everything I've said is extremely well documented.

~~~
enitihas
Off course, you don't have to provide any standard to criticize whatever you
deem fit. The point of my comment is not to ask you to provide a benchmark,
but more to point out the flaw in your arguments to future readers. I admit I
could have done this in a better way. But my point is without a relative
benchmark, one can criticize anything and everything, even though the
criticism encodes very less information. To brand something evil, it has to be
compared to it's peers in it's time frame. Or else I can brand every single
company and human being on the planet evil for n number of reasons, e.g, for
not paying their lowest paid workers enough, or for not doing enough to combat
climate change. These will apply to every single company for some definition
of "enough", and if I don't have to provide a benchmark, I can set enough at
any point.

~~~
jeromegv
This is one of the largest company in the world, it is normal that they get
criticized more than smaller companies. They have more resources and abilities
to make changes than most companies. And I disagree, we can criticize a
company regardless if we provide the example of a better company or not. When
it comes to workers abuse in the middle of a pandemic, "everyone else is bad"
is not a good answer, i'm sorry. That's just a recipe for never changing
anything. One can hope for better worker treatment regardless, this is how
progress is made.

~~~
fastball
Does AMZN in fact have more resources to make changes?

I would generally argue that your ability to change your org is somewhat
limited by your profit margins. It is hard to pay warehouse workers more, for
instance, if your margins are razor thin. While AMZN's profit margin is not
quite the 0 it used to be, it is certainly not stellar by any means. And it is
certainly not as good as many, many other companies.

------
adreamingsoul
I'm still feeling blue from leaving AWS back in mid-2019. I worked with a
talented team, had an amazing manager, and overall miss everyone all the way
up to the VP of the org.

Articulating why I left has not been easy, but Mr. Bray touches on some of the
issues that resonate with me.

------
miked85
> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a
> woman, or both. Right?

Including this bit is interesting. So he is accusing Amazon of being both
sexist and racist in addition to treating workers poorly.

~~~
simonhfrost
In my opinion it was more from the perspective that minorities may have a more
empathetic view on problems, after likely experiencing dealing with problems
other more privileged people don't have to.

In this case: one of the biggest benefits of hiring minorities... ending up
being the reason you fire them.

~~~
dennis_jeeves
Counterpoint: Since many companies are under (public?) pressure to fill in
some minority quota, they with end with relatively incompetent people from the
minority group.

Also my personal observation: an incompetent person from a minority group is
likely to see a failed transaction through their own colored 'minority' lens.
Eg. a woman who has been turned down for a job will attribute it to her being
a woman and no other reason. For a white guy who has been turned down - it's
life as usual.

~~~
noelsusman
I've seen plenty of white guys blame minority quotas and nothing else after
being turned down for a job. There is also little evidence that companies are
hiring hoards of incompetent people to fill minority quotas. If they were,
then why does every tech company still struggle with a lack of diversity in
the workplace? It would be easy to just hire whoever can tick a diversity box
and fix those numbers, but they're not actually doing that because that would
be stupid.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Diversity quotas are absolutely real, and publicly documented all over the
place. Activist shareholders are filing resolutions and threatening companies
with lawsuits and bad PR. I was involved in hiring at some large tech
companies and we had very specific targets to meet, _”or else”_. I don’t know
how anyone can still deny that this is happening.

~~~
jeromegv
Re-read again, OP did not deny that minority quota exists. OP refuted the
somewhat popular opinion that incompetent people are being hired BECAUSE of
minority quotas.

------
econcon
I also quit tech, so I don't really respect the people who get job at these
companies, they are basically modern day enabler for bad things that happen at
these companies. Companies aren't nothing without their employees helping them
do the things and that unfortunately includes the bad things.

I now run my own business and pay everyone fairly and treat everyone well.

~~~
otachack
Is your business non-tech related? I've had ideas to leave, myself, but with
the times we're in with small businesses getting hit hard it seems it'll take
extra courage to do so.

~~~
econcon
It's small scale manufacturing for communities, I am doing this work in India
where it can help quality of life of people who are not aware about
mechanism/machines which can improve their productivity and safety.

------
lmilcin
I don't think many people take it into account, but many companies look up to
tech giants and replicate their actions.

When company the size of Amazon can get away with this kind of heavy handed
employee treatment, the results are affecting many, many more people that it
might seem on the surface.

------
mmaunder
Very difficult to put emotion aside when thinking about these things. I expect
to be crucified for even asking this question because the audience here has a
bias towards supporting activism. But oh well here goes:

If Amazon condone and even enable employee activism, what bad things could
that enable? I don’t mean unions. I mean a group of say 20 employees trying to
bring about a change they truly believe in.

Amazon has over 500,000 employees. Think of the number of edge cases. You
agree with these good folks that were fired. But what about carrying guns to
work? Conservative or liberal issues if you’re the other side of the table?

That employee base is a small city. Is every warehouse a town square with
freedom to assemble? Every office?

Fighting the good fight is often necessary. But it’s also a seductive idea
until it’s not your fight and disrupting your day - or worse, something you
vehemently disagree with and is causing you distress.

Is there another side to this argument?

(Edit for spelling)

~~~
komali2
I understand where you're going for, but imo that's never been a valid
argument against self-determination.

I think your argument can be made simpler: why should we trust people to be
allowed to decide for themselves? Won't they decide to do stupid and harmful
things? Won't they decide to hurt eachother? Won't they decide to steal from
eachother, and murder eachother?

No, is the answer, because laws were created somehow, right? We don't trust
the government to babysit us - we _created_ the government so we wouldn't have
to babysit eachother.

We don't need the board to tell us what we can and can't do - we can figure
that well enough on our own. What we _don 't_ need is a board that assumes it
knows best. It doesn't, it can't possibly, in fact it is existentially unable
to do anything but raise shareholder value. So, the more employee self-
determination, the better.

I think it's _very_ unlikely that employees will decide they want to have guns
at work instead of, say, a security system, or maybe offices in places with
low crime, etc. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide, I
dunno, that they want the right to shit on eachother's desk, or whatever other
fairly-objectively-negative thing you can think up. The right to paste racial
slurs all over the office, maybe? Bigotry, bullying, and hatred are swiftly
becoming a minority, and a fair system almost universally causes those
minority viewpoints to lose power. They only maintain it in imbalanced
systems...

And worse case scenario, if Amazon turns into the kind of office where you
have to shoot your way in just to get to your desk, we can have the government
intervene and shut the place down (with our labor laws), and maybe someone can
set up a better business where you don't have to shoot your way to your desk.

~~~
aeroevan
> I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide they want to have guns
> at work instead of, say, a security system, or maybe offices in places with
> low crime, etc. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide, I
> dunno, that they want the right to shit on eachother's desk, or whatever
> other fairly-objectively-negative thing you can think up.

I think his point is that carrying guns to work is not a fairly-objectively-
negative thing for the 1/3 of America that owns guns.

------
_curious_
"That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on
actions I despised. So I resigned."

Hope to see more individuals in tech standing up for what they believe to be
right, willing to make sacrifices or even walk away if needed, and ultimately
tell their story publicly. This is how you do it!

------
lftherios
We need more Tims in the tech world.

From a place for renegades, the valley has quickly become a safe place for
"yes men", that all they do is to obey to their corporate overlords.

~~~
scarface74
It’s easy to take a moral stand when you have millions and are close to
retirement.

~~~
Lammy
s/easy/possible/

------
alexpetralia
This article now hit the front page of the Financial Times:
[https://www.ft.com/content/ea6946d8-532e-4724-ada7-eebb887c8...](https://www.ft.com/content/ea6946d8-532e-4724-ada7-eebb887c8c43)

~~~
dredmorbius
[http://archive.md/D2qjy](http://archive.md/D2qjy)

------
thanksforfish
> Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective
> strength.

Legislation or unionization. Any other routes?

~~~
pgrote
>unionization

I am confused why there weren't wholesale strikes in the grocery, retail,
warehouse, gig workforces during the shutdowns. Workers had complete power to
force change.

~~~
azernik
Because of active union-busting efforts, which have made it hard for these
workers to organize collective action.

Walmart: [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-
wal...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-walmart-
convinces-its-employees-not-to-unionize/395051/)

Whole Foods (post-acquisition):
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/27/amazon-
whol...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/27/amazon-whole-foods-
training-video-union-busting-efforts-staff)

Uber: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/22/uber-lyft-
ip...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/22/uber-lyft-ipo-drivers-
unionize-low-pay-expenses)

Amazon: [https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-
re...](https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-revealed-in-
leake-1829305201)

This is not a new problem; low-wage workers have _always_ had the collective
power to force change, and businesses and business-friendly have always worked
tirelessly to disrupt that collective action.

------
red_admiral
This is what being a capital-A Ally looks like. I take my hat off to you, sir.

~~~
2ion
He's just somebody with FY money in the bank so he can do whatever he wants in
a larger scope than others. I'll keep my hat on; this is nothing special in
his position.

~~~
kharak
Excuse me? How many people with FY money do what he did? What he did IS the
exception and henceforth noteworthy.

~~~
red_admiral
@scollet [below]: he does a prety good job of linking to ground floor worker's
narratives in his post - using his increased exposure and prestige to "signal
boost" them, as a millenial would say. Or am I reading that wrong?

------
treebornfrog
Completely anecdotal.

I went on an amazon warehouse tour in Tilbury, UK. (1).

It was a tour of everything they do, at one stage they asked the guy stowing
to do a demo and he flat out refused because he had to hit his targets.

(1) Amazon UK Services Ltd. Tilbury - LCY2

London Distribution Park, Windrush Rd, Tilbury RM18 7AN
[https://g.co/kgs/8E4bgd](https://g.co/kgs/8E4bgd)

------
kerng
Bezos in front of congress just got a lot more interesting. This is something
that they will likely spend a lot of time on.

------
Maakuth
His page seems to be melting under HN effect (was: Slashdot effect), luckily
IA seems to have a copy:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200504111506/https://www.tbray...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200504111506/https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-
Amazon)

~~~
Jaruzel
HN 'Hug-of-death' is what we call it around here.

~~~
greenyoda
Bray's blog post was linked to by a story on CNBC, which has much more traffic
than HN: [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/04/amazon-engineer-resigns-
over...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/04/amazon-engineer-resigns-over-
companys-treatment-of-workers.html)

------
ableal
Cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wi2hPnT...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wi2hPnTXhhoJ:https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-
Amazon&hl=en&gl=pt&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

------
kjgkjhfkjf
I don't mean to rag specifically on Tim here, but most posts like this one
probably should not be taken entirely at face value. My guess is that he left
Amazon mostly for other more mundane reasons, and he used the well-known
issues with how Amazon treat their workers as a means to exit in a blaze of
righteous glory.

~~~
WolfeReader
Do you have any evidence of these more mundane reasons? Otherwise, you're just
speculating. And since Bray did a very good job of linking to sources for his
stated reasons, I'm inclined to take his claims seriously at least until other
evidence indicates otherwise.

(On the other hand, I highly suspect that you yourself have "other" reasons to
cast doubt on Bray's claims. I have as much reason to doubt your motives as
you do to doubt Bray's, right?)

~~~
kjgkjhfkjf
Is it not clear that I was speculating from language like "my guess is", and
is it not clear that I'm not trying to cast aspersions on Tim's specific
motives from language like "I don't mean to rag specifically on Tim"?

~~~
WolfeReader
All of your uses of "he" were referring to Bray himself. That's how pronouns
work.

And you can say "guess" all you want. There was nothing in his post, or any
other article I know of, that indicates Bray's motives were anything other
than what he said (and backed up with extensive supporting evidence). So your
motivation to "guess" doesn't come from the article itself, nor from any
competing evidence (which I doubt exists since you would've already posted
it).

"I don't mean to specifically call out kjgkjhfkjf, but my guess is that he
feels compelled to downplay legitimate criticisms of Amazon, and he used the
well-known techniques of ad-hominem and FUD as a means to defend Amazon
without actual compelling counterarguments." <\- I assume you agree with that
sentence, since it uses all of your same rhetorical techniques.

~~~
kjgkjhfkjf
No, you have misunderstood me. My point was that grandstanding posts from
people who have recently left desirable positions should generally not be
taken at face value. I was not arguing that his claims about Amazon's policies
are questionable. This should be evident from my use of the language "well-
known issues" in my original comment.

------
ksec
I am going to ask a slightly different question relating to the problem.

How do you get another job?

Do you tell your potential employer you quit because of (your) principle? That
you fundamentally disagree with your previous company? How will the new
company judge you?

Now of coz if you are in the market that is chasing for talent ( like
programming and tech ) this wouldn't be a much of a problem. What if you were
the Amazon Warehouse Manager? Which is probably 100x more replaceable than say
a software engineer?

Most business seems to operate with talent are everywhere, opportunities are
scarce mentality. They would much rather they hire a class B employees than a
class A activist.

~~~
rantwasp
OP does not have this issue. He is a highly visible/highly respected for his
technical skills. I’m willing to bet you money that he is being flooded as we
type with offers. Not all people have this position but the act of quitting
out of principle is still something that takes a huge amount of courage.

------
jsnell
Does anyone know what the "laughable justifications" for the firings were?

~~~
morelisp
In one case, an organizer was fired for refusing to not come to work after
being put on "quarantine", three weeks after he was initially exposed and not
given any leave, and no one else involved in the exposure was quarantined.

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-
strik...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strike-
worker-fired-organizing-walkout-chris-smallls)

The specific incidents Bray discussed seemed to be on a private internal list,
and specifically related to AECJ so probably not this issue - I doubt anyone
will leak it as unless there's something especially egregious (not just
specious justification, but something like a racial or sexist slur) it doesn't
really benefit either side.

------
LatteLazy
I think a lot of the reason people hate on Amazon is just bad PR. Plenty of
other companies are just as bad, or worse. Walmart has been a shit hole long
before Amazon even existed and its worse than amazon. But Amazon steadfastly
refuse to pretend they care. Bezos isn't constantly paying people to lie and
pretend Amazon is a family and its workers are deeply valued.

Perversely, I actually think that's more honest and more likely to bring about
changes to actually help workers...

------
cromantic
I applaud this move from Tim. It takes gumption to walk away from a VP-level
FAANG salary for anything, especially personal morals. I have only one small
thing to add as an ex-Amazon employee:

>Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I
worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for
work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails,
but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. I
genuinely admire its leadership.

This was not and (as far as I keep in contact with old coworkers) is not the
case for people working in the data centers operations department. I imagine
that area shares similarities with the average warehouse environment. There is
a quick turnover (a year on average), a dependence on contracted workers,
demanding physical labor, untrustworthy managers, and most of all, the
dehumanizing metrics. I remember most of us had dreams to transition to cloud
support and get away from the lonely and stressful life as a data center tech.

I think the only people feeling okay at Amazon are corporate and/or AWS
software engineers. The rest are feeling the full effects of Amazon's
corporate culture. Which is to say, the full rod of Bezos' sadistic corporate
philosophy.

------
kbash9
> What about AWS? · Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the
> company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers
> humanely, strives for work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity
> needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an
> ethical organization.

As a former employee of AWS, I can vouch for this. AWS and Amazon.com should
be looked at two totally different entities in terms of employee experience.

~~~
twomoretime
I feel like the only people who are surprised by the difference are those who
have only ever held white collar jobs.

They're totally different cultures. Weren't talking about two different
classes of people. And unfortunately you can't expect the same standards and
rules to be appropriate for both groups.

------
odysseus
It's interesting that Mr. Bray is declining to post comments on his site that
are even slightly constructively critical of some of the things he's
advocating for in this post. (Can anyone find a non-congratulatory or even
slightly critical comment below his post on his site? Did I miss one?)

He has every right to filter negative comments, but it makes me not want to
read his site further if all he does is post non-contrary opinions.

------
chanmad29
Amazon deserves this criticism but I think there is nothing to single them
out. Most for-profit companies would behave in a similar fashion unless there
is a competition for these workers that will force Amazon to treat them
better. Since Amazon is operating in virtual monopoly here, there is no
incentive for them to behave differently unless there are stronger laws such
as minimum wage etc..

~~~
birdyrooster
On the contrary, Amazon's success is precedent setting and it is such a strong
company that singling them out can cause the rest of the industry to shift.

------
tsegratis
Can we also do something ourselves?

AWS spending and consumers turning a blind eye enables such issues to arise

These things are fueled not just by desire for profit, but also our own
materialistic focus. If we buy into the latest and greatest products, rather
than where they came from, then to some extent isn't it we who have enabled
these rights abuses in various countries and companies, to support our own
appetites?

------
caleb-allen
I'm having issues with this url, here is a link from archive.org:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200504093003/https://www.tbray...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200504093003/https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-
Amazon)

------
gadders
As the saying goes "A principle isn't a principle unless it costs you money."

Fair play to him for standing up for what he believes.

~~~
gowld
Hehe 64 and very rich. It cost his grandchildren money (if he has any), not
him.

------
fataliss
I wish there was of some sort of association or union for people in the
Software industry. While we are typically much better treated than basically
every single other type of worker out there, we lack the assurance of
protection when it comes to challenging our employers. In a country where your
healthcare, your retirement and possibly your immigration status are tied to
your employment, how can one feel confident that sticking to their convictions
like you did will not cost them and their family a cost so great that they
cannot bear it. I would like for Software and more generally tech workers of
all trade to be able to say NO or ENOUGH, when working for a company that
steals tips, coerces workers into unfavorable situation or plainly disrespects
human rights. I dream of a world where workers can rely on something having
their back when making the right decision.

~~~
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
Unions are primarily useful for workers who don't have the ability to
negotiate their salary before accepting a job. By banding together, they're
able to negotiate wages that more closely align with the value of their work.
Knowledge workers are expected to do this for themselves on an individual
basis as they're not really interchangeable.

I do wish people pushed for more democratic decision-making in their places of
work, though. I've read that in Google's early days people were mainly
promoted by peer-evaluations, and there was a mechanism to remove a manager
from power if they lost the confidence of most of their subordinates.

~~~
fataliss
Yeah, I am more interested in union in it's power to uphold moral values. If
you ever were to be sued for whistle blowing something despicable or wrongly
fired for defending a coworker's right and other behaviors we see at the likes
of Amazon. There is power in unity beyond money.

------
runawaybottle
I often have this discussion with a friend about how to figure out your place
in a company.

It is very important to figure out what class you belong to in a company. Some
try to boil this down to ‘cost-centers’, but it isn’t always that simple.

Warehouse workers are second class citizens at Amazon. This can be true for a
developer in certain environments, it can be true for designers, etc.

I’ve worked at places where developers are second class citizens compared to
Project/Product management, and then I’ve seen where designers are second
class citizens to developers. It can be even more granular where frontend is
second class to backend, or vice versa.

However you figure it out, if you find out you are a second class citizen
there, you have to move on, as your potential is capped by the business
priorities/culture/structure. It’s never a good fit.

------
querez
> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a
> woman, or both. Right?

This part of the article jumped at me -- If this is true, then I'd have to say
"yes, coincidence". No company (let alone one as large as Amazon) would be
_that_ stupid in 2020.

~~~
alkibiades
if anything i’d expect them to go out of their way to fire some white men to
avoid lawsuits

~~~
gdy
Yep, not diverse enough without white men.

------
youeseh
People who need to job to make ends meet usually have a lot more to lose. This
very quickly creates an environment where there are real imbalances. The
perception of these real imbalances can be even greater if there's a breakdown
in trust / communication.

------
xrd
I've read a few comments here that Tim Bray would be better off staying at
Amazon to make change from within.

This morning I attempted to renew a domain at a GoDaddy subsidiary, and as I
scrolled down to look for the contact information I saw that GoDaddy appears
to be registered in the Cayman Islands.

I'm genuinely curious (I mean that) to ask if the same question is asked of
companies that go offshore. Isn't this all about tax evasion? And, shouldn't
they be asked to fight for change from within in the same way?

I honestly think many people on HN would support overhauling our tax code
alongside a corporation with deep pockets. So why not?

------
fortran77
As an Amazon customer, I've gone from admiring the company to distrusting
them. I can't trust products I buy from them; this lack of care is a problem
with the very fabric of the organization.

One nit to pick: "Climate Change" groups, and the like should keep their focus
narrow. I have trouble getting behind many groups because they seem to need to
have a position on every "progressive" issue. The Climate Change group should
have stuck to climate change, and another employee action group created to
make sure the needs of all the Amazon employees across the company are being
taken seriously.

------
tinyhouse
|"May 1st was my last day as a VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web
Services, after FIVE years and five months of rewarding fun"

5.5 years means more than fully vested and probably time for a change
anyway...

~~~
DVassallo
You're never fully vested. I $650K of unvested AMZN stock when I left after
8.5 years.

~~~
tinyhouse
By fully vested I meant the initial 4 years, which is the package you usually
get when joining a tech company. Given his caliber I bet it was a fat one. Add
to that the run the stock had in the last 5 years. At his age and with his
wealth, it's not unlikely he has been considering leaving regardless.

------
treve
Nice to see someone standing up. I have a hard time understanding how
developers with options to move to different companies ethically justify
working for companies like Amazon, Facebook, Oracle or Walmart.

~~~
abvdasker
I personally have a list of tech and finance companies I've resolved to never
work for, and anecdotally I know other engineers with similar lists.

Amazon is near the top of mine for its harmful business practices and open
contempt for its workers. The former Amazon employees I know tend to describe
the experience of being an engineer there in less than favorable terms (and as
engineers their experience is obviously going to be much better than a
warehouse worker's).

Maybe if companies like Amazon which treat their workers poorly were to face a
kind of engineering labor boycott, they could be forced to behave more
ethically.

------
yalogin
Am curious, what happens if an engineer quit like this after writing a blog
about the company, does it have a negative impact on their hirability? Do
other companies not want him or does it not matter?

~~~
msoad
Tim is not "an engineer". He is not gonna look for jobs.

~~~
yalogin
I should have clarified, the question was about a general engineer, not Tim.

------
therealdrag0
Splitting AWS off from Amazon Markets is one split-up I would support the
government doing. Without the cash-cow, it might reduce Amazon Markets
domination, and allow more competitive alternatives.

------
sneak
> _What about AWS? · Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the
> company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers
> humanely, strives for work /life balance, struggles to move the diversity
> needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an
> ethical organization._

I find it very difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that AWS
provides services to the US military to help them perpetrate mass murder more
effectively and directly vends to the suborganization inside the US government
that operates concentration camps for children. It's fallen out of the news
cycle, but this is still happening today, and AWS is still accepting money to
help them carry out their crimes.

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/training-the-
warfi...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/training-the-warfighter-
on-the-cloud/)

[https://www.govexec.com/sponsor-content/enabling-the-
warfigh...](https://www.govexec.com/sponsor-content/enabling-the-warfighter/)

[https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/22/139639/amazon-
is...](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/22/139639/amazon-is-the-
invisible-backbone-behind-ices-immigration-crackdown/)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/immigrant-children-
sex...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/immigrant-children-sexual-
abuse.html)

These are the people AWS collaborates with. That's not ethical under any
framework of ethics I've ever heard of.

It's not even like they just happen to serve the military along with all
comers: they voluntarily built a special set of datacenters with racist hiring
policies just to court government work:

[https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/](https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/)

It's almost as if people have a gigantic ethical blind spot just so long as
it's the state doing the mass killings and torture of children.

~~~
xendo
You are basically calling US Military and Government terrorist organizations.
If you start with that assumption you can easily get to the point where no US
company is ethical and you can't work anywhere.

~~~
sneak
Both of your statements seem to be objectively false.

------
mcguire
Is there any irony to be found in the fact that, reading the linked article
([https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dm8bx/leaked-amazon-
memo...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dm8bx/leaked-amazon-memo-details-
plan-to-smear-fired-warehouse-organizer-hes-not-smart-or-articulate)), I'm
seeing 4 copies of the ad for the Audible original "Escape from Virtual
Island"?

------
cmurf
It's way past time for an Amazon boycott. This blog post makes the case
without saying the word. But even here on HN there's a long history of
complaints about fraud on Amazon: fake reviews, fake products, and little to
no action by Amazon. And they show they have the power to take corrective
action when something happens they don't actually like, while standing idly by
when they don't care. The actions, and lack thereof, are what matter.

------
tracker1
This is something I deeply respect. To often it feels like proper are trying
to burn the world down from the inside. Such as with some of the struggling
media companies.

And while I won't speak to the two that the author cites as their impetus for
action, I absolutely respect someone who quits over a moral stance, and writes
an exit statement.

Not everyone needs to quit and leave to speak out. There's a lot of gray. If
just prefer to see sane actions and reactions in general.

------
gnicholas
> _What with big-tech salaries and share vestings, this will probably cost me
> over a million (pre-tax) dollars_

...

> _The average pay_ [in his group, AWS] _is very high, and anyone who’s
> unhappy can walk across the street and get another job paying the same or
> better._

Not sure how to square these two statements. Is the lost money all in stock
vesting? If so, why bother mentioning the salary? If not, how does that fit
with his claim about AWSers being so readily employable?

~~~
s1artibartfast
Last I hard, Amazon had a 4 year 5/15/40/40 vesting schedule. In my
experience, stock compensation exceeds salary for most executives. If 50% of
compensation was in stock, they would be walking away from 2.2 years salary
worth of grants, which would have appreciated since the grant date. Amazon
stock is also up >4x in the last 4 years.

~~~
gnicholas
I've heard the same; that would mean that AWS employees in general would stand
to lose a decent amount of equity, depending on where they are in their cycle.

~~~
s1artibartfast
That's the trick. There are new stock grants every year, so you continually
stand to lose a substantial sum by leaving. Hence the name: long term
incentives.

------
alex_young
I really wish there was a stand-alone cloud provider to work with.

AWS is a part of this unethical beast, GCP is a side project of a huge
advertising company, Azure is under the wing of a major monopolist.

I guess there is Linode, but their services are more of a traditional VPS than
a cloud host.

It's kind of crazy that most of the net income of Amazon comes from this
business, but we've accepted that a stand alone cloud business won't work for
some reason.

~~~
praveenperera
DigitalOcean is quickly becoming just that.

~~~
alex_young
Thanks! I hadn't followed up on DO in a while, it looks like their service
offerings are a lot more robust these days.

------
x3blah
[http://web.archive.org/web/20200409045004/https://www.oann.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20200409045004/https://www.oann.com/tag/david-
zapolsky/)

CNBC interview with Smalls

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HUGc7R8hw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HUGc7R8hw)

------
futureproofd
Site is down, here's the image:
[http://archive.md/XcnJv](http://archive.md/XcnJv)

------
tannhaeuser
Looking forward to what tbray is on to next. He has co-authored W3C's original
XML spec and the RFC spec for JSON while at Google. Now leaving AWS on matters
of principle, he could just be the kind of person who can turn things around
and being trusted by enough people to get behind new "digital humanism"
initiatives in a post-cloud era, like cross-cloud computing/service standards,
and digital media/privacy/advertising rights and standards in an increasingly
monopolistic market.

------
uoaei
Big props to Tim Bray. I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm not sure I
would have been able to make the same step if I were in that position. Really
impressed by the fortitude of his psyche and ethical framework. It doesn't
sound like this decision was taken lightly.

------
untog
Perhaps a little off topic but I notice that despite the huge number of
upvotes, this thread is ranked below other stories with far fewer points from
around the same time.

Are people flagging this story? It would be interesting to be able to see the
number of flags a thread attracts on Hacker News.

~~~
yhoiseth
I think I read somewhere that the algorithm de-emphasizes controversial
stories.

------
seph-reed
A site that lists alternatives for Amazon in all of its subcategories:

[https://threshold.us/c/cancelprime/amazon-
alternatives](https://threshold.us/c/cancelprime/amazon-alternatives)

------
softwarejosh
big ass respect for this person, of course its anecdotal, thats all the
evidence you will ever get. you want a professional investigation done on
these guys you are dreaming. this person saw evil, no matter how much, and
took their side.

------
te_chris
Genuinely inspiring. Made me realise how long it's been since someone high up
in tech actually took a stand and a risk and defended their principles
publically. Thank you and know that your actions are meaningful and
appreciated.

------
akerro
Let's not forget to link the FACE of Amazon
[https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/](https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/)

------
acdha
Kudos to Tim for not being blinded by the money. A whole lot of people are
going to wish they’d had his courage when the history of this era is being
written and our descendants are wondering why more people didn’t act.

------
flyinbryan125
You would think the (ex)VP from amazon could get a decent website together
that is legible on a mobile device... He must have been the one keeping the
archaic layout on the amazon website from the early 2000s.

------
mettamage
So if I get this right, now a VP will be hired that will approve of these
things?

I wonder if there'd have been utility to attempt to change the system from the
inside out.

I guess there wouldn't be. Then this would be the only option left.

~~~
Vinnl
Reading through his post, it doesn't sound like the goal was to change things
- he just didn't want to be co-responsible for them.

That said, it doesn't sound like there was much more he could've done to
change things from the inside-out; and even though it might not be the
intention, this public statement does sound like it might contribute to
changing it anyway.

~~~
bigiain
> Reading through his post, it doesn't sound like the goal was to change
> things

I think he did everything he could think of to change things:

"At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn’t go publicly rogue, so I escalated
through the proper channels and by the book. I’m not at liberty to disclose
those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I
think I made them to the appropriate people."

with no result, and no evident likelyhood of positive change.

Which is why he had to quit.

~~~
Vinnl
Yeah that's what I meant: it doesn't sound like the goal was to change things
_by resigning_. Rather, it was admission that since he could not change
things, and he also didn't want to be part of them, the only option was to
resign.

------
moneymoney
[https://techgig1.blogspot.com/2020/05/bye-amazon-tm-
bray.htm...](https://techgig1.blogspot.com/2020/05/bye-amazon-tm-bray.html)

link to original article

------
thruwawy32535
This is one of the most up-voted posts on this site, and the post itself is a
mere 20hrs old. Yet it's been bounced from the front page. The bias of the HN
mods really showing itself today.

------
MrStonedOne
tbray.org does not resolve from within amazon's work vpn.

~~~
pbourke
seriously?

------
lazyjones
Somewhat understandable reaction, but wise? As a VP you should have some
influence at Amazon. Even if not, you'd still do more good by speaking out
about it internally instead of resigning, thereby harming mostly yourself and
apart from HN drama having little effect on the problem. Unless the real
problem is that there is no actual reasonable argument against Amazon's
actions because the danger is exaggerated and all precautions have been taken,
in which case the doubts could have been resolved internally as well... But,
his money, his consciousness, his emotions, his decision.

~~~
braythwayt
You make good point, but it can be extraordinarily difficult to change a
company's toxic management culture from the inside. You speak out, you lead by
example, you ask tough questions...

Then you start getting bad reviews. Colleagues speak of you as being
"difficult." You are passed over for involvement in important initiatives.

You quit in disgust, but now they leak that you are a poor performer who is no
longer relevant, and your speaking out about worker conditions is just a poor
performer trying to distract everyone from their inability to get things done.

It is very, very difficult to win some battles from the inside. Toxic cultures
are ruthless when defending themselves from change.

Ask any woman about challenging inappropriate sexual behaviour. I believe
we'll hear the same thing.

~~~
lazyjones
> You quit in disgust, but now they leak that you are a poor performer who is
> no longer relevant, and your speaking out about worker conditions is just a
> poor performer trying to distract everyone from their inability to get
> things done.

I'm not sure this is worse than quitting in disgust and then publishing drama
and negative opinions about your past employer. At least the poor performance
claim can be countered with actual past reviews.

> It is very, very difficult to win some battles from the inside

It's even more difficult if you don't even try and when everyone who wants to
and could do it just leaves.

~~~
AlexandrB
I suspect Tim has a pretty good understanding of his ability to influence
Amazon's corporate culture:

> At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn’t go publicly rogue, so I escalated
> through the proper channels and by the book. I’m not at liberty to disclose
> those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay.
> I think I made them to the appropriate people.

And it seems that failed. What's left to do at that point? You can "sabotage"
\- in the sense of refusing to do your job. You can participate in a system
you think is heading in the wrong direction (and with the knowledge you can't
really change it). Or you can quit.

------
paulintrognon
cached:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wi2hPn...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wi2hPnTXhhoJ:https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-
Amazon+&cd=1&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr&client=firefox-b-d)

------
flavmartins
While I don’t disagree with the decision to step down from the organization,
I’m always concerned that in the long run, if committed, principled
individuals just leave the organization, who will be left to stand up for
those who don’t have that option.

The Amazon warehouse workers certainly don’t have the power in the
organization. And they don’t have the representation at the highest management
levels of the organization. So if the ones that do in the VP and Director
roles leave, who will standup for them?

------
synecdoche
How does resigning better serve the cause than conscientious refusal to take
part in despisable activities and get fired instead?

~~~
lazugod
He wasn’t directly involved with the response to the whistleblowers, people
higher up at Amazon were (it sounds like he wasn’t VP of the entire company
but of the web services section specifically).

~~~
icebraining
Not of all the web services. Amazon has a lot of VPs.

------
shaan1
Made money, now is the ideal time to quit :-) Similar to the google engineers
who quit after working for 10 to 15 years.

------
pleddy
[https://youtu.be/Y666duJMDnQ](https://youtu.be/Y666duJMDnQ)

------
jzer0cool
> That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off
> on actions I despised. So I resigned.

You are courageous and have taken tremendous sacrifice. Although it is not
much a condolence, it makes me happy to hear there are people to stand their
ground for well being of others. I do not know the whole situation, but, I can
hear it was against your own moral / core values. And I feel you are a great
leader for what I believe, you are protecting, those around you. And your
leaders have failed which resulted in this outcome.

I wonder how many people have been in similar situation and decided to leave a
job (or an excuse, for one). Reminds me of Nasa's launch when there were
safety concerns (e.g. "On January 28, 1986, as the Space Shuttle Challenger
broke up over the Atlantic Ocean 73 seconds into its flight, Allan McDonald
looked on in shock -- despite the fact that the night before, he had refused
to sign the launch recommendation over safety concern ..." ) -- as well other
situations which may rise from privacy concerns, security concerns, etc, and
with pushbacks with "Do you have proof? Have data to support? Is it
reproducible? ...). Today, I wonder with COVID-19 if there are pressures to
release Test Kits / vaccines to market before it is ready or skipping of any
processes necessarily as another example.

------
jbj
looks like it hit the mainstream media:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/business/amazon-tim-
bray-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/business/amazon-tim-bray-
resigns.html)

------
telaelit
Finally someone who actually cares about his workers. I wish more higher ups
cared this much about us

------
myroon5
"From: James Gosling (May 04 2020, at 10:36)

Great letter. I struggle with the contradictions every day."

------
mcantelon
Reports of shitty working conditions aren't exactly a new thing in Amazon
warehouses.

------
bawana
Is amazon evil because it's big or because they compete with more evil abroad?

------
cek
tbray.org has been /.'d (is that still a thing?).

Either that, or the strongly worded anti-defamation language found in Amazon's
employment agreement has come into play, forcing it to be shutdown.

------
gigatexal
Mad respect for this guy.

------
lorec0re
You're a good human!

------
elwell
Site fails to load. Hosted by AWS? _puts on tin foil hat_

------
arkanciscan
I don't see how quitting helps the workers he claims to care about. Many of
them would probably love to have the amount of influence that a VP has. Seems
disingenuous to claim that as a reason for quitting.

------
wtmt
I appreciate the candid statement he has made about one of the things that
ails Amazon's leadership.

> Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done.

I wonder if there's any future opportunity for him in the existing set of well
known names or large enough companies. I can't think of any widely known tech
company that doesn't do "21st-century capitalism" (treating people as
disposable cogs). Seems like getting into some non-profit that also has a
decent track record may be the way to go for him.

~~~
bantunes
I hear he's 64, so this might not be a big deal for him going forward.

~~~
acdha
I'm with OP on the non-profit route: if you're a relatively healthy retiree
who's concerned about the future your children are going to live in (a
recurring theme of his blog posts) there are a lot of activist organizations
which can use serious talent which they can't pay market rates for and he'd
have the luxury of picking the one whose views most closely align.

------
alexashka
'Poor people are being treated poorly, I'm rich and can get a job by walking
across the street. Capitalism is bad blah blah blah.'

Quality content.

People born with a silver spoon in their mouth are so predictably 'shocked' by
how the rest of the world functions. People are mistreated? People are fired?
There is injustice in the world? Oh my, I'm going to blog about it!

Have you heard of Buddha? You're in that stage of discovering old age,
sickness and death by wandering outside your golden palace walls out into the
streets.

------
techntoke
Will Jeff Barr do the right thing too?

------
sbussard
> Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done

This type of business practice is a big threat to capitalism. Bottom-line
thinking is over-optimization w.r.t. to revenue that doesn’t even consider
those who generate the revenue. It’s a local maximum that makes crummy
business people look smarter than they are. Conscientious capitalism is not a
socialist concept, it’s a human concept. If the leaders have no empathy,
people will leave, revenue will go down.

------
throwawayfortb
Tim is a really nice and likable person. That said, I'm really disappointed in
his one sided take here. Amazon did not fire these people without cause. They
fired them because they violated company policies. These employees were using
company time and resources to push personal political agendas that have no
place at work. They were rightfully fired, and a huge number of Amazon
employees are thankful they are gone. There is a big silent majority, probably
at all major tech companies, that is left voiceless because the progressive
left is vocal and aggressively shouts down anyone who is even slightly to the
right of their own views. At Amazon, most of us seek a professional workplace
where employees are working towards the common goal of helping customers.
These employees that Tim is standing up for were the opposite of that,
distracting everyone with loud activism and probably not focusing on their own
jobs either.

To provide a counter to Tim's account: Chris Smalls was told to quarantine
himself and not come to the work site because he was in close contact with
someone who tested positive for COVID-19
([https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/490805-fired-amazon-
str...](https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/490805-fired-amazon-striker-
demands-bezos-protect-workers-in-open-letter)). He came to the site anyways to
protest. Why wouldn't he get fired for putting others at risk? People who
think this firing was malicious are speculating. If this was a topic that
Hacker News readers had a different group perspective on, they would call it a
conspiracy theory. Someone would surely be quoting Hanlon's Razor by now.

Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham were the most visible ringleaders of
activists pretending to be employees. They clearly were not doing their job as
well as they could, because they had time enough to engage in lengthy
political discussions on mailing lists during the workday. They were also
repeatedly disrupting everyone else's work. They, and others from their group,
would spam hundreds of company mailing lists repeatedly. They would send long
political rants, links to activist events, and even solicit employee
information. It was very over the top, and pleas from list moderators to stop
spamming were ignored or met with baseless accusations of racism (or another
-ism). That reaction, to shout down opposing views with absurd justifications,
is the mental gymnastics of intersectionality at work. It's the unfortunate
culture of intolerance that this aggressive flavor of progressive activism has
taken on in workplaces like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

I'm also dismayed at the public reaction to these events. For some reason, the
general public simply craves stories attacking winners, and the same is true
for Amazon. If you want to balance out the info you've been exposed to, check
out Amazon's official blog on the large number of changes they've made in
response to COVID-19, at [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-
actions-to...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to-
help-employees-communities-and-customers-affected-by-covid-19). Were you aware
that Amazon set up a nonprofit COVID-19 supply store for healthcare and
government organizations ([https://business.amazon.com/en/work-with-
us/healthcare/covid...](https://business.amazon.com/en/work-with-
us/healthcare/covid-19-supplies))? What about Jeff Bezos's statement on the
expenses relating to COVID-19 ([https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazons-ceo-
tells-investor...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazons-ceo-tells-
investors-if-youre-shareowner-you-may-want-to-take-a-seat-as-he-explains-why-
the-company-will-spend-entirety-of-4-billion-profit-2020-04-30))?

Tim Bray quitting is his personal choice. I respect that he has the right to
make this choice. But he's not a hero, and the HN crowd would do well not to
immediately put him on a pedestal or to take all his opinions and claims at
face value. When it comes to those fired employees he is standing up for, Tim
is willfully overlooking their clear abuse of Amazon's employee rules, company
resources, and other employees. I don't think it's an accident that he's
leaving all those details out. He may be calling Amazon a 'chickenshit', but I
actually think he's the coward in this instance.

~~~
khawkins
Dragging the company into a slew of political activism creates a toxic work
environment. When people take up the mantle of speaking for all of the
employees when they, in fact, don't, they end up silencing and intimidating
people who disagree with them because they want to get along with their
coworkers.

If you think climate change is a ticking time-bomb and needs drastic action,
great, go to a climate rally in your free time and protest for more
environmental laws. Some of your coworkers disagree with you, they just don't
say anything because they want a good working relationship with you.

------
Havoc
>humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential. Only
that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done.

That's the part that scares me - it's not just Amazon. Automation hasn't even
kicked off properly and we've already got humans being replaceable at best

~~~
fastball
I'm not sure what else you can expect in a world where jobs that require
effectively 0 skill exist.

I'd prefer the "full automation" route, as I think it would be better for
humans to not need to perform these jobs. But until then, isn't it a good
thing that jobs which require no skills exist? Since there seem to be many
people with little-to-no skills?

~~~
Havoc
>I think it would be better for humans to not need to perform these jobs.

Depends on how this plays out. Either some sort of UBI future...or potentially
dramatically increased inequality and much suffering by a big chunk of
humanity that can no longer economically compete at all. Could go either way I
think.

------
apexkid
Amazon is every other on fire in media for poor working conditions but they
don't care because stock buyers of Amazon don't care. They will continue to
invest as long as their wealth grows. This is what true capitalism is.

------
tom_mellior
> Fast-forward to the Covid-19 era. Stories surfaced of unrest in Amazon
> warehouses, workers raising alarms about being uninformed, unprotected, and
> frightened. Official statements claimed every possible safety precaution was
> being taken. Then a worker organizing for better safety conditions was
> fired, and brutally insensitive remarks appeared in leaked executive meeting
> notes where the focus was on defending Amazon “talking points”.

Sorry, but none of this is new in "the Covid-19 era". There is a long
Wikipedia page dedicated to criticism of Amazon detailing _decades_ of
criticism of how Amazon treats its workers:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon)

Better of Tim to exit late than never, but let's not pretend that until recent
firings and this blog post we all thought that Amazon was a nice and cuddly
company.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray)
says he started there in December 2014. He must have known at that point what
he was getting into. For reference, here's the state of the criticism page at
that time:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Amaz...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Amazon&oldid=634843846)

~~~
SeeTheTruth
The fear of death due to infection by a pandemic is new. The need for PPE and
lack thereof is new. Firing whitleblowers in the face of a pandemic and
meeting to smear them (with public proof thanks to a leak) is new.

We didn't think Amazon was nice and cuddly - but this is a good point for Tim
to exit.

Jumping on someone doing a principled thing at personal cost for "not doing it
sooner" is so cynical. I think we can criticize Amazon's long history of being
repressive without shaming someone who publicly did the right thing.

~~~
lidHanteyk
Sure, but at the same time, it is our civic responsibility as skilled
programmers to deliberately starve Amazon of the labor needed to build their
oppressive systems. It is not wrong to remind ourselves of that greater
responsibility, especially in the context of Amazon being vulnerable to
organized labor action today.

------
rdsubhas
> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers
> are weak and getting weaker

More and more victims of trickle down economics.

------
darksaints
Just want to point out this:

>Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I
worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for
work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails,
but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. I
genuinely admire its leadership.

Having worked there, I 100% agree with this statement. I'd go so far as to say
that the blame for this toxic and intolerable atmosphere lies with a single
person who is not Jeff Bezos. His name is Dave Clark.

When I was in his org, I regularly interacted with FC General Managers, Ops
Managers, and Area Managers. There was a humorous nickname that quite a few
called him behind his back, and I think it fits him perfectly. It was Dave
Mussolini. Not so much a nazi in his evil, but rather someone who desired and
cultivated and enforced a pure cult of personality for his own personal ego
gratification and career advancement. Amazon's "Disagree And Commit"
leadership principle gets thrown out in his org and becomes "Disagree amongst
yourselves if you want, but _never ever_ disagree with me, never do anything
that I do not approve of, and kiss my ass any time you are around me".
Subsequently, all of his subordinates adopt the same attitude, and becomes a
culture of complete subservience to your master, no questions asked.

I have personally witnessed people get fired within 10 minutes of sending out
an email making a suggested path that Dave Clark had already decided. The
email came out, Dave Clark walked into his managers office with an HR rep, and
literally within 10 minutes they were packing their things and saying goodbye.

I have been in an elevator which opened up to him and his EA, and instead of
getting in and going to his floor, he told us we needed to step out of the
elevator and get a different elevator because he needed to talk
confidentially. He couldn't wait to get to his office, he had to make one of
his lemmings take the long way to accommodate 10 seconds of his time.

The Kiva acquisition was something he pushed for extensively. They weren't
even Kiva customers at the time, he just jumped the gun and bought the
company. It turned out that Kiva's productivity improvements didn't scale very
well at Amazon's level. They really worked well for much smaller companies,
but in large FCs, their optimization and routing algorithms hit NP Complete
complexity bottlenecks, resulting in much lower productivity than had been
advertised to them. But instead of taking the blame for his lack of due
diligence, he created a hellfire and damnation environment, regularly storming
into their offices and throwing Steve Jobs level temper tantrums. He made the
entire place so toxic that half (not exaggerating) of the Kiva engineers that
were acquired had left the company before their very lucrative aquisition
stock grants could vest. We're talking hundreds of engineers who would rather
give up hundreds of thousands of dollars than deal with Dave Clark (Mussolini)
for one more minute.

Dave Clark is a toxic asset. He is failing at his job. Fulfillment costs are
skyrocketing, inventory turns are tanking, and profitability of the retail
division is at an all time low, despite all time high revenues. He has burned
through staffing so heavily that they have had to abandon entire fulfillment
centers because there aren't enough people in these small blue collar towns
that are eligible to work for Amazon anymore _because they 've all been
fired_. He is a constant PR nightmare for the company. I have no fucking clue
why Jeff Bezos hasn't fired him yet.

~~~
amai
An article about this guy collected some interesting comments on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21818233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21818233)

~~~
darksaints
Wow, I have never seen this article. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one
who pushed for this article to be written.

~~~
QuinnyPig
Not super relevant to this thread, but you came up in conversation today:
[https://twitter.com/shortjared/status/1257863398433468416?s=...](https://twitter.com/shortjared/status/1257863398433468416?s=21)

~~~
darksaints
That's extremely embarrassing. I would like to apologize, but I do not have a
twitter account.

FWIW (not much, there isn't an excuse), I was going through an extremely rough
time in my life. I had recently been disowned by my family for leaving their
religion, and I had just begun to work for the guy I was talking about in this
thread. I was generally a miserable prick back then, and while I can't say
that I have eliminated that tendency entirely, it is something I have been
consciously working on with the help of a therapist for about 4 years now.

------
dilandau
I am surprised to see a high-profile software engineer take this step. It
seems from the post that his motivation was mostly in protest to the company's
efforts to shut-down any form of worker organization.

It's these strange ways that COVID is changing our economy that make me very
bearish long-term on the economy. Businesses around here can reopen legally
but many are choosing to stay closed. The customers aren't back yet and they
can't pay their regular staff. If they reopen, the staff can also no longer
collect the massive unemployment benefits.

It's a fucking shitstorm and it's hitting the highly-paid as well, I guess.

Good luck to OP.

------
asdf21
It's crazy how stuff like this keeps coming out, but Amazon's stock just keeps
going up..

~~~
hobofan
It's almost like people with morals and people investing in Amazon are two
completely separate groups.

------
alkibiades
if he’s so against capitalism he should donate his considerable net worth to
amazon workers instead of pointless virtue signaling.

but somehow think that won’t happen :)

~~~
blueline
having money means you aren't allowed to critique capitalism? what kind of
logic is that?

~~~
alkibiades
if you made your money off the thing you’re criticizing seems a tad
hypocritical. he should try socialism and redistribute his wealth

------
_pmf_
Impressive.

------
TheOtherHobbes
[Applause!]

------
simonhfrost
> It’s that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of
> pick-and-pack potential. Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century
> capitalism is done.

Stung me the most. Capitalism seems to have such an increasingly firm grip on
the world that I'm starting to think the only way out is from some drastic
worldwide event (Corona?).

~~~
asah
21st century? 20th century? 19th?

Seems to me, this is the story of the industrial revolution and arguably all
civilization pre-IR, when serfs were fungible labor units to the landed
gentry. Standardize the design and production of something, then bring in
labor to produce mass quantities to a certain level of quality.

Coronavirus won't change this: with 8B people on the planet, we've come to
depend on industrial production for food, medicine and more.

~~~
bigiain
> 21st century? 20th century? 19th?

Does it matter? We can't change the 19th or 20th centuries. Perhaps we can
change the 21st...

------
dandare
> Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done.

I am really tired of all these off-hand attacks on capitalism. Capitalism is
an economic system. It is characterized by private ownership of the means of
production and their operation for profit. If you prefer a centralized or
shared economy, that is fine, although I was born in a communist country and I
bet you have no idea what you wish for.

Capitalism is not responsible for some local injustice, corruption, or
mistreatment of workers. If you think there is no corruption in a dictatorship
or that communism is a worker paradise you are grossly misinformed. Europe
runs on capitalism too, but Europe also has strong worker protections and
ethical norms.

~~~
unreal37
Also, there's an argument to be made that America is not actually truly
capitalist.

The government intervenes in the market all the time, especially now. Nothing
big is allowed to fail. $Trillions to keep the party going.

That's not capitalism.

Even Buffett is sitting this "recovery" out because he can see the lack of a
free market.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"No True Scotsman"

~~~
dandare
That is not how you use the No True Scotsman fallacy. US is not the world
economy, US economy is not defining characteristics of capitalism.

------
gowld
Is he donating all the excess money Amazon paid him to the workers or unions?

~~~
afshin
Would publicizing such a donation help him or would you then want to know why
he published the details of his donation?

Your question is one where both possible outcomes result in attacking the
messenger instead of considering his message.

------
pleddy
I worked there in 2004. Fired for insubordination. My team was harassed by the
VP of QA, he was soon also fired, just to prove that I was indeed onto
something in my whistleblowing. Larry something, can't remember. One of those
super two-faced goofballs.

Amazon culture then? It was sad. Workers are pawns. The dreams of the Internet
startup culture dashed and dying. I was on the team w the first Infosys flood.

Amazon is a place to make money. That's it. It's a strict military hierarchy
like all US corporations. No real culture of betterment for humanity. Quite
the opposite. Yes, those that got and kept their options possibly doing very
well. Yes, if tech is what you live for, yippee! A better future for all of
humanity: strong "no!". Stormtroopers and low flying helicoptors for any that
dare organize.

Didn't you see the HR video where a plastic Jeff spews all the corporate lies
and BS? Made me sick back when. I was an idealist. You were probably spared
the worst and protected, given the humanist version on the surface.

There's a culture of trying to get rid of people after a few years. Not many
make it over the 3-5 years mark, right? Policy of "fire the bottom 10%" thing
every year, so trump up some lies to have excuses.

Anyways, better you got out before the rot set into your heart. No idealists
there. The top guy is obviously quite extraordinary. Thanks for making a
statement. Maybe something will break one day.

Whistleblowing needs to be kept alive. It's our only hope.

------
herostratus101
Good for Amazon for not caving to activist pressure. Google's past
fecklessness in this domain has come to haunt it.

------
sumfoni
I don't get it.

What does he win doing that? One publicity stunt. Thats it

He could have done much more inside Amazon and get fired later.

------
jeffrallen
Come on, Tim. You lost me at, "cost me a million dollars".

Congrats that you did the right thing, but no one should care how much it cost
you to be ethical.

~~~
btown
> no one should care how much it cost you to be ethical

Well, sure, no one _should_ care, but from a purely pragmatic perspective,
privileged people tend to hold in higher regard the actions of other
privileged people. Sad, but it's how systematized injustice self-sustains. And
if Tim including that detail makes even one other highly compensated
executive, somewhere in the world, treat with just a tiny bit more respect the
concept of walking away from golden handcuffs to push for ethical change...
it's worth Tim treating that detail with gravitas.

------
dirtydroog
> The victims weren’t abstract entities but real people; here are some of
> their names: CB, GB, MC, EC, BM, and CS.

> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a
> woman, or both. Right?

I hope this guy got permission from these people to post their names on a
public forum. Also, there's really nothing in those names to tell if someone
is a PoC or not. At least one of those names is both a male and female name.

------
emilfihlman
>I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a
woman, or both. Right?

And at that point the author lost my respect. Sad, since otherwise he's making
good points with a lot of merit, but if he's making that "argument" I don't
even want to know what more vocal "activists" were saying.

This comes down purely to cost and slow moving rock on the Amazon side.

~~~
eplanit
I stopped at the mention of Naomi Klein.

------
dcgudeman
How many "Amazon VP"s are there, 1000? Whenever I see stories like this the
majority of the time the position of the individual is embellished to make the
act seem more dramatic.

~~~
jrockway
"Distinguished Engineer" is kind of a big deal, title-wise. It's not something
that is just handed out.

~~~
new2628
As Napoleon said, a soldier will fight long and hard for a piece of colored
ribbon.

~~~
sgt
And yet, some soldiers will let it go again in order to maintain their honor.

------
rosywoozlechan
If conscientious people leave Amazon it will result in Amazon being less
conscientious, but it will probably not result in Amazon being any less
powerful or dominant.

I also think Amazon a right to expect its employees to abide by its rules.
Individuals have a right to organize and to protest, even when they're
supposed to be at work, but companies have a right to want to discontinue
their business relationship, that is fire, their employees, especially if
they're not working when they're supposed to.

Ultimately the employees made the mistake of organizing and being loud before
they had the critical mass to have the leverage needed, and they outed their
organization leadership.

~~~
behringer
AFAIK in the US it's illegal to fire somebody due to union organizing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting#United_States)

Therefore, the employees made no mistake if Amazon breaks the law by firing
unionizing employees.

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rosywoozlechan
I am not convinced that the protests were attempts to unionize or that the law
is clear that on if these firings at Amazon were illegal.

