Amazon employees signed a petition demanding that Amazon denounce the recent SCOTUS ruling that overturned Roe v Wade. They also demanded that Amazon give them “time to grieve” the decision. Seriously.
The petition was posted by the popular Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok
SCOOP: Hundreds of Amazon employees signed an open letter to Amazon leadership demanding they cease doing business in states where abortion is illegal and requesting time off to grieve the Supreme Court ruling pic.twitter.com/qWSts5KAcJ
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 27, 2022
We wrote previously about how companies that were awakened by the Roe ruling offered to reimburse employees for travel expenses if they needed to travel to another state for an abortion. This list includes Meta, American Express Bank of America Dick’s Sporting Goods Goldman Sachs Apple, Starbucks Lyft–and of course Amazon. We don’t want someone telling us what we should think when we buy pet toys online.
Insider reports that more than 300 employees who were triggered had signed the petition as of Monday afternoon in Seattle. According to my calculations, this is a total of.027 percent of the 1.1 million-strong workforce in America. They wrote:
We, the undersigned, are writing to you today to ask for immediate and decisive action to stop a threat to our fundamental rights through the repeal of Roe V Wade. We believe Amazon must respond to this decision as part of its broad-reaching efforts to create a more diverse and inclusive workforce. We are asking Amazon, the best employer in the world, to defend our rights.
When did it become a company’s responsibility to fight the Supreme Court? Even if the decision is not directly related to their business. Madness.
Employees acknowledge that their ideas may “bear a greater business risk than others”, but they still want Amazon to “Think Big to Change the World.”
1) Make Amazon’s decision public and unambiguous.
2 ) Give employees of all genders space and time for grieving, expressions of frustration, and protest against the assaults on our rights.
Ah, come on! Let’s stop there. Corporations pay you to be there, not to cry at home. Are conservatives allowed to take days off if they disagree with a political decision? Can I request a week of vacation because I don’t like Joey’s inflation policy? I would be laughed at. We now have to ask: Why is it only liberals that make such wild demands? They often get what they want. Amazon will likely set up a policy committee or some other group to give them most of what they want. They’re also asking for more.
6) Remove product offerings that are misleading or inciting hate speech or violence towards abortion seekers.
Ah, censorship. It was inevitable. We don’t agree with your opinions. We demand that the second-largest company in the world make you silent.
Other major requests were made by employees, such as that Amazon stop making donations to political committees opposing abortion and that remote work options be expanded so that employees can travel to states that allow abortion. Number nine is my favorite request.
9) Stop operations in states that have passed laws that are harmful to the rights and liberties of abortion seekers. These laws could prohibit access to healthcare in life-threatening situations or criminalize providers and seekers.
Jeff Bezos has just been sacked. If there is a profit to make, no principle will stop him. Amazon has invested billions of dollars in warehouses all over the country and will not close them because some of its employees are upset by a SCOTUS ruling.
It was a wonderful moment when Netflix fired many of its overly demanding employees in May. The thing activists and companies who listen forget is that a large portion of the population doesn’t support progressive politics. And those people also have money.
As Disney discovered, companies that don’t pay attention to their employees will be punished. It will be interesting for Amazon to react to these ridiculous demands. However, I suspect they’ll take a lot of it, except where it impacts the bottom line.
