Amazon’s Efforts to Silence Climate Whistleblowers Are Backfiring
The tech giant has moved to suppress employee activism on climate change, but its most vocal workers remain unbowed
When Amazon threatened to fire a number of employees for calling on the online retailer to improve its climate policies, the intent seemed obvious: Quiet the growing number of voices speaking out from inside the company about Amazon’s dealings with the oil industry and its laggard plans to reduce carbon output.
Amazon’s move to muzzle its staff was seen as alarming, even disturbing by tech employees, but has only succeeded in instigating what former Google worker and walkout organizer Meredith Whittaker has described as a Streisand effect. The company’s action has drawn attention to the issue, driving many tech workers at Amazon and beyond to speak out louder and further, and in some cases entrenching a dedication to agitate for change.
“Amazon has tried to silence us.”
The targeted Amazon employees shared the story of their workplace intimidation with the press, where it was covered by the Washington Post, the Guardian, and others. They were nervous about speaking out, for good reason. Amazon has reportedly invoked a new internal rule about how employees must obtain permission to talk with the press — a rule that talking publicly about the company’s climate policies without prior HR approval apparently violates.
“Amazon has tried to silence us,” Maren Costa, a principal user experience designer at Amazon, told the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, which circulated a video of their story on social media. (Full disclosure: the campaign interviewed me about Amazon’s oil contracts and the tech worker movement more broadly months ago, and I wound up appearing in the same video.) Rather than bow to internal pressure, Amazon employees are using the opportunity to continue calling on other workers to join them in pushing Silicon Valley to stop funding oil and gas extraction efforts, and to make good on the gestures made toward sustainability.
“This is a time when employees at every company need to be asking tough questions about their company’s role in the climate crisis and standing up,” Emily Cunningham, a user experience designer at Amazon, and one of the employees given a warning by the company, told OneZero. “As we’ve heard from workers at other companies, people are so hungry to do this. They’ve told us they want to work at companies that aren’t accelerating the climate crisis.”
“Personally, I’m not deterred. I don’t think the folks I’m organizing with are deterred either. Pissed off, maybe, but not deterred.”
Employees organizing around climate issues at other major tech companies say that Amazon’s acts to censor employees — and Google’s recent acts of retaliation against its workers — are only strengthening their resolve to continue pushing for changes inside their companies, and to continue speaking out wherever possible. There is a sense that tech firms are beginning to clamp down on dissent, and that workers must be prepared.
“Personally, I’m not deterred. I don’t think the folks I’m organizing with are deterred either. Pissed off, maybe, but not deterred,” said a Microsoft employee who is pushing for change inside that company. Because workers there are attempting a less confrontational approach, the employee asked to remain anonymous. “I think it could inspire more people to join the tech workers’ movement and to start organizing.”
A handful of Amazon employees sparked the tech worker climate movement in late 2018 when they called for a shareholder resolution to strengthen the company’s climate policy. That effort, which was quashed by CEO Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s board, grew into a companywide movement that saw thousands of workers publicly sign on to an open letter asking Bezos to take action on climate, and, finally, to a walkout in protest in September. Employees at Microsoft, Facebook, and Google joined, albeit in smaller numbers.
“So far, big tech’s clumsy efforts to retaliate against workers organizing around ethical and workplace issues have backfired significantly,” said Whittaker, who was a core organizer of the Google walkouts in 2018, that helped spark widespread tech worker activism across the industry, and who was forced out of the company not long after. “See: ‘the Streisand effect.’ I expect the same in Amazon’s case. Instead of silencing dissent, Amazon, Google, and others are taking off their masks, and making it clear that they are more interested in short-term revenue growth than a safe and livable future.”
This accelerating drive towards profits regardless of social cost is angering a growing number of employees. That includes some high-profile tech industry vets like former Google head of international relations Ross LaJeunesse, who says he no longer recognizes the company and its long-idled “Do No Evil” ethos.
“People want to work for companies that are leading us into the future and driving the renewable energy economy,” Amazon’s Cunningham said. “They’re willing to show the leadership required to make sure their companies are on the right side of history, so we can avert catastrophic warming and unimaginable suffering.”
Amazon, for its part, says it is merely enforcing company policy. “Our policy regarding external communications is not new and we believe is similar to other large companies,” an Amazon spokesperson told OneZero in an emailed statement. “We started updating the approval process in the spring 2019 and it was communicated in September… In instances where employees may have unknowingly violated the policy, we met with them to ensure employees are aware of and understand the policy and the approval process.”
The spokesperson added that “our Social Media Policy is an extension of our External Communications Policy which states that external communication by employees about Amazon’s business, products, services, technology, or customers must be approved in advance. This includes communications in any public forum where the speaker is identified as an Amazon employee and includes social media posts.”
Meanwhile, Maren Costa, another Amazon employee who was targeted by management for speaking out during the course of her involvement in climate organizing, says the movement must not stop with the e-commerce giant. “All employees at every company need to be asking questions about their company’s role in the climate crisis and speaking up,” she told me. “How is your company contributing to the climate crisis? Are they taking steps right now to eliminate their impact or are they accepting the status quo of inaction or doing the bare minimum that is already threatening human civilization?”
It remains an open question for the world’s most customer-centric company, too. In September, after months of continuous employee activism, Bezos promised that Amazon would transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2040, and that the company would “use our scale and our scope to lead the way.” But it’s clear those climate plans remain ill-defined in many regards, with little being done to curtail work with the oil industry to expedite fossil fuel extraction at the moment that trend should be slowing. That’s not enough for the company’s climate-concerned workers.
“Amazon’s policy doesn’t make sense,” Costa said in an email. “The climate crisis is so dire. Australia is burning right now. People have to be able to talk about the climate crisis and what we need to do to get out of it if we’re ever going to make things better.”
She adds that she is determined to continue the movement within Amazon, even at the risk of her own termination.
“Of course I am scared about speaking up now,” she said. “I have kids and a mortgage like many others. But I am also scared about how quickly we’re destroying this beautiful planet where my kids play and learn and live. And,” she added, “I’m proud of how much Amazon employees have done and continue to do to encourage our company to be on the right side of history.”
