【Passion's Peak (2002)】

Amazon tech workers are Passion's Peak (2002)taking a sick day on Friday to protest the tech company's treatment of their fellow employees during the current coronavirus pandemic.

In March and April, the Seattle-based technology company fired two tech workers and three warehouse workers who had criticized Amazon over unsafe warehouse conditions during the current coronavirus pandemic. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AEJC), which started in Dec. 2018 to push for the development of a company-wide climate change plan, organized Friday's protest. Amazon also deleted an invitation to an AECJ livestream event in which warehouse workers were going to tell tech employees about their working conditions, which the group says is another impetus for Friday's protest.

Friday's event, called Amazon Sick Out, also includes a daylong livestream, where the two fired warehouse workers spoke Friday morning. Climate justice activists and environmentalists such as Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, youth and indigenous climate activists, and others also spoke.

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AECJ wants three things of Amazon:

1. Rehire the employees it fired who spoke out against warehouse conditions, and ensure such firings don't happen again

2. Strengthen efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and make permanent temporary workplace improvements such as a living wage and paid sick leave

3. Commit to climate justice, investing first in communities of color who are impacted disproportionately by Amazon's pollution

“The reality is that Amazon’s distribution center model is not compatible with proper social distancing,” a worker at an Amazon distribution center in Poland said in a press release emailed to Mashable. “We are going to work knowing we’re taking a huge risk. There are 7,000 people where I work and there’s no way for us to stay two meters apart."

On March 31, the first Amazon warehouse worker died of coronavirus, per Business Insider. Though, it's not known if the employee caught the virus from an Amazon warehouse, according to the Hill. As of April 14, more than 70 Amazon facilities have had at least one employee test positive for COVID-19.

This isn't the first time Amazon workers have protested for safety conditions during the pandemic. Employees of Whole Foods (which Amazon owns) organized a nationwide "sick-out" for Tuesday, March 31. They are planning another protest on May 1, according to the Guardian.

An Amazon tech worker, who asked to remain anonymous because he was afraid he'd be fired for speaking out about poor conditions, called out sick on Friday to support warehouse workers.

"I don't want them to think of Seattle as this faceless corporate headquarters, I want them to know that there are tech workers here who have their backs and who want to push with them to get Amazon to treat them with the same dignity and respect for their health that they do with us," he said. "Amazon makes it really difficult for us to connect with warehouse workers. I think this retaliation shows what would happen if tech workers start paying attention to their co-workers, without whom we would not have jobs."

Amazon explains that only a handful of its more than 800,000 employees did not show up to work on Friday. "Health and safety is our top priority and our focus remains on protecting associates in our operations network with extensive measures including distributing face masks, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, implementing temperature checks, operating with strict social distancing protocols, and recognizing their contributions with additional pay and leading benefits," an Amazon spokesperson said in an email.

But Maren Costa, one of the two fired tech workers, feels Amazon should do more. As she explains in the press release, “Amazon thinks they can just fire any worker who speaks up for safety, but we want them to know that this is not OK.”