Hundreds of Amazon workers walk out to protest return-to-office, climate - The Seattle Times

Hundreds of Amazon workers walk out to protest return-to-office, climate | The Seattle Times

A group of Amazon employees walked off the job Wednesday to show frustration with recent layoffs, a mandate to return to the office and a lack of action around climate change, organizers said.

As of Wednesday morning, nearly 2,000 employees had pledged to participate in the one-hour walkout slated to start at noon. Of those, roughly 900 planned to gather outside Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood while another 1,000 would join from offices around the world.

The walkout comes after a year of cost-cutting measures that have affected nearly every part of Amazon’s sprawling business and led some employees to question how committed the company is to former CEO Jeff Bezos’ goal of becoming “Earth’s Best Employer.”

Amazon has cut 27,000 jobs since November. The layoffs have affected workers in advertising, human resources, gaming, stores, devices and Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing division.

The company has more than 350,000 corporate and tech employees globally. Amazon has 65,000 employees in its Puget Sound headquarters, with about 55,000 based in South Lake Union and another 10,000 in Bellevue and the Eastside.

Gathering outside the Spheres, workers held signs that read “Amazon: Strive Harder” and chanted “sound the alarm … we’re together, braver than ever.” Other employees watched from the windows inside Amazon’s Day 1 building, some holding phones to record, others gathering in groups on their way down the stairs.

Outside, standing under a banner that read “Amazon: Enough short term thinking,” speakers read statements from groups advocating for changes in working conditions at Amazon’s warehouses as well as groups urging Amazon to do more to mitigate its impact on climate change.

“Today looks like it might be the start of a new chapter in Amazon’s history,” Eliza Pan, a former Amazon corporate employee, told the crowd. “Tech workers are going to stand up.”

Pamela Hayter, an Amazon employee based in Seattle, told the crowd she wasn’t nervous about walking out on Wednesday because “deep down, I know we are right.”

“We’re here today because it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “I’ve not been nervous. I’ve been fired up.”

Although feeling steady on Wednesday, Hayter said she was nervous when she started a Slack channel with the express purpose of advocating for Amazon to maintain remote work flexibility. She expected the channel would consistent mostly of her and five friends. It ended up becoming a space for more than 30,000 people to express dissatisfaction with Amazon’s decision to require workers to return to the office, she said.

Since then, Hayter said she’s heard from new parents, caretakers and Amazon employees with disabilities who say remote work made a huge difference in their quality of life.

And she hasn’t stopped hearing from people. “If you could see my DMs, you might pass out,” she said.

Amazon announced earlier this year it would require workers to return to the office at least three times a week beginning May 1. That was a change from Amazon’s prior policy, put in place in the second half of 2021, that allowed leaders to decide for their teams where they should work.

CEO Andy Jassy told employees that senior leaders had observed that it’s easier to “learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues.”

Boosters for downtown Seattle, where Amazon’s headquarters campus is located, cheered the mandate and hoped that thousands of returning workers would enliven the neighborhood.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said Amazon is happy with how the first month back in the office has gone.

“There’s more energy, collaboration and connections happening,” Glasser said. “We understand that it’s going to take time to adjust back to being in the office more and there are a lot of teams at the company working hard to make this transition as smooth as possible for employees.”

Not all employees agree with Amazon’s stance. In response to the return-to-office mandate, more than 20,000 workers signed a petition urging Amazon to reconsider.

Work-from-home remains exceedingly popular with Americans with remote-capable jobs, a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll found. Among the 4 in 10 workers who say their jobs can be done from home, 72% said they prefer to work remotely all or most of the time. Another 23% said they wanted to work from home some of the time.

In a note asking colleagues to participate in Wednesday’s walkout, organizers called the mandate a “top-down, one-size-fits-all” approach and advocated for Amazon to return to its previous policy that allowed leaders to decide for their own teams where employees should work.

The walkout is a joint effort between two groups: Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and Amazon’s Remote Advocacy community leaders, which formed in response to the company’s return-to-office mandate.

Amazon Employees for Climate Justice led workers in a walkout in 2019 to demand Amazon take the lead on addressing its impact on climate change by taking steps like cutting carbon emissions and eliminating funding for lobbying groups who block climate action.

Now, organizers are asking Amazon to put climate impact at the “forefront of our decision-making,” according to a note to Amazon employees.

“It’s clear that leadership still sees climate impact as an inconvenience rather than a strategic focus,” the organizers wrote, alleging that Amazon has not stuck to commitments outlined in its Climate Pledge and has increased carbon emissions.

Amazon told investors in its annual proxy statement that it is committed to its climate goals, including plans to put 100,000 electric delivery vans on the road by 2030 and power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.

Amazon has also said it plans to reach net-zero carbon by 2040. Activists and some shareholders are asking the company to do more and commit to zero-emissions deliveries by 2030.

Glasser, the Amazon spokesperson, said Amazon will continue to invest, invent and collaborate in order to reach its goals.

“While we all would like to get there tomorrow, for companies like ours who consume a lot of power, and have very substantial transportation, packaging, and physical building assets, it’ll take time to accomplish,” Glasser said.

Rafael Sinuhe, a software development engineer who participated in Wednesday’s walkout and the action in 2019, said it’s sad to see that Amazon has not made much progress since then.

Sinuhe said the efforts around Amazon’s climate impact and return to office go “hand in hand.” The return-to-office mandate will increase emissions as workers commute and has left employees feeling as if they’re wasting time coming to and from South Lake Union.

Sinuhe and two friends standing outside the spheres said they’d like some acknowledgment from Jassy and senior executives, as well as the data used to make the decision to require workers to come back to the office.

“It sounds like it’s based only on feelings,” said another Amazon employee standing with Sinuhe who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job.

Sinuhe had some hesitation about walking out because he was concerned about retaliation. In the end, he said it was about “expressing opinions” and thought the changes workers were asking for would be “good for Amazon as a company.”

One worker who participated in the walkout and asked to remain anonymous to protect their job said they walked out to push back against the return to office mandate.

That employee, who works in technical writing and is based in Seattle, said the flexibility of remote work made it easier for her to make the decision to have a child. Before remote work, she felt many women had to choose between being an employee and a mother.

Now, expecting her first child, she said she’s talked with her manager about accommodations but even if her direct bosses are on board, she worries upper management is not. There’s a “disconnect” between employees, managers and executives, she said.

On Wednesday, holding a sign that read “Earth’s Best Employer, stop the PR and listen to us,” she said she hoped Amazon executives and other CEOs would be more aware of what works for employees.

“I hope the power of numbers could spin the needle toward what would actually benefit the majority,” she said.