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Hundreds of Amazon Workers Staged a Walkout Wednesday (cnbc.com) 96

Posted by EditorDavid from the boxes-with-smiles dept.
"Amazon employees staged a walkout Wednesday," reports CNBC, "in protest of the company's recent return-to-office mandate, layoffs and its environmental record." Approximately 2,000 employees worldwide walked off the job shortly after 3 p.m. EST, with about 1,000 of those workers gathering outside the Spheres, the massive glass domes that anchor Amazon's Seattle headquarters, according to employee groups behind the effort. Amazon disputed the figure and said about 300 employees participated.

The walkout was organized in part by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an influential worker organization that has repeatedly pressed the e-retailer on its climate stance... One employee spoke about how remote work had allowed her to spend more time with her family, while coworkers told her it enabled them to care for newborn children and relatives with special needs. "Today looks like it might be the start of a new chapter in Amazon's history, when tech workers coming out of the pandemic stood up and said we still want a say in this company and the direction of this company," said Eliza Pan, a cofounder of AECJ and a former program manager at Amazon. "We still want a say in the important decisions that affect all of our lives, and tech workers are going to stand up for ourselves, for each other, for our families, the communities where Amazon operates and for life on planet Earth...."

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said in a statement that the company has so far been pleased with the results of its return-to-office push. "There's more energy, collaboration, and connections happening, and we've heard this from lots of employees and the businesses that surround our offices," Glasser added. "
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Hundreds of Amazon Workers Staged a Walkout Wednesday More

Hundreds of Amazon Workers Staged a Walkout Wednesday

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  • Own the stock and vote. Or if you decide you don't want to work at a company that doesn't do remote, then just don't. Shrug emoji.

    • nonsense, voting is proportional to shares owned. You'd still have essentially zero voice.

      • Yes, but you would have one. As an employee, you don't have jack.

        • only millionaires could own the number of stocks to have a real vote.

          • Collectively, they surely can have a weight. 120,000 employees worldwide, times say 10% gross pay each that they could save in company stock. Not going to overthrow Bezos with that, but surely that would matter?
            • Strike that 120,000, it's way higher than that

            • Most Amazon employees make $15 an hour, they can't afford to put 10 percent of their pay into stocks, they'd starve and die

              Those making the living wage or big bucks would vote opposite to the grunts.

            • The total value of all Amazon shares is $1.27 trillion. 10% of an average annual salary would be around $4000. Multiplied by 1.54 million employees is $6,164,000,000, or 0.482% of the total value. They wouldn't even get half a percent of the vote.

              To look at it another way, $1,277,500,000,000 / 1,541,000 employees = $829,007 each employee would need to spend to have an equal vote. (If you could somehow force each employee to do this and don't let any executives or outside investors take a larger number of sh

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by KC0A ( 307773 )
          Almost all Amazon HQ employees hold some stock as it's a portion of everyone's compensation. For a long time cash compensation was capped at about $150K, so for senior employees stock is over half their pay.
    • and if you could you'd probably not want to devalue it by treating people decently.

      Remember too, there are different kinds of stock, and the good stuff that gives you actual say in most companies is usually not sold to us pleebs.

      • Re:You can't buy enough stock to matter (Score:4, Insightful)

        by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Saturday June 03, 2023 @05:38PM (#63574051)

        Or if you don't like your company's work policies you can vote with your feet.

        2000 people world wide out of 1,541,000 employees is nothing. More people are on vacation or legitimately call in sick every day with zero impact.

      • Thanks for letting us know how you'd treat people if you spent the dosh to run one of these Fortune 500 companies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      Stockholders are not the only important stakeholders in a company. Employees are just as important, and for many/most companies they are far more important. Amazon has approximately 10 billion shares selling at $124 each, but only 1.5 million employees. Probably only about 200,000 of those employees are in the IT industry, with the others being warehouse staff and drivers. If you are one of those 200,000 employees, you would need to buy $6 million in stock to represent the same ratio of stockholder that you

      • 2000 employees out of 1.5 million total or even of 200k IT staff is nothing. No one would notice.
        No one did.

      • Stakeholder capitalism is nothing but a bastardization of the co-op corporate model. You don't get to be on the payroll AND get treated like a shareholder unless you put some actual skin in the game.

      • Sorry but I call b/s. As an employee, I'm paid to do what I'm told. I don't own the place, someone else does. If the contract I signed is not to my liking anymore, there's a termination clause, which I can trigger. And find a more suitable employer.

    • You can also have a conversation with your superiors, inform them of what you dislike about their decisions and what decisions you would prefer they make.

      There is absolutely nothing improper about employees having such a conversation with their employers. In fact, employers prefer it. Employers hate it when a bunch of their employees up and quit without warning. That is devastating to the business! They would much prefer that the employees state what they are mad about and dialogue about what would make

  • Thousands. The headline is trying to diminish the scope of what just happened on purpose.

    • Re:Not hundreds (Score:4, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Saturday June 03, 2023 @03:26PM (#63573741)

      Pfffft.

      2,000 worldwide in a company that employs 1.5 million?

      The walkout was a failure, essentially zero employees participated. The scope of what happened was nothing.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        It was 2000 of their office workers, which is likely closer to 200k employees.

      • So... this was it. Let's all give up then. These things need to grow, gain momentum. Give it time and a little love. It is not something you roll out by liking a few posts, sending an email to all users, ... . If it does not grow, the condition is not bad enough and is tollerable.

        • The walkout was organized by "Amazon Employees for Climate Justice", which tells all right there.

          So humans emit 40 billion metric tons of carbon per year and Amazon a paltry 72 million. Waste of time, why risk losing job over gnat's fart in hurricane?

    • No it isn't. Given the size of Amazon's workforce, it's a drop in the bucket. You can bet the hourly warehouse workers didn't walk of the job. Only the salaried workers could afford it.

      • it's a drop in the bucket.

        Starting now, I will no longer recycle stuff, save fuel, be nice, etc.
        As a matter of fact, the reason you bring up can be used for ANYTHING. Even commenting on Slashdot. Why do you bother? It's a drop in the bucket.

        • Totally different than recycling. When 1 person recycles, it's pretty worthless. When we all did it you get a critical mass of recyclables and real environmental impact.

          When 2000 of of 1.5 million take a day off, it's the same as 1 person recycling. Not enough to be noticed. If 200k people took a day off it would get noticed.

          The real message here is that under 1% of Amazon employees are upset enough about going into the office to take any action about it. The adults are going back to work. The kids ar

          • It's actually the same thing. One does something out of conviction, to send a message. It might not change anything (note: "might"), but that doesn't mean one should not try. Hell, if even 5 people protested, kudos to them. They didn't back off, they felt they should go and do it, and so they did.
            I flat out told my employer that, if they mandate office work, I'm out. They will have my resignation immediately. I might be the only one in the whole company, who knows, but I don't care, I can very easily find a

            • If they're silent or unwilling to quit over it then they don't care enough to do anything about it. By definition.

              • You just don't get it, do you. Kind of proves your nickname wrong.

                • I get it perfectly. You've added nothing to this conversation however. But your ad hominem just shows how immature and easily triggered you are.

                  Have you ever managed people? I have. I always over hire for the base work load for several reasons, one of which is there will always be people out sick or pregnant or on vacation or slacking or whatever. So 2000 out of 1.5m or 200k or even 2000 out of 2000 for a single day is not a big deal.

                  Everyone not working for a day is no different than when we closed up

    • looks like a few hundred in this [msn.com] Amazon has over 1m employees so even if it was 1000 of them that's not even 1/10th of a percent.

    • Did something happen? If you read the summary some environmental group rallied some gullible troops.

    • Who exactly was counting heads? Amazon predictably claimed it was only a few hundred people. AECJ may have supplied the 2000 figure. They're all probably lying about something.

  • You can claim its a protected activity all you want, but that directly conflicts with the for-hire state you work in (i.e. you are fired for taking 12 minutes of break instead of 10)

    • Laws vary of course but in most places with at-will work laws, you can be fired for no reason at all. No reason is legally necessary.

      • First they will all find themselves in "performance review," which is really an effort to get you to quit without paying severance. But the firing is coming if they don't quit. Amazon takes its Union busting seriously. I'm speaking from first hand experience. My boss overheard me express sympathy for unions in another country. The next day I was in performance review and my coworker was telling me "I don't know what you said, but. . ."

        • I've never been there but know a few folks who were there. All less than a year except one who did 7!!!! years.

          Everything I heard was horrible. I'd never work there if even only 1/10th of it was true but I heard matching stories from different people over the years.

          All these people who think they're going to send a message or want to be treated special or whatever are at the wrong company.

          Companies have a culture. It comes from the top. Staff can not change that culture. The only way to be happy is fin

  • Apparently the walkout lasted about one hour. For most salaried people that's like an extra meeting to attend that day.
  • Literally no company has adjusted based off a walkout. They shrug and expect people at their desks after. It is like letting a child scream for a while into they get tired. If you want change, walk out for good. Otherwise the walkout did nothing.
  • And nobody cared? Oh, wait, that just happened.

  • return-to-office mandate, layoffs and its environmental record

    So then why work there? This just sounds like workers that really don't want to be there at all.

    • This just sounds like workers that really don't want to be there at all.

      That and most of the stated reasons for these snowflakes going all snowflaky were not work related. You know. The thing they're paid for.

      WFH is BS and anyone claiming otherwise has an ulterior motive. Waaaay too many distractions at home and, frankly, humans are garbage at being personally responsible.

  • Which being translated means that the introverts are back in the torture chamber...

    • Torture chamber? Lol, please.

      How old are you? 14? You sound like my 14 year old. Everything is so dramatic for her. She even uses language like that. "Oh 9th grade was horrible but 10th is going to be pure Hell!" She said just 3 days ago. Maybe you're in her class.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KC0A ( 307773 )
        Maybe 9th grade really was horrible. Public school is for many students. For me it was just a boring waste of time.

      • Ok - so it may be a relatively mild torture chamber, but the fact that you disdain the comparison rather than engage with its validity indicates you are not an introvert. I get it; extroverts don't understand us...

        • Not the case. I am a nerdy tech introvert the same as most of slashdot. I don't like large groups, crowds, parties, and so on.

          But when it came time to cash in, I went to the office like everyone else and dealt with it. I even managed to work with the obnoxiously loud sales and marketing people for years at a time, and when necessary would yell in their face to shut them down when they were being over the top stupid. "No, I'm not putting that shit in the contract, we don't support that and if I sign off

          • Suggesting therapy shows you have no idea about that area.

            But hey, let's think this through. I've been enjoying the sanity of working from home and have been very productive there. Now the manager is demanding I return to a noisy office which is painful and draining to be in. The manager deserves my getting a new job...

    • Exactly this. Surprised it's not a +5

  • Now they are going to learn why you need a strong union to do things like this

  • These people are complaining about pay for the lowest-possible-skill jobs, at the same time 300,000 people PER MONTH - that is one Mpls/St Paul metro area each year of people desperate for those jobs - are flooding over the US borders illegally.

    Ironically, it's THEIR political allies endorsing this.

    • I heard the people who did the walkout were actually white collar people not the lower paid ones.

      I don't suspect their jobs are threatened by illegal invaders.

      However.

      "Legal invaders" is another story, Australia, Canada are suffering major issues with extremely high right and left wing operated immigration policies, designed to suppress wages, ensure renters / home purchasers, more customers at the stores and more tax payers.

      It's quantitative peopling and majorly impacting workers rights, traffic, public tr

  • I heard that Amazon will be laying off 2000 more workers than previously announced.

  • Nobody ever notices, there are tons of warehouses and even if all Germany would strike, stuff would be shipped from France, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands or wherever.

    It's a logistics company, running around such 'problems' is their daily business.

  • "Working" from home? (Score:3)

    by Musical_Joe ( 1565075 ) on Monday June 05, 2023 @07:08AM (#63576819)

    One employee spoke about how remote work had allowed her to spend more time with her family, while coworkers told her it enabled them to care for newborn children and relatives with special needs.

    so... working from home allowed her to spend time not working? Sure, it depends somewhat on your actual job, but IMHO Amazon isn't paying you to care for your newborn child or your relative with special needs. If one of my employees told me they had time to do such a thing during their working day, I'd find them plenty more to do - and furthermore I'd ask why they didn't feel the need to be a bit proactive and find something within their remit themselves.

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