Seattle

Amazon’s recent layoffs, return to office mandates and a lack of action in dealing with its massive carbon emissions are what’s leading workers at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters to plan a walkout from their job on May 31. At least 1,000 workers have agreed to walk out at noon and rally at the Amazon Spheres, near the offices.

The one-day walkout is being organized by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and another group opposed to Amazon’s recent return-to-office mandate. The workers, many of them software engineers, know that Amazon has abandoned its main climate commitments. Amazon’s “Shipment Zero” pledge, to make one-half of all carbon shipments net zero by 2030, disappeared recently from the company’s U.S. website. It was replaced by the link: “We’ve decided to eliminate it.”

Workers have been worried since Amazon started laying off 27,000 workers, and they have been ready to protest since the fall of 2022. Tens of thousands of other tech company workers have been laid off at Meta, Google and Microsoft. 

There’s a growing anxiety among workers, as hiring freezes follow layoffs with a looming potential recession. It’s unclear at company headquarters just how many workers are being laid off. Many of the laid-off workers could be in the warehouses and among transportation workers employed by the Amazon behemoth.

But on May 31, Amazon workers are walking out to “show power.” (The Seattle Times, May 26)