SEATTLE, January 6 (WNM/Reuters/Gregory Scruggs) - Amazon.com Inc employees who publicly demanded more aggressive action by the company to combat climate change have been told they violated company policy, with the U.S. e-commerce giant saying further infractions could end in firings, according to an employee climate activism group.
The warnings, over violations of a company policy on speaking to the media, could be seen as an early instance of corporate retaliation for employee climate activism, a business analyst said - but a public relations specialist said such restrictions were common corporate policy.
An Amazon spokeswoman described the company rules, which require advance approval for employees wanting to speak publicly about the company to the media, as "not new" and "similar to other large companies".
A representative of the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that four of its leaders had held confidential meetings with the online giant's legal and human resources divisions in November.
The meetings came in the wake of record global climate protests in September that saw millions of people in more than 160 countries take to the streets, including outside Amazon's headquarters.
More than 3,000 tech workers in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood – home to Amazon.com and major satellite offices for Google, Facebook and Microsoft – rallied to protest the support their employers provide to fossil fuel companies.
On the eve of the climate strike, Amazon pledged to make its operations carbon-neutral by 2040. But some employees said the company should go even further and curtail the web and cloud computing services it provides to oil and gas firms.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, however, said his company would continue to work with energy firms, noting that "to ask oil and energy companies to do this (energy) transition with bad tools is not a good idea and we won’t do that."
In October, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice gave a statement to the Washington Post, signed by two employees, that criticized the company for "want(ing) to profit in businesses that are directly contributing to the climate catastrophe".
In November, after answering questions from corporate lawyers and human resources representatives, the two employees were warned by staff attorney Eric Sjoding that they had violated the company’s updated communications policy by speaking to the media about Amazon's business without approval.
Sjoding said the employees had "not knowingly" committed any offense.
But they were told further violations of the policy could lead to their termination, according to an internal communication reviewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The company issued a new communications policy covering employee media interviews, public speeches and social media usage in September.
“As with any company policy, employees may receive a notification from our HR team if we learn of an instance where a policy is not being followed,” said an Amazon spokeswoman.
“Our policy regarding external communications is not new and we believe is similar to other large companies," she said.