Amazon Employee Fired After Staging A Walkout To Protest Unsafe Conditions During Coronavirus Pandemic

Former Amazon employee Christian Smalls said he was fired on Monday after he organized a walkout to protest what he and other workers considered as an unsafe environment during the coronavirus pandemic.

Small, who was a management assistant at one of Amazon’s warehouse facilities (JFK8), shared his side with CNBC.

“Amazon would rather fire workers than face up to its total failure to do what it should to keep us, our families, and our communities safe,” Smalls said in a statement. “I am outraged and disappointed, but I’m not shocked. As usual, Amazon would rather sweep a problem under the rug than act to keep workers and working communities safe.”

Smalls told CNBC that all he and his coworkers were asking for was “a simple building closure and [for] it to be professionally sanitized.” He said that “people were afraid and that’s all we were asking for; nothing more, nothing less.”

A spokesperson from Amazon has a different story, confirming to CNBC that yes Smalls was fired, but only as a result of him being the one creating health risks by violating social distancing guidelines after being given “multiple warnings.”

“Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk,” the spokesperson said. “This is unacceptable and we have terminated his employment as a result of these multiple safety issues.”

In a statement, Amazon called the workers’ accusations “unfounded” and claimed they work hard at keeping their workers safe.

“Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable,” the company said in a statement. “The truth is the vast majority of employees continue to show up and do the heroic work of delivering for customers every day.”

You can see the video here, taken by another Amazon employee, that shows how many people are still working and how close to each other they all are. “We’re all going to die,” the employee says repeatedly in the video. According to CNBC, JFK8 is around 855,000 square feet and has 4,500 workers.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James is taking the side of the workers, calling Smalls’ firing “disgraceful.”

What do y’all think? Was Amazon wrong to fire Smalls? Leave a comment below.