Some Amazon employees in Seattle are coming out to protest office and climate policies

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Some Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) employees went on strike on Wednesday to protest the e-commerce giant’s changes to climate policy, layoffs and a return-to-office mandate.

More than 100 people gathered in the afternoon near Spheres, the glass-domed monument in the heart of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, according to a Reuters witness. “Emissions are rising. Time to act!” the group cheered. “Stand together, don’t come back!”

More than 1,900 employees have pledged to protest globally, according to the organizers, an activist group known as Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ).

Amazon said it did not notice any actions other than what happened in Seattle.

The withdrawal followed moves that pushed Amazon “in the wrong direction,” the AECJ said. Among them, the company recently scrapped a goal of making all Amazon shipments net zero carbon emissions by 2030, though it still has a broader climate pledge a decade later.

Amazon also announced about 27,000 job cuts in recent months, or 9% of the company’s workforce, a shift for a company that has long promoted job creation. The mandate to return to the office by May 1 has caused some employees to be confused about whether they need to move their homes closer to the workplace or whether they will be laid off in advance.

In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Brad Glaser said the company is pushing hard to reduce carbon emissions.

“For companies like ours that are very energy intensive and have very large transportation, packaging and physical construction assets, it will take time to get it done,” he said. “We are still on track to reach 100% renewable energy by 2025.”

He added that Amazon listens to employee feedback, and was pleased with the collaboration that has arisen from the back-to-office policy.

There have been other protests in recent years, including in 2019, when Amazon workers were among hundreds of employees at big tech companies to join rallies in San Francisco and Seattle, saying their employers were too slow to tackle global warming.

Additional reporting by Matt McKnight in Seattle, Tyachi Datta in Bengaluru, and Jeffrey Dustin in Palo Alto, California; Editing by David Gregorio

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