Jeff Bezos defends firing activist employees at Amazon

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has addressed the series of firings at his company that removed a lot of ‘activist’ employees. These terminations have been heavily criticised, including by a group of US senators.

"We didn't fire anyone for speaking out about working conditions," Bezos said during am meeting with Amazon's virtual shareholders on Wednesday.

"We support every employee's right to criticize their employers working conditions, but that also doesn't mean that they're allowed to not follow internal policies. But for sure your rights to protest working conditions, we take that super seriously and we have no problem with that at all,” he added.

Six of Amazon’s employees who have publicly criticised the company have been fired this year. Several of these terminated employees, including tech employee Maren Costa and warehouse worked Christian Smalls, have become leaders in a growing movement that is pushing for better working conditions at Amazon’s warehouses.

Amazon has stuck to their point that these six workers have been fired for violating internal protocols and not for being publicly critical of Amazon.

Smalls was fired for violating company-mandated quarantine and Costa was fired for using “company resources to solicit fellow employees after she invited other workers to a virtual meeting about warehouse conditions”.

Following these terminations, nine US senators wrote a letter to Bezos seeking more information about these firings.

According to reports, Costa spoke at the shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday via a prerecorded statement “to introduce one of the 12 shareholder proposals during the meeting”. 

Costa also called out the firings and asked “Amazon to do more to curb climate change” - she was the leader of the activist group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice before she got fired.

Bezos was also asked at the meeting if the increased scrutiny on Amazon would hurt its reputation. "I think scrutiny will enhance our reputation with customers," Bezos said.

"It's completely normal that we be scrutinised. And we want people to know the truth about Amazon, and how we use our scale for good and how we work hard and we will work hard to explain that,” he added.