Dear Jeff,
We the undersigned Amazonians are concerned about your company’s increasing Surveillance Obsession. In one month, there were four newsworthy events regarding Amazon’s employee monitoring:
Amazon’s job posting for an Intelligence Analyst to monitor “Labor Organizing Threats”
Amazon’s monitoring of private Facebook groups for Amazon Flex Drivers
Amazon’s hiring of the same NSA chief who oversaw project PRISM and the exile of Edward Snowden
And this is only looking at the month of September 2020, with the Facebook monitoring story being notable enough to warrant a letter from two US Senators. We know that Amazon has a goal of being the most customer obsessed company and wants to treat its customers with the highest respect. What we would like to see at Amazon is that same respect and obsession to be upheld for its workers.
The central demand of this letter is simply to stop spying on us. Let us work and speak amongst ourselves without fear of being surreptitiously watched.
We also understand that a request to stop spying on us only works if we create mechanisms to improve the current state of Amazon’s relationship with its workers. So for now, we ask that Amazon take these simple steps to help rebuild confidence.
Make the Correction of Error that was filed in response to the Intelligence Analyst job posting public. After the original article around the job posting went up, some members of the inclusive@ mailing list requested that a Correction of Error be filed to prevent this from happening again. This request was fulfilled, but the contents of it were marked private. As Amazonians we are told to Earn Trust. Now that trust has been broken, Amazon needs to take steps to rebuild it with its workers. While we are glad that the Intelligence Analyst position was taken down after complaints, we still want to know what mechanisms Amazon is going to put in place to prevent this from happening again. Since this job was meant to monitor “Labor organizing threats”, all workers at Amazon were impacted by this action, and until we are able to see the Correction of Error we cannot know if Amazon is doing enough to earn our trust back.
Reveal what other ways employees are being monitored by HR and Global Security and make a commitment to stop monitoring Amazon Affinity groups and all Amazon workers when they are talking to one another. None of the above incidents will be the last time that Amazon will be in the news for employee surveillance. By demonstrating a Bias for Action, and revealing what Amazon is already doing we can begin to fix some of these future problems before they are leaked to the press and workers have to find out what is happening internally from an external source.
Complete and publish a new Correction of Error documenting how and why the Global Security monitoring of Affinity lists and other email lists came to be and what steps are being taken to stop this. By Diving Deep and completing a Correction of Error, Global Security can begin to reassure workers that this will not happen again. After it was revealed that Global Security was monitoring email lists, the team unsubscribed their alias monitoring from all the email groups. While this is a good first step, we also want to see a Correction of Error for how this monitoring came to be, and why it was implemented in a targeted manner (for example, muslims@ was monitored by Global Security but christians@ was not). Since Affinity groups and petition signers were the groups being monitored, they should all be considered stakeholders for this Correction of Error and deserve to know its findings and what mechanisms are being put in place to prevent this in the future.
End Amazon’s union heat map. The ability to safely organize and unionize as workers without fear of retaliation is critical to keeping Amazon workers safe, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic where nearly 20,000 Amazon workers contracted the virus. The freedom to organize is already the law of the land in America and the vast majority of the rest of the world. We are asking for Amazon to Insist on The Highest Standards for themselves and respect this freedom by discontinuing their monitoring of potential union campaigns in their Fulfillment Centers and store fronts.
The National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 to ensure that, “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection”. When Amazon discretely watches its workers, it harms our ability to do our job well, and tramples on our rights to organize to demand better from our workplace. When will Amazon stop acting like it’s above these rights?
Sincerely,
Amazonians for Employee Privacy
(If you are an Amazon employee who would also like to sign on, there is a form to fill out at the bottom of the page)
Sign ons:
Aadil Bhatti, SDE
Abdiaziz Omar, AWS SOC Shift Coordinator
Abdul Hyee Waqas, SDE
Adi Subbarao, Marketing Manager (L4)
Afsana Qurishi, Account Manager
Alan Fluder, Writer
Alejandra Novoa, UX Research Coordinator
Alexander, Software Development Engineer
Alexander Webster, SDE II
Alyssa Galvin, Sr Product Manager
Amelia, Recruiter
Ami Dieye, Program Manager
Amy Zeng, SDE I
Analisse Reyes, SDE
Andrea Dean, SDE
Andrew Freeman, Language Engineer
Andrew Kessler, Business Intelligence Engineer
Angela Elson, Content Manager
Ari Kardasis, SDE
Arielle Bloostein, SDE
Ashley Connolly, Systems Engineer
Ash Strayer, Program Manager
Bathool Syed, Financial Analyst
Ben Karpelman, Technical Customer Service Specialist
Brandt Hale, Video Producer
Brian Golden, DCO L3
Brian Laframboise, Senior Software Development Engineer
Brook Byrd, CNS Resolution spec
Camille Nibungco, SDE
Carissa Wikstrom, Technical Product Manager
Cecellia Tsui, Software Development Engineer II
Champagne Lewis, Fulfillment Associate
Chayla Volz, HR Regional Center Lead
Cheyla Bell, Process Assistant
Chris Browning, Account Manager
Chris Wolfe, Product Manager
Christopher Warren, SDE I
Coleen Barr, Editor
Courtnay Anderson, Policy Manager
Cyndi Abenojar, Fashion Specialist
Damien Karolev, Sr. SDE
Daniel Slothower, Sr. BIE
Daniel Valencia, DCO
Danilo Pavkov, SDE
Daphne Bliss-Rosval, Software Development Engineer
David Ellison, Software Development Engineer II
David Stuart, "Label Relations Manager, Amazon Music"
Deanna Knudsen, TPM
Devon Ogle, SPS Advisor
Elsie Ooi, Senior Consultant
Eric Oliver, Software Development Engineer
Étienne Hossack, SDE AWS Amazon MQ
Evelyn Jensen, Vendor
Federico Rozenberg, SDE II
Feryal Khawar, Sr. UX Designer
Gentry Johnson, Economist
Geoff Huang, SDE
Geoffrey Bonser, Senior Software Development Engineer
Gianna Fisher, Recruiting Coordinator Lead
Hamza Mirza, SDE
Hamza Qaiser, SDE 2
Hana Mizuta, SDE I
Hannah Buck, Product Manager
Hans Jorgensen, Software Development Engineer
Hayley, Program Manager
Hilda Marshall, Data Linguist
Houssam Nassif, Senior Applied Scientist
Hwee Sen Wee, SDE
Jacob Adamson, SDE
Jacob Hinton, SDE II
Jacob McCarthy, Software Development Engineer II
Jade Fine, Central Operations Lead
James, Data Center Technician
James Shieh, Technical Program Manager at Sort Tech
James Sosan, SDE 2
Jean-Baptiste Hallaire, Account Manager
Jennie Buechner, SDE II
Jennifer Johnston, Central Operations Associate
Jenny Crimp, SDE
Jeremy Powers, Senior Developer
Jerome Rasky, SDE II
Jesse Martinez, SDE II
Jessica C, Sr SDE
Jessica Li, Account Manager
Jimmy Chen, SDE II
Joana Castro e Almeida, Brand Specialist
Joey Siracusa, Software Development Engineer II
John Mazza, Program Manager
Johnna Gurgel, Content Manager
Jon Grover, Software Development Manager
Jonathan Lin, SDE I
Jonathan Torrez, SDE II
Jonathan Wills, Software Development Engineer
Jordan Browning, Software Development Engineer
Jordan Hoyt, SDE III
Joshua Denning, Knowledge Management Coordinator
Julie Kast, Recruiting Coordinator
Justin Tittelfitz, Sr. Research Scientist
Kai Ovesen, Software Development Engineer in Test
Karl Jackson, TPM
Katherine Campbell, Sales
Keith Miller, Software Development Engineer
Kendell Snow, Recruitment Marketing Coordinator
Kento Locatelli, Software Engineer
Kimiko Medlock, Researcher
Kris Weber, Software Dev Engineer III
Kyle Grimm, Sourcing Recruiter
Lisa, HRA
Lonnie Mann, Sr. UX Designer
Lubna Al-Nasser, Senior Program Manager
Luna, SDE
Luz Granados, Marketing Manager
Mallory Kronlund, Training Specialist I
Marek Ventur, SDE
Marie Kilg, Senior Program Manager
Mark Hiew, Senior Marketing Manager
Mark Hubenthal, Applied Scientist
Marla Duncan, IT support associate II
Marlene Jarry, Risk Manager - AWS
Martin Jouvenot, Systems Architect
Matthäus Deutsch, Data Scientist
Matthew Sainsbury, SDE2
Max Dumas, Software Development Engineer
Max West, SDE
Maz Hamilton, "Director, International Operations, Audible"
Mel Sanders, Outbound Zone Lead
Melanie Henry, Senior Technical Editor
Merritt Chandler, Learning Experience Designer
Michael Kale, Software Development Engineer
Ming Luo, Software Engineer II
Mohamed Elkammar, Manufacturing Test Engineer
Mohammad Moustafa, Arabic Editor
Nashua Mohamed, Sr Program Manager
Nathan Olson, Fulfillment Associate
Nermin Wahdan, Program Manager
Nick Achatz, SecEng
Nick Smallwood, Program Manager
Nick Topper, Engineer L5
Nicole Buckenwolf, Ontologist
Nicole Ross, Sr CX Specialist
Nils Jonsson, "Sr SDE, Recruiting Engineer"
Niral, Software Engineer
Noelle Huchette, CST
Omair, Engineer
Orion S, SDE II
Patrick Bentley, Technical Trainer
Paulette Bekolo, C2CS Sr. Specialist
Phalen Kinkle, TCSS
Pierre Marieu, Software Engineer
Piper Horscroft, Software Development Engineer
Po Tsui, SDE
Priya Garg, Product Manager - Technical
Ramon Pallaske, Program Manager
Ran Ari-Gur, Sr. SDE
Randy Ackerman, Cloud Support Engineer
Rebecca, Engineer
Rikki Price, Senior Program Manager
Robin Glenn, Language Engineer
Rohith Ravi, Analyst
Rose Beverly, Media Designer
Roshni Naidu, Sr PMT
Ryan Davis, SDE
Sai Pc, SDE
Sam Makman, SDE
Sanne Bana, Seller Support Associate
Sarah, Account Manager
Sarah Ramirez, Transportation Associate
Sasha Verma, SDE II
Seyed Reza Yousefi, Economist
Shamir Tanna, Product manager
Shreyas Srinivasan, SDET
Shubhi Jain, SDE II
Simon, SDE
Sohrab Andaz, Software Engineer
Sonia Dillane, SDE
Sonia S, AWS Business Analyst II
Spencer Hall, Software Development Engineer
Sravanthi simhadri, SDE
Steph Potratz, Program Manager
Stephan Schulz, FinOps Business Partner Manager
Stephanie Houle, RC Manager II
Stephen McMurtry, Software Developer
Steven Martinez, Sr. Client Lead
Tal Eidelman, PMT III
Thena Seer, SDE
Tiffany Wagner, Loss Prevention Site Lead
Tim Pogar, Technical Sourcer
Tommy Dang, SDE
Torin Wiesler, Software Development Engineer
Trevor Austin, Software Development Engineer
Usama, Product Manager
Verjeigh Violet, Sr. Program Manager
Veronica Hilby, Investigative Specialist
Victoria Bledsoe, Senior Program Manager
Waqas, BDM
Wesley Austin, Software Development Engineer
Weston Fribley, Front-end Engineer
Whitney Burian, Software Development Engineer
Whitney Levis, Process Lead
Whitney-Rose Levis, Device Associate III
Will Perkins, Systems Engineer
William Armiros, SDE I
Yanira Gonzalez, Project Manager AWS
Yoshi Ludwig, Data Associate
Zach Weiler, SDM
Zayd Simjee, SDE 3