Amazon executive says he quit to protest employee firings

AP 

NEW YORK — An Amazon executive said he quit his job at the online-retail giant to protest the firing of employees who spoke up about the conditions inside the company’s warehouses and its record on climate change.

Tim Bray, a vice president at the company, wrote in a blog post that he left his job last week “in dismay” after Amazon fired several workers who publicly criticized the company. He said the firings were “evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture.”

Amazon, which is based in Seattle, declined to comment.

Among those fired was a New York warehouse worker who led a strike last month, pushing Amazon for more protections for workers against the new coronavirus. At the time, Amazon said the worker was fired for not obeying social-distancing rules.

Bray, who said he worked at Amazon’s cloud business for more that five years, said he brought up the firings internally at the company.

“That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised,” he wrote. “So I resigned.”