ACLU wants to hear from Amazon employees who feel mistreated

MYNorthwest—Enough concern has been raised over the well-being of Amazon employees that the American Civil Liberties Union is stepping in.

The ACLU ran a full-page advertisement in Friday’s edition of The Seattle Times, asking for Amazon employees who believe they were penalized for having children, being ill, or caring for another to come forward.

The decision to run the ad follows a New York Times article that described life in the major corporation as less-than-desirable.

“As the Times article makes clear … those employees are disproportionately women,” the ad reads. “The Times article also reports that Amazon does not have a single woman on its top leadership team, and that its workforce is heavily male. The metrics, as Amazon would say, are clear.”

The New York Times article raised a number of questions, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero told KIRO Radio. Though Amazon is one of “America’s great businesses,” he said the company still has rules to follow.

“Every tech company and every employer has to subscribe to certain rules of the road,” he said. “There was enough in the Times article to make us scratch our heads.”

The advertisement in the Seattle Times is an invitation to anyone who has felt wronged by the company, Romero explained. Though Amazon has “a good track record,” Romero said he has heard anecdotes and read some information about unforgiving work environments.

It’s not the first reaction to the Times article. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos responded and said the story does not reflect that of the company’s culture. He invited anyone who has felt wronged to reach out to Amazon’s human resources department.

But the ACLU is not trying to attack corporate culture. Romero understands there are employers who can be tough, there are bosses who aren’t nice. That isn’t unlawful, he explained. However, there are certain rights workers are entitled to, no matter what level they are.

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Did Jeff Bezos not give enough money to the Democrat Party or what?

This feels a lot like a staged event with a slow drip of daily outrage to turn lofos against Amazon and the tech industry in general. As someone who used to work in video games and who still has many friends in the tech industry-working hard and “in crunch” is the pretty much the norm. What is also the norm are good salaries, generous benefits and plenty of “progressive” ideas that have been incorporated into said benefits. Seattle isn’t going through another tech boom and real estate bubble because tech workers are mad as hell and want to unionize. Unionizing game artists and programmers has been tossed around for years but has never gained ground. My fear, since 9 outta 10 likely voted for Obama and/or are California transplants, unionization at some point may actually happen.

Can you imagine the protest marches? Everyone would have an iPhone or iPad of some variety, be wearing skinny jeans and retro gamer T-shirts, with hipster beards or at least have one pastel color in their hair, bespeckled with thick black glasses and tattoos, carrying customized Timbuk2 bags and riding fancy commuter bikes from REI.

Yeesh.