New York City Investigates Amazon Over Firing of Worker
31 Março 2020 - 9:18PM
Dow Jones News
By Katie Honan
New York City's human-rights watchdog is investigating
Amazon.com Inc. over allegations an employee at a Staten Island
warehouse was fired for helping to organize a walkout over work
conditions in the midst of the new coronavirus outbreak, city
officials said Tuesday.
The company fired Chris Smalls, a stock worker at the warehouse,
on Monday. The company said in a statement that Mr. Smalls violated
social-distancing guidelines, including ignoring orders to stay
home for two weeks after coming into contact with a co-worker who
had a confirmed case of Covid-19.
Athena, a coalition that represents Amazon workers, said Mr.
Smalls's termination was in retaliation for speaking out against
conditions at the warehouse and for his role in organizing the
walkout.
Walkouts occurred at several warehouses around the country on
Monday. Employees were protesting what they said were unsafe
conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Tuesday that the
city's Commission on Human Rights is investigating the allegations.
If the allegations are true, the mayor said, "that would be a
violation of our city's human-rights law, and we would act on it
immediately."
A spokeswoman for Amazon said the accusations were
unfounded.
"We did not terminate Mr. Smalls's employment for organizing a
15-person protest," the spokeswoman, Kristen Kish, said in a
statement. "We terminated his employment for putting the health and
safety of others at risk and violations of his terms of his
employment."
A spokesman for Mr. Smalls declined to comment, but on Monday
Mr. Smalls said in a statement he was "outraged and disappointed"
after being fired.
New York City has a complicated history with Amazon. In February
2019, the online retailer pulled out of a plan to build a campus in
Queens after opposition from some local elected officials and
community groups. New York state and city officials had agreed to
give $3 billion of incentives to the e-commerce giant to build the
campus and hire as many as 40,000 employees.
Mr. de Blasio has criticized Amazon's labor history and has been
critical of the company's handling of the campus plan.
"We'd all love to have a time machine and go back and figure out
how to make this work, but the fact is I actually think city
government, state government, agreed to a fair deal," Mr. de Blasio
said about a week after the company announced it wasn't opening the
new site. "We were pushing Amazon to do more for the community,
which is our job, and they just walked away."
Write to Katie Honan at Katie.Honan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 31, 2020 20:03 ET (00:03 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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