Show caption Rebecca Sheppard in the Cascades, near Seattle, where she works. Photograph: Courtesy Rebecca Sheppard Amazon Hey, Jeff Bezos: I work for Amazon – and I’m protesting against your firm’s climate inaction Later this month, more than 1,000 Amazon staffers will walk out to demand action. Rebecca Sheppard is one of the strike’s organizers Ben Tarnoff @bentarnoff Tue 10 Sep 2019 08.00 BST Share on Facebook

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Since late last year, a group of workers within Amazon have been organizing to push the company to radically reduce its carbon emissions. Yesterday, they announced a major new action: on 20 September, Amazon workers around the world will walk out of their offices to join the Global Climate Strike. So far, more than 1,000 workers have pledged to participate. The organizers have three demands. They want the company to commit to zero emissions by 2030, to have zero custom cloud computing contracts with fossil fuel companies and to spend zero dollars on funding climate-denying lobbyists and politicians.

I spoke to one of the walkout’s organizers, a 28-year-old Amazon employee in Seattle named Rebecca Sheppard. We spoke about the origins of climate organizing within Amazon, the goals of the walkout and how the campaign connects to the wider tech worker movement.

What do you do at Amazon?

I’m a senior product manager for Amazon Air. I work out of the Seattle headquarters, and I’ve been here for nearly three years.

What is Amazon Air?

In 2013, Amazon had an issue with third-party carriers getting packages to people’s homes in time for Christmas. So the company began building its own cargo airline, Amazon Air. We currently have 40 airplanes, and the plan is to expand to 70 by 2021.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, in January 2018. Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

When I first started, I worked on optimization. If you utilize each aircraft fully, you don’t need to fly as many. But eventually I became frustrated, because no matter how efficiently you’re using the aircraft, the aircraft itself remains the same. It’s still burning fossil fuels. Planes today are still unsustainable even if you’re trying to use them as efficiently as possible. And sustainability is a very personal issue for me.

How so?

I grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. It’s a coastal town so I’ve been watching hurricanes roll in my whole life. My very first driving lesson my dad had me drive through a hurricane. I grew up acutely aware of the climate crisis, because I watched the hurricanes in my hometown get worse.

How did you decide to take action on climate within Amazon?

Last year, I was feeling hopeless, unmotivated and frankly ashamed of the role I was playing at Amazon Air enabling carbon emissions. I have a beautiful three-year-old nephew, and I was afraid of what his world was going to look like in 50 years, given how much worse it had gotten in my 28 years.

Rebecca Sheppard: ‘As soon as Greta Thunberg called for a global climate strike, we wanted to know how we could help.’ Photograph: Courtesy Rebecca Sheppard

Then I heard about the shareholder resolution for Amazon to take climate action. In late 2018, a group of Amazon employees announced they would bring a resolution to the next shareholder meeting that would commit the company to develop a plan for transitioning off of fossil fuels. As employees, they had received equity in Amazon, so they had a right to submit a resolution as shareholders. This is the group that became Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ).

When I heard about the resolution, I was inspired.

What was the response from management to the announcement of the resolution?

AECJ members met with Amazon leadership in early 2019. At the first meeting, employees asked leadership when Amazon was going to publicly commit to reduce its emissions and share its carbon footprint. They said they had no plans to do either of those things.

That’s when AECJ began drafting the first version of our open letter to Jeff Bezos. The week after leadership found out this letter was being circulated internally, Amazon announced Shipment Zero, our company’s first ever commitment to reduce shipping emissions. This was a total U-turn, and it was clearly done in response to our letter. The very next day, management asked AECJ to withdraw our shareholder resolution because of Shipment Zero.

Shipment Zero commits Amazon to making 50% of its shipments net zero carbon by 2030. Shipment Zero only applies to the emissions associated with delivering packages, not with the many data centers run by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

A lot of people don’t realize the strength they can wield in their workplace. I certainly didn't

In the very same week that Amazon announced Shipment Zero, we learned from an investigative piece at Gizmodo that AWS is creating custom solutions and entering into custom contracts with oil and gas companies to use our cloud services to identify new fossil fuel reserves and to facilitate faster extraction. In other words, management told us they cared about the climate at the exact same time as they were doing deals with the fossil fuel industry.

Because of this, we refused to withdraw the resolution. Instead, we updated our open letter to Bezos to include commentary on the oil and gas contracts, and urged him to take action on the issues outlined in the resolution. We released this letter publicly in April 2019, and so far over 8,300 Amazon workers have signed it.

In May 2019, AECJ members brought the climate plan resolution to the annual shareholders meeting in Seattle. The resolution did not receive enough votes to pass, but AECJ members delivered a speech at the meeting and held a press conference. Tell me about that experience.

All of us stood up while our coworker from AECJ presented our resolution. She addressed Bezos directly and asked him to come onstage, which he declined to do. She read our request for Amazon to commit to a carbon plan and to release its carbon footprint. Then she asked everyone who supported the resolution to stand up with us. Almost everyone in the room did, not just the Amazon employees. It was a very emotional moment in what is typically a very unemotional space.

The walkout

The Amazon Spheres, part of the company’s headquarters, are seen from Sixth Avenue in Seattle. Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

Yesterday, AECJ publicly announced the next step in its campaign: a walkout by Amazon employees all over the world to join the youth-led global climate strike on 20 September. How did you put this action together?

As soon as Greta Thunberg called for a global climate strike, AECJ members wanted to know how we could help. We also needed to escalate our campaign. We’ve been seeing management listen but we haven’t seen management understand. They’re not giving us concrete commitments. They’re not feeling the urgency.

Why do a walkout? Why did you choose this tactic?

Walking out is a symbol of employees coming together. It’s also a way of celebrating how large AECJ has become, and signaling to management and to one another that this has gone on for too long. That business as usual is not cutting it.

The response so far has been incredible. Since we first announced the walkout internally last Wednesday, over 1,000 Amazon employees have pledged to walk out. And the number is growing fast.

You said that systemic change requires collective action. How does the walkout demonstrate that idea?

A lot of people don’t realize the strength they can wield in their workplace. I certainly didn’t.

Amazon is not Jeff Bezos alone. Amazon is Amazon because of the workers who work for it. It needs all of us to function, from the people in the offices writing software to the people in the warehouses packing boxes. When you realize that, you realize the power is not at the top. It’s at the bottom, collectively, with all of the people working together to keep the company running.

The statement that AECJ released yesterday to announce the walkout puts forward three climate demands for Amazon. Let’s start with the first one: you want the company to commit to zero emissions by 2030.

This is our number one request. The scientific consensus is that we need to cut global emissions to net zero by 2050 to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C. But in the US and global north, we need to cut our emissions even faster. Why? Because we have been polluting more than our fair share and we have a responsibility to take more aggressive action. We also have the resources to develop the new technologies that will be needed to facilitate the transition and to make such technologies readily accessible around the world.

Your second demand is for zero custom AWS contracts for fossil fuel companies.

Scientists have told us that the amount of oil and gas that we can safely continue to extract is zero. The fact that Amazon is not only using these fuels but partnering with companies to help them accelerate extraction and find new sources of oil is really alarming.

And your third demand is for the company to stop funding politicians and lobbyists who deny the science on climate change.

I was shocked to learn that Amazon funds climate denial. The most egregious example is the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a thinktank that has long challenged climate science. Moreover, Amazon donated to 68 members of Congress in 2018 who voted against climate legislation 100% of the time.

The Tech Worker Movement

Demonstrators hold images of Bezos near their faces during a Halloween-themed protest at Amazon headquarters over the company’s facial recognition system last year. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP

Climate isn’t the only issue that Amazon workers are organizing around. Since last year, workers have been pushing the company to stop selling AWS services to Palantir and other firms who enable US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), as well as to stop selling facial recognition software to law enforcement – a campaign now known internally as We Won’t Build It. Meanwhile, workers at Amazon warehouses in Minnesota have conducted three different strikes for better working conditions this year. What is the relationship between these actions and the work that AECJ is doing?

All of these fights are connected. I have a lot of respect for the We Won’t Build It campaign – I proudly wear its pin to work. And I have an immense amount of respect for the Minnesota workers.

When you see workers at other companies taking a stand, you want to take a stand yourself

When the workers at the Shakopee, Minnesota, fulfillment center announced they would be striking on Prime Day, AECJ gathered statements of solidarity from Amazon employees in corporate offices around the world. AECJ members then brought these statements to Shakopee personally to show their support.

If we didn’t have fulfillment workers, then I couldn’t do my job. Our work is completely dependent on theirs. And it takes a whole lot more bravery for them to speak up than it does for people like me.

What about the relationship of the AECJ to the wider tech worker movement that has emerged over the past year or two? Tech workers at a number of companies are organizing to oppose contracts with Ice and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the banner of #TechWontBuildIt. Last year at Google, workers forced management to cancel its contract with the Pentagon for Project Maven, a program that uses machine learning to improve targeting for drone strikes. Then came the Google walkout, a global work stoppage by 20,000 Googlers to protest sexism and discrimination in the workplace. How does AECJ and your upcoming walkout fit into this broader picture?

I’ve been incredibly inspired by the Google walkout and the #TechWontBuildIt campaigns. It’s like there’s been an awakening. Previously, people might’ve been comfortable looking the other way or putting their head in the sand. Not anymore. More and more people are standing up and saying: “This isn’t right.” And if one person says that, and then finds someone else who agrees with them, that’s all you need to start a movement.

When I hear about actions at other tech companies, I’m inspired. It’s a reminder that we have power. And that our power comes from standing together in solidarity. Moral fortitude is contagious. When you see workers at other companies taking a stand, you want to take a stand yourself.

If other tech workers are reading this conversation, what would you say to them? How would you persuade them to get involved?

Being a tech worker doesn’t insulate you from climate impacts.

The fulfillment workers in Minnesota are striking for bathroom breaks. We’re not asking for bathroom breaks because yes, we have bathroom breaks. Actually, most of us love our jobs. What we’re asking for is a future.

Last year, I lived on Bainbridge Island outside of Seattle. I would take a ferry into work every morning. And at one point, the wildfires were so bad I couldn’t breathe. Everyone was wearing face masks. That isn’t the world I want to live in, where we’ve poisoned the air so badly that it poisons us.