Amazon’s top brass planned to fight warehouse worker strikes by tarring a fired worker who organized a demonstration, according to Vice. Amazon says it fired Christian Smalls, who worked at one of the company’s warehouses in Staten Island, for violating social distancing guidelines. Smalls says his termination was retaliation for organizing a Monday strike in protest of the company’s treatment of workers during the coronavirus crisis. After meeting with CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky sent blistering notes about Smalls to others in the company, according to Vice: “He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers.” He apologized in a statement. News of the plans came the same day Bezos announced he would donate $100 million to food banks to fight the coronavirus.
Read it at Vice
