Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Amazon, Etown Workers Lose Jobs in Dot-Com Slide
The national wave of dot-com layoffs has hit Amazon and Etown, just as employees were working with CWA to organize bargaining units to bolster their job security.
At Amazon.com in Seattle, more than 1,300 jobs are expected to be cut by May, including most of the 400-person customer service center where the organizing campaign got underway last fall.
“My friends were sacrificed for Wall Street,” Zack Works, a customer service specialist who retained his job, said in a website statement. “Our goal has been to gain recognition as a union and eventually negotiate a contract. We hoped we’d be able to avoid layoffs, or at least have some input in how something like this was handled.”
Amazon made the situation even worse for employees initially by trying to force them to sign a separation agreement containing a “non-disparagement” clause, thereby preventing them from speaking out about the company’s practices. Managers said employees who refused to sign would be refused a severance package that includes 12 weeks’ pay and a $500 bonus.
The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers/CWA Local 37083 promptly issued a statement demanding the company rescind the clause, saying it trampled on workers’ free speech. The company admitted it made a mistake, and pulled the language.
The swift victory for workers showed the power of a union, even without a collective bargaining agreement, WashTech organizer and cofounder Marcus Courtney said.
“Absent the fact of organizing, this issue would have never been raised and no changes would have ever been made,” he told the Seattle Times. “Amazon doesn’t become a free-speech advocate in this case. They are only making changes because we demanded them.”"
Courtney said the union is still pressing the company to drop the rest of the separation agreement, which would bar employees from taking legal action against Amazon, among other provisions. Employees have until their last day of work to sign the papers, an interim victory for WashTech. Originally, the company demanded workers sign by Feb. 9.
At Etown.com in San Francisco, which reports on and reviews consumer electronic products, 101 employees abruptly lost their jobs when the company ran out of money Feb. 13. The laid-off workers included 13 customer service representatives who were trying to organize with the help of TNG-CWA Local 39521.
The workers were owed three weeks’ pay when they left and were offered no severance pay, Local 39521 Staff Representative Erin Tyson Poh said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure they get paid the money that’s owed them,” she said.
The company had been struggling financially for months and previously laid off 20 percent of its staff, with the largest cuts coming from the would-be bargaining unit. Still, Poh said, the company’s speedy demise came as a surprise. She urged other dot-com workers to learn from the experience.
“The main lesson is organize now, because this is the kind of thing that is very real to the sector,” she said. “If we look back in history to plants closing in the 80s, we see the people who fared better were those who had a voice — were on equal footing with management and had contracts that provided for severance and extension of health care.”
At Amazon, about 850 of the jobs cut are coming out of the Seattle operations, including customer service, distribution and the corporate offices. The rest of the cuts are being made at a distribution center in Georgia.
Some corporate office employees and customer service trainers were let go immediately after the January announcement. The last planned cuts will be made in May, when the customer service center is closed.
Amazon officials say Seattle is the most expensive of the cities in which the company operates and cost — not union organizing — is the reason for the heavy cuts there. Still, Courtney said, WashTech is looking into Amazon’s motives. “Obviously we’re concerned because the only customer service center targeted was the one involved in union organizing.”
If there is evidence that Amazon acted to quash union activity, Courtney said WashTech will file unfair labor practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
With the company’s weak financial picture and news of thousands of other dot-com layoffs, Amazon employees have had growing concerns about job security. Amazon laid off 150 workers last year and has been farming more work out to service centers in North Dakota, West Virginia and Delhi, India.
“It’s been a climate of fear for the past few weeks,” Works said in a story that appeared on the organizing campaign’s website, www.washtech.org/day2.
Employees learned of the layoffs at a mandatory, impromptu meeting called by Bill Price, Amazon’s vice president of customer service. He told workers the cuts were “painful,” but said it was “simply a matter of economics,” according to the website story.
“It’s hard to believe that the most experienced workers, the ones who have been with the company the longest, are being thrown aside so easily,” said Jen McDaeth, a customer service representative quoted in the article.
Andrew Morgan, one of the employees let go immediately, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he was told to turn in his ID badge, escorted back to his desk to collect his things, then escorted out the door. “It hurts, after three years of loyal service to get five minutes’ notice,” he said.
Amazon workers earn relatively low wages in the Seattle area — $11 to $13 an hour — but many had hopes of moving up in what appeared to be a promising company, Courtney said. “People thought, ‘I’ll get in, I’ll start in customer service and I’ll grow with the company.’ But more and more people are finding out that’s not how this industry works.”
About 70 people will remain in Seattle, taking charge of customer-service policy and workflow management. Members of the Day2 organizing drive who are among the core group, including Works, say they will continue to organize.
Alan Barclay, a Day2 member who is losing his job, said the layoffs make an even stronger case for unionization. “For the past few weeks, we’ve been living at the whims of management we may have never met,” Barclay said, quoted in a Day2 website story. “Without a contract or recognized voice, we were totally left out of the decision to close the Seattle site. We weren’t even asked for our opinions or allowed to ask questions.”
WashTech’s victories at Amazon since the layoff announcement demonstrate what a union can do for workers. That’s important, Courtney said, as WashTech works to organize other high-tech companies in Seattle, including Microsoft.
“We’re making inroads,” he said. “We’re building a constituency around collective action that will ultimately lead to collective bargaining agreements. Our goal is to build a long-term self-sustaining organization for workers in this industry.”
At Amazon.com in Seattle, more than 1,300 jobs are expected to be cut by May, including most of the 400-person customer service center where the organizing campaign got underway last fall.
“My friends were sacrificed for Wall Street,” Zack Works, a customer service specialist who retained his job, said in a website statement. “Our goal has been to gain recognition as a union and eventually negotiate a contract. We hoped we’d be able to avoid layoffs, or at least have some input in how something like this was handled.”
Amazon made the situation even worse for employees initially by trying to force them to sign a separation agreement containing a “non-disparagement” clause, thereby preventing them from speaking out about the company’s practices. Managers said employees who refused to sign would be refused a severance package that includes 12 weeks’ pay and a $500 bonus.
The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers/CWA Local 37083 promptly issued a statement demanding the company rescind the clause, saying it trampled on workers’ free speech. The company admitted it made a mistake, and pulled the language.
The swift victory for workers showed the power of a union, even without a collective bargaining agreement, WashTech organizer and cofounder Marcus Courtney said.
“Absent the fact of organizing, this issue would have never been raised and no changes would have ever been made,” he told the Seattle Times. “Amazon doesn’t become a free-speech advocate in this case. They are only making changes because we demanded them.”"
Courtney said the union is still pressing the company to drop the rest of the separation agreement, which would bar employees from taking legal action against Amazon, among other provisions. Employees have until their last day of work to sign the papers, an interim victory for WashTech. Originally, the company demanded workers sign by Feb. 9.
At Etown.com in San Francisco, which reports on and reviews consumer electronic products, 101 employees abruptly lost their jobs when the company ran out of money Feb. 13. The laid-off workers included 13 customer service representatives who were trying to organize with the help of TNG-CWA Local 39521.
The workers were owed three weeks’ pay when they left and were offered no severance pay, Local 39521 Staff Representative Erin Tyson Poh said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure they get paid the money that’s owed them,” she said.
The company had been struggling financially for months and previously laid off 20 percent of its staff, with the largest cuts coming from the would-be bargaining unit. Still, Poh said, the company’s speedy demise came as a surprise. She urged other dot-com workers to learn from the experience.
“The main lesson is organize now, because this is the kind of thing that is very real to the sector,” she said. “If we look back in history to plants closing in the 80s, we see the people who fared better were those who had a voice — were on equal footing with management and had contracts that provided for severance and extension of health care.”
At Amazon, about 850 of the jobs cut are coming out of the Seattle operations, including customer service, distribution and the corporate offices. The rest of the cuts are being made at a distribution center in Georgia.
Some corporate office employees and customer service trainers were let go immediately after the January announcement. The last planned cuts will be made in May, when the customer service center is closed.
Amazon officials say Seattle is the most expensive of the cities in which the company operates and cost — not union organizing — is the reason for the heavy cuts there. Still, Courtney said, WashTech is looking into Amazon’s motives. “Obviously we’re concerned because the only customer service center targeted was the one involved in union organizing.”
If there is evidence that Amazon acted to quash union activity, Courtney said WashTech will file unfair labor practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
With the company’s weak financial picture and news of thousands of other dot-com layoffs, Amazon employees have had growing concerns about job security. Amazon laid off 150 workers last year and has been farming more work out to service centers in North Dakota, West Virginia and Delhi, India.
“It’s been a climate of fear for the past few weeks,” Works said in a story that appeared on the organizing campaign’s website, www.washtech.org/day2.
Employees learned of the layoffs at a mandatory, impromptu meeting called by Bill Price, Amazon’s vice president of customer service. He told workers the cuts were “painful,” but said it was “simply a matter of economics,” according to the website story.
“It’s hard to believe that the most experienced workers, the ones who have been with the company the longest, are being thrown aside so easily,” said Jen McDaeth, a customer service representative quoted in the article.
Andrew Morgan, one of the employees let go immediately, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he was told to turn in his ID badge, escorted back to his desk to collect his things, then escorted out the door. “It hurts, after three years of loyal service to get five minutes’ notice,” he said.
Amazon workers earn relatively low wages in the Seattle area — $11 to $13 an hour — but many had hopes of moving up in what appeared to be a promising company, Courtney said. “People thought, ‘I’ll get in, I’ll start in customer service and I’ll grow with the company.’ But more and more people are finding out that’s not how this industry works.”
About 70 people will remain in Seattle, taking charge of customer-service policy and workflow management. Members of the Day2 organizing drive who are among the core group, including Works, say they will continue to organize.
Alan Barclay, a Day2 member who is losing his job, said the layoffs make an even stronger case for unionization. “For the past few weeks, we’ve been living at the whims of management we may have never met,” Barclay said, quoted in a Day2 website story. “Without a contract or recognized voice, we were totally left out of the decision to close the Seattle site. We weren’t even asked for our opinions or allowed to ask questions.”
WashTech’s victories at Amazon since the layoff announcement demonstrate what a union can do for workers. That’s important, Courtney said, as WashTech works to organize other high-tech companies in Seattle, including Microsoft.
“We’re making inroads,” he said. “We’re building a constituency around collective action that will ultimately lead to collective bargaining agreements. Our goal is to build a long-term self-sustaining organization for workers in this industry.”