Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) went against the worker safety laws the moment it decided to lay off an employee that protested about the way it responded to COVID-19. It is also a move described as having gone contrary to the New York State’s whistle-blower law. Reports indicate that the employee known as Christian Smalls had been one of the employees working in the company’s Staten Island warehouse.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken away many lives as it continues spreading like wildfire. Major cities have been shut down with the economy suffering a huge deal. Learners have to live with the uncertainty about the future of their studies. Most of the governments are concerned about consolidating economies, but they believe human lives should be given priority.
Amazon was not impressed with the employee, and that was considering that it saw him as the cause of the resultant unrests by its workers. It had seen it fit to exact the decision to fire the employee, something that has been criticized by many in the country.
It is indeed true that the employee’s incitement had led to an employees’ walkout in the previous month. It was a challenging time for the business giant considering it had to weigh on whether or not to give in to the demands of the employees. They wanted it to close down the facility for quite a while in efforts to sanitize it. The workers had learned about the case of one worker who had been diagnosed with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. It was a matter that sent spasms of fear among them, and they organized the walkout to push the company to act.
Smalls had been the voice of reason calling upon the business guru to do something to safeguard employees. According to him, Amazon had, at that point, not done the necessary to safeguard workers from the scary and fast-spreading virus.
Amazon had come to its defense, making claims that it had all the grounds to fire Smalls. It held on to the claim that the employee deserved to be laid off, alleging that he had flouted social distancing guidelines. The business also claimed that the worker did not conform to its quarantine order by deciding to join the protest.
