I Was Fired For Telling The Truth About Amazon. I Made Sure They Won’t Forget Me!

Yahoo.com, By Sarah Rense-ESQUIRE, Posted June 19th 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has already altered daily life beyond recognition. It will shape our lives for years to come, mostly in ways that are impossible to predict, let alone understand. Esquire asked twenty people to share their experiences in the first few months of the outbreak. Each of their first-person accounts is a reassurance that none of us are facing this alone. Check out the full list here.

You want to call us “essential,” you’ve got to think about our health. Our health is just as essential.

Just like this country is playing catch-up now because we weren’t prepared—the same thing happened at the warehouse. In the middle of March, we actually had a party with a DJ and a popcorn machine. I was like, “Where’s the caution?” There was none. There was no safety. It was business as usual.

On March 24, my colleague tested positive. We were both supervisors, process assistants. There was no transparency. Management was told not to tell our employees, but I couldn’t stand for that. I’d built relationships with these people. I saw them more than I saw my own kids, so for me not to say anything was just insanity. So my coworker and I came back to the building off the clock, on our own free will, and we sat in the cafeteria break room and told the truth. And that’s when we started to form a coalition.

• “He’s not smart, or articulate”: Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky on Smalls, in leaked notes from a meeting of senior leadership that included Jeff Bezos
• “Disgraceful,” “immoral and inhumane”: How New York attorney general Letitia James described Smalls’s firing

The front-liners, the first responders—we see that there needs to be a change in the balance of power. Capitalism profits off of lower- and middle-class people, especially during this time, when it’s life or death. And these billionaires, they’re still making money, yet they can’t protect their workforce. I have no respect, man. They should be ashamed of themselves. We can’t have this happen again. We cannot.

I heard that I’m “not smart, or articulate.” That was funny to me. For someone who’s not smart or articulate, I sure managed to bring the world to my home. For someone who makes twenty-­five dollars an hour to be talking to the richest man in the world, that means that I’m speaking the truth. It cost me my career, but it was worth it.