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FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015  
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Open Letter to Former and
Current Amazon Employees
recent New York Times article about the corporate culture and
employment practices at Amazon has rightly raised concerns among
the general public. While claiming that he did not recognize the
company described in the article, Jeff Bezos nonetheless urged all
Amazon employees to read it and to raise any concerns directly with him and with
Amazon’s Human Resources Department.

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That is a welcome first step, but it is not enough. As the Times article makes clear,
the demands that Amazon places on its employees can be especially difficult for
those employees who are responsible for raising children or caring for ill relatives.
In America today, those employees are disproportionately women. The Times article
also reports that Amazon does not have a single woman on its top leadership team,
and that its workforce is heavily male. The metrics, as Amazon would say, are clear.
This gender inequality is not unique to Amazon but Amazon now has a unique
opportunity to confront and address it by applying the same tools that have made it
so successful in the marketplace: vision, innovation, and leadership.

Amazon employees who believe they were unlawfully
penalized because of their decision to have children,
or because they were caring for a sick relative or
recovering from an illness of their own, can contact us at
GenderEqualityAmazon@aclu.org by October 1st, 2015,
to explore the possibility of legal representation.
For over 95 years, the ACLU has fought for the rights of all Americans to live and
work with dignity and fairness. Our earliest work focused largely on the rights of
workers to organize and remedy workplace injustices. The ACLU has also been a
leader in rooting out gender discrimination in the workplace. While we have made
much progress in women’s rights since then, we are continuing to work to ensure
that America’s employers treat women and men with fairness and equality.
And to all of the workers at Amazon, we wish to congratulate you and salute
you for your contributions to one of America’s most important businesses and
employers. We hope that Amazon will continue to use its innovation and vigor to
pursue fairness and justice that define America.

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director, ACLU

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