Amazon’s crackdown on employee climate-change protesters is a teachable moment on employee speech rights

Earlier this year, Amazon threatened to fire two employees who spoke out against the company’s stance on climate change. In addition, the company also issued a new employee communications policy.

The protest started last April when a group calling itself Amazon Employees for Climate Justice published a letter signed by more than 8,700 employees. It called on Amazon to adopt a company-wide plan to address climate change. As the protests intensified, Amazon ultimately reacted with the new policy and the job threats.

What legal issues do these employee protests, and Amazon’s reaction, raise?

Kate Bischoff and I had the pleasure of guesting on the XpertHR Podcast to share our thoughts. You can listen below, or in your podcast app of choice.