It’s Firing Season at Amazon & We’re fighting Back: Rehire Edward Clarke & Alex White!

We’ve been in touch with four Planeside coworkers who were recently fired after an aircraft beacon light switched on while they were within the aircraft safety envelope preparing to pull wheel chocks away.

This is not an uncommon situation. The comms box was not working and the crew used hand signals to maintain communication with the pilot as they are trained to do but the beacon lights were switched-on early through no fault of their own.

We advised our coworkers on the appeals process and as of this week three of them have gotten their jobs back after appealing their termination to site leadership.

Alex White received an email on 2/8 stating that his employment termination has been upheld after site leadership determined that “all policies were applied properly and consistently in this case”. 

Amazon’s appeals process is inconsistent and illegitimate. Alex and his coworkers were simply standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is no justification for Alex not to be rehired along with the others.

Meanwhile, site leadership has dragged out Edward Clarke’s appeal for over a month, finally setting a date this week for his appeal hearing. For four weeks, Amazon’s spokesperson in Washington, DC has issued declarations claiming that Edward was not terminated for his organizing and outspoken support for a union at KCVG. Amazon is clearly delaying Edward’s appeal in order to build a case to attack his character and justify his termination.

In reality, none of us have job security at Amazon without a union. Management and site leadership are able to selectively enforce work rules and deny or accept appeals arbitrarily. With a union, we will have “just cause” requirements for termination and clear standards for discipline decided by those of us who actually do the work at KCVG, not management. 

We demand that Alex White and Edward Clarke are immediately rehired. We will take action in the coming weeks to build organized support against unfair terminations, retaliation and favoritism.