How Amazon Workers Got Serious About Climate (and How You Can, too)

May 27, 2021·51 min·4 clips

Emily asks Jeff Bezos: 'Are you going to stand with us or watch everything we love die out?'

Alex hosts this one solo. Ayanna is off on other climate-saving work, though her voice still comes through in an interview they recorded together. The episode starts with a plain question: when climate change feels tied to powerful corporations, what can regular workers actually do? Emily Cunningham and Eliza Pan come in from that angle. They are not treated like distant experts. They are workers trying to use the leverage they have inside a big company. The shareholder resolution does not pass, but almost 30% support is a serious result, especially when anything over 5% already gets attention. Alex and Ayanna pause on what that means. The shareholders here are not described as climate activists. They are big investors and buttoned-up financial institutions that own Amazon stock, sometimes through pension funds. That matters because those investors are starting to see climate risk as a threat to the global economy and to profits. The point is not only winning the vote. Emily says the resolution helped employees organize, speak as workers and owners, and pull coworkers into a conversation that had barely been happening inside Amazon. The resolution loses formally, but it changes the room. People start asking questions. That is where the episode works best: a dry shareholder tool turns into a story about workplace power, organizing, and climate agency. The close returns to practical ground with a book recommendation and production credits.

As heard by us

Climate organizing looks different when it starts inside Amazon.

Amazon workers are the frame, but the real interest is how climate organizing takes shape when someone is still "just" an employee inside a giant company.

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Why you'd press play

If Amazon feels too big to challenge, this episode shows where pressure can still start.

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