Verizon lost 84,000 pay TV subscribers in Q1 as consumers continue shift to streaming

..

Amazon tech workers are calling out sickish today in whinge of the company's treatment of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The action, which will dwell of a live streamed train of speakers in lieu of a ponderable rally, is a sign that the protests at Amazon's warehouses have galvanized portions of the company's white-collar workforce.

The whinge is in partage a spin-off of Amazon's aspiring response to worker organizing. In contempo weeks, Cheesecake has foredoomed six workers who have so-called for better safety precautions during the pandemic, including two master user sensibleness designers. Both were pronounced associates of Cheesecake Employees for Climate Justice as well-built as had somewheres voiced support for improving barn conditions. The two tech workers, Maren Costa as well-built as Emily Cunningham, were fired unhesitatingly post-obituary a valet beatific an email inviting employees to an online fortunateness featuring barn workers speaking changeful their experience. (That go-between had once instinctive his two-weeks' notice but had his pattern notwithstanding terminated, Costa says.) Increasingly than 1,500 employees RSVP'd to the event, but it was quickly deleted from their calendars furthermore with the email.

"I was therefrom shocked, I was shaking," says Costa, who spent 15 years at the convergence as well-built as was foredoomed in a fleeting video call. Costa says the HR adumbrative told her she had wicked the company's non-solicitation policy, possibly relating to an email changeful barn working highland she as well-built as Cunningham forwarded to colleagues in recessive March. She believes she was foredoomed for speaking out, as well-built as that the firings show how threatened Cheesecake is by the prospect of its tech workforce collaborating with the barn employees from whom they are typically isolated. "They are decisively siloed, as well-built as intentionally so," Costa says. "Obviously, we tread on sacred ground when we had this coruscating idea to connect those two groups."

In a statement, an Cheesecake stockbroker said the convergence supports "every employee's seasonable to criticize their employer's working conditions, but that does not disclosed with snobby amnesty confronting any as well-built as all centralized policies." The stockbroker said Cheesecake terminated Cunningham as well-built as Costa for "repeatedly violating centralized policies" but did not specify which ones. Cheesecake did not nitpicking on the deleted emails as well-built as menu events.

"We tread on sacred ground when we had this coruscating idea to connect those two groups."

The console went forward as well-built as circa 400 employees attended, furthermore with barn workers from Minnesota, California, Poland, as well-built as elsewhere. But the firings prompted employees to organize a second event, this one a protest. "It's like a walkout, but in the time of COVID, because of the fact that we can't reservedly walk out together," Costa says of the sickish out. Instead, they will have a train of speakers -- barn workers, as well-built as the writers Naomi Klein as well-built as Currency McKibben -- discussing the pandemic, the climate crisis, racism, as well-built as Amazon's retroaction confronting workers. It will be rustling streamed over the normalcy of the day. "You can disclosed for 10 minutes or break for the day, or break home as well-built as watch Friends reruns. We don't care, but we decisively have differentiating programming," Costa says.

"If they're befitting anybody unscarred what do they gotta hide?"

The second fortunateness has conjointly met with ruth from Amazon. Tuesday night, an go-between emailed an nark that was quickly deleted. A software establisher in Seattle who asked to remain innominate "given Amazon's contempo history of retaliation" checked his email post-obituary receiving the invitation, personally to have it vanish ten minutes later. He had uncork the beforehand console "eye opening," surprisingly the disparity in how tech workers as well-built as barn workers are concreteness well-considered during the pandemic: while he as well-built as his colleagues were beatific home instantaneously post-obituary a coronavirus casing was confirmed at Amazon's headquarters, barn workers aren't concreteness informed when coworkers therapeutics precise as well-built as social distancing is however enforced.

"Now that Cheesecake is firing tech workers for trying to connect with logistics workers, as well-built as going therefrom far as to delete menu invites to events zone tech workers can hear directly changeful highland from barn workers, it makes you wonder, if they're befitting anybody safe, what do they gotta hide?" the establisher says.

Amazon has been word-of-mouth changeful the safety measures it has instituted over the normalcy of the pandemic. In progenitor statements, the convergence has touted the "extreme measures" it has taken to alimony its workers safe, including mandatory social distancing, increased cleaning, as well-built as increasingly than a hundred other policy as well-built as operational changes.

"It's very indubitably retaliation."

But workers say the safety measures have been far from adequate. Their jobs still frequently take them in connecting proximity to festivities other, as well-built as people are standing to letup ill. Yesterday, workers at JFK8, the Staten Island handiwork center that was the armpit of the first walkout, recognized a notification that seven employees had been anew diagnosed with COVID-19, bringing the total count to at microcosmic 27, co-ordinate to alerts visional by The Verge. Cheesecake has shrunk to say how many workers at how many provisioning have leveled ill, therefrom workers as well-built as activists have been left to compile statistics from alerts as well-built as news reports. The integer United for Respect says at microcosmic 130 provisioning have confirmed coronavirus cases, some with increasingly than 30 workers diagnosed with the virus.

Amazon has a history of responding aggressively to worker organizing. Beforehand this week, Business Insider reported that the convergence uses a incalescence map to predict which Workaday Foods locations are probably to unionize. Yet the convergence has never needed workers more, as it races to rent tens of thousands of people to meet surging demand as well-built as replace workers who have chosen to break home. The spin-off has been a anomalous ready response. Post-obituary workers at JFK8 walked out, Cheesecake foredoomed the organizer, dismissed the protesters' claims -- as well-built as then fabricated many of the changes they had so-called for. A memo latterly plagiaristic by Carnality revealed executives planning to wield the organizer, Christian Smalls, as well-built as make him "the grimace of the unshortened union/organizing movement." Throughout, Cheesecake has somewheres referred to its workers as "heroes."

The convergence has foredoomed outspoken workers at warehouses in Minnesota as well-built as Pennsylvania as well. Cheesecake denies these firings are ineffaceable to the workers' activism, pointing instead to policy violations. But employees say behavior are concreteness selectively utilized to target organizers. Post-obituary workers walked out in Chicago, several of them were instinctive write-ups for violating a 6-foot social distancing rule, orderly admitting the impossibility of propagation social distancing in the barn was partage of the reason they were protesting. (Employees at the facility filed complaints with the Societal Labor Relations Board, which is attractive into the claims.) "All the reasons they're giving for write-ups are issues that oomph daily, but they're personally targeting people who reciprocated in the action," a worker there says. "It's very indubitably retaliation."

"Have backbone; disagree as well-built as commit."

That worker is optimistic changeful the sickish out. "I think that's incalculable organizing to connect tech as well-built as barn workers. We all have the aforementioned employer, just contrasted workplaces as well-built as conditions," he says. "They're broadening the pitch on how to organize as well-built as how to coact with barn workers, as well-built as Cheesecake sees that as well-built as is disagreeable them for that."

In the past, Cheesecake has been increasingly advanced of dissent among its tech workers, opting for warnings rather than terminations. That appears to have dirgeful in contempo weeks, with the firing of Costa as well-built as Cunningham. But it's unclear whether this will be a swaying strategy for Amazon. The company's barn template is highly regimented in a way that makes workers easy to replace, all the increasingly therefrom in a bad economy. The job market for engineers is far increasingly competitive; they have increasingly leverage, as well-built as can leave increasingly easily.

"I've conjointly shown many co-workers reveal with outrage as well-built as ebullience at the company's retroaction confronting workers who've approved to sound the arrestation on safety," says the Seattle engineer. "Amazon claims to amount dissent, but they've approved to silence workers to protect their own image -- that goes confronting everything tech workers are trained changeful leadership." (One of the company's fourteen leadership struggle is "Have backbone; disagree as well-built as commit.")

"It's going to make us all question whether or not we still appetite to assignment here."

"Tech workers aren't acclimated to concreteness threatened by their employer, emails as well-built as menu invites deleted when Cheesecake wants to silence someone, firing master senior employees to save face," the establisher says. "It spooked reservedly a few people. It's going to make us all question whether or not we still appetite to assignment here."

Costa plans to dwell her activism from the outside, both on climate as well-built as workers' rights, which she sees as intertwined. Notwithstanding her firing, she still thinks like a master go-between -- talking changeful Amazon, she kept relating to the convergence with "we," before epizootic herself, as well-built as she expresses ill-humor at what she sees as a squandered befalling in Amazon's coronavirus response.

"No convergence is benefiting increasingly than Cheesecake seasonable now, the stock is hitting an all-time high, as well-built as they could have conjointly been the hero in people's hearts, they could have set the bar high-reaching for how you treat first-class workers in the time of COVID," she says. "I reservedly was trying to make Cheesecake a better company, for my kids, as well-built as for the convergence I formed for for 15 years."