Culture

Amazon Has Been Caught Putting A Job Ad Up For A Spy To Sniff Out Unions

When being the richest man in the world isn't enough, hire some snitches.

by Michelle Rennex  2 September 2020
amazon job ad spy union

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Just last week we learned that the richest man in the world got a little richer when Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos’, net worth reached a whopping $200 billion.

While the rest of the world continues to struggle through life thanks to a recession-causing pandemic, Jeff Bezos’ wealth grew by $48 billion in just three months. But because being the richest person in the world is not enough, Amazon have now been caught posting a job ad for an “Intelligence Analyst”, which sounds innocent enough.

But after reading the job description closer, you soon come to realise that what Amazon are really looking for is an internal spy who is willing to sniff out any unions forming in the business.

The horrifying job ad has since been deleted by Amazon, but was captured and shared to Twitter by user Joe Slowik before it could be removed.

While the job ad does note that the Intelligence Analyst would be responsible for tracking external threats too, the internal threat of unionisation is mentioned three times throughout the ad.

According to the archived post and Slowik’s screenshot, Amazon were on the hunt for an analyst who would be able to inform attorney stakeholders of “labour organising threats against the company” and any “activities connected to corporate campaigns (internal and external) against Amazon”.

Just a few months ago, Amazon fired warehouse supervisor, Christian Smalls, for organising a staff walkout over safety concerns at the start of the pandemic, so it’s very well-known that Amazon is against unionisation.

But to very clearly spell out that you’re looking for an internal spy to report on staff interested in securing better wages and conditions really is next-level – especially when the company is literally owned and run by the richest man in the world.

Since the job ad faced major criticism after being posted into a number of labour groups, Amazon pulled the posting from their job page.

In response, Leah Seay, a spokesperson for the company explained that “the job post was not an accurate description of the role—it was made in error and has since been corrected.”

But despite Forbes asking Seay about what in the ad was an “error” and whether the job had been reposted with the “correct” description elsewhere, the spokesperson did not respond.