Did Amazon Solicit Donations to Help Pay Worker Sick Leave?

After being called out for its approach to supporting seasonal and contract workers during times of crisis, the retail giant made some edits.

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In early March 2020, amid the COVID-19 coronavirus disease outbreak that would later grow into a pandemic, the massive retail and delivery company Amazon launched the Amazon Relief Fund, which among other things, offers grants to contract and seasonal workers so they can receive sick pay if they contract the coronavirus.

The $25 million fund established by Amazon sparked an online backlash after a liberal newsletter pointed out that seasonal and contract workers would have to file an application to receive the funds, and that Amazon, a behemoth corporation whose founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, solicited public donations for the program.

Anger over the idea that a famously profitable corporation was soliciting donations from the public to fund sick leave for some of its workforce during a pandemic was initiated by reporting from Popular Information, described as a "newsletter about politics and power." The letter's founder, Judd Legum, posted this Twitter thread on March 24, 2020:

We reached out to Amazon for comment and received the following statement:

Bethania Palma is a journalist from the Los Angeles area who started her career as a daily newspaper reporter and has covered everything from crime to government to national politics. She has written for ... read more