Amazon reportedly threatened to fire employees who spoke out against company policies

• Amazon sent emails warning of potential termination to employees who spoke out against the company's environmental policies, according to a report by the Washington Post.
• The emails accused the employees of violating its external communications policy.
• Amazon spokesperson Jaci Anderson told the Post that its external communications policy "is not new and we believe is similar to other large companies," and that workers are encouraged to resolve issues internally.
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Amazon sent threatening emails to employees who spoke out against the company's environmental policies, according to a report by the Washington Post.

Amazon reportedly sent the emails in November to two employees who were quoted in an October Post article, in which they criticized the company's cloud computing business for practices that they said aided oil- and gas-company exploration.

The emails accused the employees, Maren Costa and Jamie Kowalski, of violating Amazon's external communications policy and said future violations could "result in formal corrective action, up to and including termination of your employment with Amazon." The Post said it reviewed the email sent to Costa, and that Kowalski acknowledged receipt of a similar letter and declined to comment further.

Costa said Amazon's human resources department met with her before she received the letter.

"It was scary to be called into a meeting like that, and then to be given a follow-up email saying that if I continued to speak up, I could be fired," she told the Post.

Amazon spokesperson Jaci Anderson told the Post that its external communications policy "is not new and we believe is similar to other large companies," and that workers are encouraged to resolve issues internally and suggest "improvements to how we operate through those internal channels."

Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

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