Amazon has deleted two job listings posted to its corporate employment website detailing “intelligence analyst” roles that involved, among other duties, monitoring “labor organizing threats” within the company. The listings, which were posted days ago, first began circulating on Twitter earlier today, before Amazon removed them in response to widespread outcry on social media.
The company now claims the listings were not accurate representations of the roles, according to CNBC. “The job post was not an accurate description of the role — it was made in error and has since been corrected,” an Amazon representative said in a statement, although Amazon does not appear to be offering any information as to how the listings were inaccurate.
The job listings were for positions within Amazon’s global security operations department, specifically within the Global Intelligence Program. One was for an intelligence analyst and the other for a senior intelligence analyst, both out of an Amazon office in Phoenix, Arizona. The role was described in one now-deleted listing as “vital to ensuring that Amazon operations leadership have access to actionable intelligence that informs decision making on a global scale.” Part of that effort, as the listing explained, involves “engaging and informing [executive leadership] on sensitive topics … including labor organizing threats against the company.”
None of Amazon’s contract, warehouse, or corporate workforces are unionized, and the company has long exhibited anti-union sentiments through policies and actions taken against former employees. Amazon has been known to distribute anti-union videos to Whole Foods locations, and earlier this year, it was reported to be using a heat map to monitor Whole Foods stores throughout the country to track a potential unionization campaign.
The company has also fired workers, like New York City warehouse worker and walkout organizer Chris Smalls, after those workers publicly criticized the company or, like in Smalls’ case, helped organize labor actions. Amazon has claimed it does not retaliate against employees and fired Smalls and others, including employees who criticized Amazon’s climate record and warehouse worker conditions during COVID-19, for violations of its corporate policies. Shortly after Smalls’ termination, notes from a meeting of Amazon executives published by Vice News revealed a plan to smear Smalls as unintelligent and inarticulate and use him to discredit the company’s growing pro-labor movement.