Overview
- On Thursday, three Amazon software engineers — Patrick Schloesser, Darius Irani and Liesl Wigand — filed a complaint with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights accusing Amazon of illegally investigating and threatening them for testifying in favor of data‑center regulation.
- The engineers say they were each called into separate Employee Relations meetings on June 10 and told the company was investigating their council testimony and that the probe could lead to disciplinary action up to termination.
- Amazon says it opened an internal inquiry to see whether the employees spoke as company representatives rather than private citizens and denies that it threatened to fire them, saying any mention of termination was taken out of context.
- The dispute followed the Seattle City Council’s unanimous June 9 vote to impose a one‑year moratorium on new large data centers so the city can study environmental, infrastructure and community impacts.
- If the Office for Civil Rights finds reasonable cause under Seattle’s Fair Employment Practices Ordinance, it can order remedies such as reinstatement, back pay and damages, a result that could shape how tech companies handle employee civic speech and data‑center debates.