Inside Amazon, concerns about diversity flare up
SEATTLE — Amazon on Friday tried to quell concerns among employees about sexual harassment accusations against an executive, sending an email to its staff saying the company would review its policies to ensure that “they are doing their job to provide a harassment-free workplace.”
The email is the first broad internal communication by Amazon since Roy Price, who oversaw Amazon Studios, left the company this week after details of the accusations became public. A lawyer for the woman who has made the accusations said Amazon previously investigated and knew all the details about the incident, which happened in 2015.
Amazon’s handling of Price has set off confusion, debate and finger-pointing inside the company, according to two employees. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality policies, said numerous employees were heatedly discussing the timing of Price’s departure.
Some current and former employees are suggesting that the scarcity of women at the upper echelons of Amazon could have made the company more lenient toward Price until his actions became a public relations embarrassment.
Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman, declined to comment.
The incident involving Price occurred in 2015 when he was in a car with Isa Dick Hackett, a Hollywood producer. She told investigators for Amazon that Price made unwanted sexual advances toward her.
Price’s career at Amazon continued until last week, when Hackett shared the details of the incident publicly for the first time, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. Amazon suspended him the day the article appeared, and he left the company Tuesday.
Amazon’s recent actions took place in the middle of a firestorm over revelations in the New York Times and the New Yorker about another entertainment industry figure, Harvey Weinstein, who has been accused of decades of sexual harassment and abuse. Hackett, for one, has said she was emboldened to go public with her story by the willingness of Weinstein’s accusers to speak up.
But there is confusion among some Amazon employees about why Price did not lose his job in 2015 after the company learned of Hackett’s accusations. One consequence Price faced after the incident was being told to be careful how much alcohol he drank at work functions, according to a third employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality policies. The employee was briefed on the decision.
Some of the frustration inside the company has been directed at Jeff Blackburn, the Amazon senior vice president who directly managed Price. Blackburn sent the email to Amazon’s film and television employees Friday, and it was more broadly distributed by other executives to their groups.
In his email, Blackburn said Amazon was “taking this situation, and the general issue of sexual harassment, very seriously.” He said it was not appropriate to share personnel details publicly, but said that Price’s departure “followed new information that surfaced last week, as well as other factors.” His email did not describe the new information.
The pinnacle of Amazon is an elite group known as the “S-team,” roughly 16 or so senior executives, fewer than a dozen of whom report directly to Jeff Bezos, the company’s chief executive. Just one member of the S-team is a woman, Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of human resources, according two of the three employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Like other technology companies, Amazon has described improving the diversity of its workforce as an important company goal. In a report on company diversity, Amazon says 61 percent of its workforce and 75 percent of its managers are men. Those figures, though, include the huge numbers of workers in Amazon’s warehouses.
In August, at a staff meeting for Amazon employees, Bezos was asked about the lack of diversity — implying gender and race — on his senior leadership team. Amazon employees applauded loudly at the question.
Bezos replied that diversity was important at Amazon, according to two of the employees who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. But Bezos said that adding more diversity to the leadership team would happen slowly because of low turnover in its ranks — an answer that left many employees disappointed.