Story at a glance:
- More than 20 Blue Origin employees, both former and current, are speaking up about the workplace culture.
- The employees did not, and still do not, feel safe flying with Blue Origin.
- Bezos’s competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic compromised safety measures, the employees allege. The company denies it.
A group of 21 of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin employees, both former and current, are speaking up about the workplace culture.
While Bezos is competing against other billionaires in a space race, the company he founded is allegedly rife with sexism and lack of safety concerns, those 21 employees allege, according to their letter.
America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.
On Thursday, employees said they do not feel safe flying with Blue Origin, some claiming that safety concerns were suppressed in developing the rockets to match Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.
“Competing with other billionaires — and ‘making progress for Jeff’ — seemed to take precedence over safety concerns that would have slowed down the schedule,” Alexandra Abrams, the former head of Blue Origin employee communications, co-wrote with 20 anonymous current and former Blue Origin employees.
In 2018, the same year she was fired, Abrams spoke with CBS regarding the more than 1,000 safety concerns employees raised specifically having to do with the rockets’ power.
“In 2018, when one team lead took over, the team had documented more than 1,000 problem reports related to the engines that power Blue Origin’s rockets, which had never been addressed,” the letter stated.
Five of the anonymous employees told CBS that development on Blue Origin was being handled smoothly until Bezos became impatient, seeing his rivals were surpassing him.
Abrams and the other employees also cited female employees who faced demeaning actions from leadership — they used derogatory words like “baby girl” and “baby doll” — and she was asked to roll out tougher terms of agreement to make it more difficult to call out discrimination or resolve matters in court.
Alexandra Abrams, a former head of employee communications for Blue Origin, is speaking out against the company to @LaurieSegall.
“You cannot create a culture of safety and a culture of fear at the same time. They are incompatible.” pic.twitter.com/JHuFY3cjcs
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) September 30, 2021
One male executive with close ties with Bezos was let go after evidence revealed he groped a woman, but prior to the incident, new female hires were told to stay away from him, CBS reported.
A Blue Origin representative has denied rumors of lack of safety concerns and told Insider the company does not tolerate harassment and would investigate the claims.
Changing America has reached out to Blue Origin for comment.
In the company’s explanation as to why Abrams got fired, she repeatedly ignored warnings about the export-control regulations, something Abrams told CBS that she was never warned about.
“Many of us have spent our careers dreaming of helping to launch a crewed rocket into space and seeing it safely touch back down on Earth,” the letter said. “But when Jeff Bezos flew to space this July, we did not share his elation. Instead, many of us watched with an overwhelming sense of unease. Some of us couldn’t bear to watch at all.”
“If this company’s culture and work environment are a template for the future Jeff Bezos envisions, we are headed in a direction that reflects the worst of the world we live in now, and sorely needs to change,” the letter added.
READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA
FAUCI GRILLED AND PRESSED TO RESIGN ON CONTROVERSIAL TALK SHOW
NASA REPORTS MULTIPLE FIREBALLS HURTLING THROUGH THE SKY OVER US
MAN DROWNS WITH WINNING LOTTERY TICKET
AMERICAN AIRLINES PASSENGER CLIMBS ONTO WING OF PLANE AS IT TAXIS ON RUNWAY
VACCINATED COUPLE DIE OF COVID-19 HOLDING HANDS
changing america copyright.
