But they simply did not warn anyone, removed the minimum pay, lowered all the ratios." For more on the protest, check out the Solidarity Center Amazon Union Organizers Forced to Pick Up Cigarette Butts With union organizing heating up at Amazon, the company is retaliating. VICE has a shocking story of one such instance: Last week, Amazon transferred Ashley Mercer, an outspoken union organizer and warehouse worker in Liverpool, New York, to a solitary job outside her warehouse picking up trash, broken glass, and cigarette butts. "Approved for 10 hours parking lot clean-up," an Amazon job accommodation report for Mercer says. Mercer, who is pregnant and at the end of her second trimester, said her manager gave her a trash bag and sent her outside without water or sunscreen on May 11, as the heat climbed into the 80s. On the same day, Amazon also suspended her partner, Jason Main, another vocal union organizer.