Unlike many tech companies, Amazon doesn’t offer childcare for its employees or have onsite daycare. Now a group of Amazon employees, calling themselves Momazonians, is organizing to change that, Bloomberg reports.
A group of “hundreds of working moms” is organizing in an effort to persuade Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, to institute corporate daycare for its employees. The group isn’t even asking for onsite child care. Instead, they simply want Amazon to start offering backup childcare, which means employees have regular childcare that they pay for out of pocket, but when that falls through (like, say, when the nanny or grandma gets sick), they have an option that doesn’t require them to stay home from work. According to Bloomberg, they are arguing that providing daycare isn’t just an employee perk, it’s a good way to retain female talent.
To that end, they have been collecting anecdotal evidence showing that providing daycare or even backup daycare is a good way to support women, making it so that moms don’t have to choose between, say, caring for a sick child at home or working toward a promotion at work. It’s no surprise, as we’ve said before, as childcare in the U.S. is a nightmare, and families need all the help they can get from their employers.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Amazon emphasized that it provides “valuable benefits” to its 250,000 U.S. workers. Those include “flexible paid leave for new parents and discounts at daycare centers around the country.”
The women are scheduled to meet with senior managers in coming weeks to make their case. Perhaps they can use Patagonia as a case study for how onsite child care can pay for itself, or point to the fact that nearly all the top companies on a recent Working Mother list of 100 Best Companies offer backup childcare.
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