Microsoft employees ask CEO to support Black Lives Matter movement in leaked letter

The letter requests that the company supports Black Lives Matter Seattle, cancels contracts with he police department, and implement a four-day work week

Attendees walk past the logo of US multinational technology company Microsoft during the Web Summit in Lisbon on November 6, 2019 (PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP /AFP via Getty Images)

Some 250 Microsoft employees have signed a letter addressed to the company’s executives asking that it takes greater action in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.

The message, leaked to OneZero, requests that Microsoft formally announces its support for the movement, cancels contracts with the Seattle Police Department, and the resignation of the city’s mayor.

Microsoft’s Redmond campus, the informal name of its corporate headquarters, is in a Seattle suburb.

Entitled “Our neighborhood has been turned into a warzone,” the letter was addressed to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and executive vice president Kurt DelBene and focused on the police’s response to the protests.

“Every passing day, we feel that our fellow coworkers, managers, and leaders who live miles away outside of Seattle are severely disconnected to the violent reality thousands of people have been facing every single day since last Saturday,” the letter says.

“24/7 helicopter noise, teargassing, flashbanging, rubber bullet, gun shots, and vans/buses filled with armed law enforcement. We need leaders like yourselves to help bridge this gap of disconnection, misinformation, and complacency.”

The employees also made a list of suggestions the executives could implement:

• Condemn the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and flashbangs on peaceful protestors
• Cancel Microsoft contracts with the Seattle Police Department and other law enforcement organisations
• Support defunding and demilitarisating of the police department
• Sign the petition for the resignation of Mayor Durkan
• Support Black Lives Matter Seattle’s List of Demands
• Implement a formal 4-day work week policy
• Ensure that employees with reduced productivity because of COVID-19 will not be penalised in annual performance reviews

Although the original email was sent on behalf of only 20 employees, it quickly spread through the company with hundreds more asking to be included.

“Those who choose to support the movement in ways other than boots-on-the-ground protests have also suffered the results of the SPD response,” wrote one in an email thread reportedly seen by OneZero.

“Tear gas streams into apartments through cracks in the wall as far as a mile away. The sound of flashbangs and fired tear gas canisters reverberates through the night, past 2–3am most days this week, including last night. Worse yet is the fear and stress that these employees are dealing with; fear that has been compounded by SPD’s ever-escalating response.”

That same employee also said that they had been tear gassed three times, hit with a flashbang once, and mentioned a video that showed another company employee being put into a chokehold by Seattle police.

Microsoft directed journalists to an earlier blog post from Satya Nadella, its chief executive, in which he addressed concerns around the Black Lives Matter movement generally.

The company also said it "continue[s] to openly engage in dialogue with employees around these important topics."

Microsoft is not the only technology company to have employees ask for greater action from company leaders; Facebook employees staged a walkout over the company’s decision not to take action against inflammatory posts made by Donald Trump about the death of George Floyd. with employees saying they are “caught in an abusive relationship” with the president.

IBM today also took the decision not to develop facial recognition software following the protests, because that technology discriminates against minority faces and can be used to disproportionately target communities of colour.