Microsoft employees demand the cancellation of all contracts with the police

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Employees also want productivity expectations to be relaxed amidst the ongoing civil unrest

OneZero has obtained and reported on a letter from Microsoft employees to the executive leadership team demanding the company cancels all its existing contracts with law enforcement agencies.

The email, which was sent on Monday and had more than 250 employees CC’d in solidarity, calls for Microsoft to support the “defunding and demilitarisation” of the police department in Seattle, where the company is headquartered and support the Black Lives Matter protest in the city. 

The letter also requests that managers at the company relax productivity expectations and implement a four-day work week amid the dual crises of Covid-19 and ongoing civil unrest protesting the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis.

“Every one of us in the CC line are either first-hand witnesses or direct victims to the inhumane responses of Seattle PD to peaceful protesting,” reads the letter, which also cites a number of local instances of police brutality and calls for employees to support the BLM movement. 

“We need awareness and empathy across every level of management asap so that the burden of educating our coworkers doesn’t fall on those of us in the middle of a public safety and mental health crisis.”

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