A senior Amazon executive has quit over the etail titan’s treatment of staff who protested against a lack of coronavirus safety measures in its warehouses.

Tim Bray has left his role as vice-president and distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services after describing the sacking of protesters as “evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture”.

He had worked for the business for five years.

Bray, a well-regarded coding engineer who is thought to have earned more than $1m (£803,000) a year, claimed in a blog post that Amazon fired the organiser of a small protest about safety conditions at a warehouse.

He suggested that Amazon had also fired office staff who had been organising a separate protest and others who had spoken out again the company on climate issues.

Bray wrote: “At that point, I snapped.

“That done, remaining an Amazon [vice-president] would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned.”

Bray added: “Firing whistleblowers isn’t just a side effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets.

“It’s evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison.”

Amazon declined to comment on Bray’s blog post or his departure.

When asked previously about the sacking of office staff, Amazon said it supports the rights of its employees to speak out, but added: “That does not come with blanket immunity.”

Amazon said last week that it expected second quarter profits to be wiped out amid plans to spend $4bn (£3.2bn) on coronavirus measures.

Boss Jeff Bezos told investors that the purchasing of PPE equipment, enhanced cleaning of its warehouse facilities, higher wages for hourly paid workers, “less-efficient” processes that allow for social distancing and investments in developing its own coronavirus testing facilities would all drag on profitability.

Amazon’s revenues have soared during the pandemic – net sales jumped 26% to $75.5bn (£61bn) in the three months to March 31 – but its business practices have come under increasing scrutiny during lockdown.

In France, the online Goliath was forced to temporarily shut six warehouses after a court ordered it to stop all but essential deliveries.

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