This doesn’t seem like a technicality. Did you read the article? They used Amazon’s name for their group. They literally named it, “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice”.
Sorry, some employees organized?
That's it?
That's the whole story?
No one was harmed? No regulators were mislead?
It's actually quite reasonable for the people to find out about something like this and publicly reach out to make sure these companies are aware of the laws around stuff like "don't retaliate against employees acting in the public interest."
And surprise, if corporate sympathizers misrepresents acts of public service as "impersonation," it is perfectly reasonable to call them out for their BS. We all know no one's concerned about impersonation risks. They're furious about employees speaking up.
I don’t think either the employees or company are doing anything illegal here but certainly using the company’s name without permission is grounds for termination and usually in employee agreements.
Very critically, they weren't fired, which would be the typical retaliation. "Having a conversation with HR" does not qualify as retaliation.
"He said, she said" does not qualify as evidence.
There is simply no evidence that anything news worthy occurred.
They are Amazon employees. If they'd called it "Amazon for Climate Justice", then that would be representing as the company, but I don't think it's wrong for them to accurately label themselves.
You can figure that out beforehand by getting internal HR or external legal advice.
In general I’d be surprised if this isn’t covered by the employee agreement. I don’t think these employees did anything illegal but they probably did break that agreement and could face termination.