[Editor’s note: This story has been edited from its original version to include information provided by Amazon.]

If you’re a long-time Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) shareholder, I’m sure you’ve learned to tune out the news whenever it revolves around how the company treats — or should I say mistreats — its employees. That’s because Amazon stock has made you so much money that turning a blind eye is the only reasonable choice to make.

Or is it?

ESG-related issues have become a movement in the investment community in recent years. Millennials are especially dialed into what’s going on in this area. Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government suggests that socially responsible investments account for $26 trillion, approximately a quarter of the professionally managed assets worldwide.

Millennials continue to put their money where their mouths are.  

“The Gen-Z and Millennial generation is extremely misunderstood,” said Brandon Krieg, co-founder and CEO of Stash, an app focused on micro-investing. “They do care about activism and the brands that they agree with.”

Which brings me back to Amazon’s treatment of its employees.

No Problem With AMZN

Business Insider contributor Julie Bort writes about technology for the publication. Part of her role has been to collect war stories from people working in the industry. Her most recent article — the title is too long for me to mention — examines how the company makes it really difficult for parents to balance work and a family.

So much so, 1,800 mothers working at Amazon have formed “Momazonians,” a group that has become dedicated to convincing the company to introduce backup daycare services for their kids. (Ed’s note: The Momazonians group has been around for a while, mainly as a place for working mothers to swap baby items, set up play dates and more.)

The rationale is simple: If I have to choose between my children and Amazon, I’m going to pick my child every time. However, if I know I have backup daycare services, I’m better able to do both.

“Until you have kids, it’s all about: are you delivering something on time?” a mom told Bort. But once an employee has kids, particularly women who become moms, they may “slowly notice they get assigned projects that are less important, are slowly sidelined.”

So, even if mothers want to work hellish hours to help Jeff Bezos conquer the world, in many cases, if they can’t get backup daycare, eventually they’ll hit a company-imposed glass ceiling.

Bort goes on to suggest that the pressure is so intense at Amazon that women with kids do everything they can to hide that fact, lest they get demoted to the “B” team.

Amazon, for its part, says it provides some of the best benefits in the tech industry.

“Amazon actually offers a better-than-average slate of family-friendly benefits, compared with corporate America at large,” Bort wrote after talking with the company itself. “It offers up to six weeks of paternity leave, 20 weeks of maternity leave — which can be shared between parents — and returning moms can come back part-time during a ramp-up period.”

Further, a spokesperson for Amazon reached out to us with the following statement:

“We are proud to offer valuable, competitive benefits to our over 250,000 US employees – including hourly, salaried, corporate, and operations – from $15 minimum wage, to 401(k) matching, flexible parental leave and health benefits starting on the first day at work. For example, we provide comprehensive fertility benefits, memberships and discounts for childcare services, and flexible parental leave programs that provide birth parents up to 20 weeks of paid leave and non-birth parents up to six weeks of parental leave. At Amazon, everyone, regardless of their position, level or tenure, has access to the same benefits – there are no tiers, and no employee is more important than another. When creating benefits, we focus on efforts that can scale to help the largest number of individuals, and work in partnership with our employees to ensure that what we are building offers meaningful support.”

What Does It Mean for Amazon Stock?

Recently, upon hearing about Jeff Bezos getting a divorce and having pics of his private parts held for ransom by the National Enquirer, I sounded the ESG alarm bells over the entire affair.

I reasoned that while I didn’t think either the divorce or the extortion threats would hurt Amazon stock, I did think that a third episode could.

“I’m a believer in the Amazon business model — although I will concede Bezos is no Howard Schultz when it comes to treating employees fairly — but if a third incident hits the news, it could be a gamechanger,” I wrote on Feb. 8. “And not in a good way.”

Well, here we are a month later, and the Momazonians are threatening to crash Amazon’s party.

The reality is, while Amazon seems to have better-than-average benefits compared to some of its peers such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) when it comes to childcare, it’s woefully inadequate.

No, you don’t have to be single to work at Amazon. But it apparently helps if you want to climb the corporate ladder.

If you own Amazon stock, you might want to pay attention to what happens over the next few weeks and months on this issue, because if Bezos and company don’t solve this problem, it could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

As of this writing, Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.