Amazon is not known for treating its workers well. Numerous reports of poor working conditions for warehouse workers have followed the company for years. Not much is different on that end, but there is one big change: Amazon bought Whole Foods. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, the Amazon effect has reached Whole Foods stores, too.
Last week, a group of Whole Foods workers sent a mass email to nearly all their fellow employees urging them to unionize. According to a blog post at The New Food Economy, Amazon’s cost-saving measures are really making things miserable for employees.
“Over the past year, layoffs and the consolidation of store level positions at Whole Foods Market have upset the livelihood of team members, stirred anxiety,” and lowered morale within stores, the email said. It also alleged that Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods came with an agreement to trim hundreds of millions of dollars in labor costs from the chain’s stores.
This isn’t the first time that Whole Foods workers have tried unsuccessfully to unionize. in 2012, the company’s founder, John Mackey, compared labor unions to herpes, and he has provided many other pieces of evidence showing how anti-union he is. It wouldn’t be surprising that Amazon, which has pretty much always treated its working-class workers like shit, responded in a similar spirit to Whole Foods’ previous leadership.
The workers have teamed up with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which is a division of the United Food and Commercial Workers. RWDSU represents workers from big chains like Macy’s, Kroger, H&M, and Albertsons.
Fast Company notes that the changes at Whole Foods since Amazon bought the chain show a sharp departure from Whole Foods’ past approaches to the treatment of workers.
What makes the Whole Foods attempt interesting is that, for decades, the grocery store has been considered a good employer–providing better wages and benefits than most other competitors. It was once the incarnation of “welfare capitalism,” where a business provides the necessary social services to its employees. The letter insinuates that Amazon’s ownership is changing this once-core part of Whole Foods’s business model. (Of course, even before the acquisition, the company made big changes that indicated its benevolent business approach was rapidly changing.)
Read the full email from workers here (at the bottom of the page).