Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, earns $268,000,000 every day, while regular Amazon and Whole Foods Market employees make an average of $15 per hour. Reports have uncovered the horrible working conditions inside Amazon’s massive warehouses — as some employees had to pee in bottles because they lived in fear of being disciplined over ‘idle time’.
Now a group of workers at Whole Foods is trying to form a union, seeking better compensation after the Amazon buyout left the company with deteriorating working conditions, workers claim.
In a memo sent to nearly every Whole Foods employee on Thursday, the union’s organizers said Amazon is accelerating layoffs and consolidating stores put employees’ livelihoods at risk, and that more consolidation was expected. This is the second time Whole Foods workers have tried to organize, but it is the first time under the new ownership of Amazon, said the Fast Company.
The union demanded a $15-an-hour minimum wage, better retirement benefits, paid maternity leave and lower health insurance costs, among other benefits — as the current situation shows all is not well in the popular grocery store as Amazon is their new corporate overlord.
“Over the past year, layoffs and the consolidations of store-level positions at Whole Foods Market have upset the livelihood of team members, stirred, anxiety, and lowered morale within stores,” the memo declared. It then claims that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey sold the store to Amazon “with an agreement to trim hundreds of millions of dollars of labor from our stores.” The letter continues, “There will continue to be layoffs in 2019 and beyond as Amazon aims to aggressively trim our labor force before it expands with new technology and labor models.”
Whole Foods workers seek to unionize, says Amazon is ‘exploiting our dedication’
https://t.co/uRkU85spZM
A group of workers at Whole Foods Market are leading an effort to establish a union for the Amazon-owned company’s 85,000+ workforce.
In a letter addressed to Whole Foods … pic.twitter.com/m7fLKeyWVW
— Penguin Coders (@Penguin_Coders) September 6, 2018
the authors added.
The Wall Street Journal, which initially reported the memo and attempted unionization last week, said the proposal was distributed at more than 499 Whole Foods stores.
The employees are organizing with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union — who represents workers from big box retails, including Macy’s and H&M.
The Fast Company said Whole Foods had fought many attempts to unionize, and it is likely with Amazon pulling the strings today, unionizing has a very low probability. This summer, numerous reports showed poor working conditions and almost poverty line compensation for Amazon employees, which the company denies.
What makes the Whole Foods attempt interesting is that, for decades, the grocery store has created the perception of a good employer–providing strong wages and benefits than most other competitors. However, with new ownership, that has all changed, as Bezos plans to strip Whole Foods of its labor costs to make it more efficient
Amazon and Whole Foods are likely to respond to the union’s demands by denying its ability to form, but the heavily indebted American worker with no savings and a crappy job in the gig-economy is starting to catch on to this corporate pillaging of the bottom 90 percent.
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Originally Posted by Zippyjuan
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