Whole Foods employees in the United States are organising in an attempt to push back against changes introduced since Amazon acquired the grocery chain in August 2017. Workers say they fear Amazon is trying to turn them into “robots” and are seeking to establish a union to protect their jobs.
The campaign, known as the Whole Worker community, began with a letter sent to stores on 6 September. Staff cite the accelerated use of the “order-to-shelf” system, which prescribes strict procedures and scorecards for stocking and displaying goods, as well as mass layoffs in certain roles, as key reasons for coordinating unionisation efforts. One employee in New England said: “They want us to become robots. That’s where they are going.”
Workers also report squeezed labour budgets and increased expectations. One New England employee noted that despite a projected daily sales increase of $100,000 in September, his labour budget rose by only $300. Another said local and speciality products have been cut in favour of more conventional items as management focuses on maximising profit.
Whole Foods has a history of resisting unionisation. In May 2016 it paid a consulting firm more than $100,000 before a union election in Florida, and in 2017 the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the company for amending its employee handbook to ban recording work activities without approval.
Amazon has become one of the first companies valued at over $1tn, yet workers say capital expenditure budgets have been frozen, leaving them unable to replace basic equipment. One employee said: “We just got bought by the second trillion-dollar company in the world and we don’t have money to replace refrigeration units.”
