- Five Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on Thursday, demanding answers about the company's union avoidance efforts. - The letter follows Business Insider's report from last month that showed how Whole Foods tracked each of its 510 stores using an elaborate scoring system to gauge the likelihood of forming a union.
- It also comes at a time when Whole Foods's parent company
Amazon is facing mounting criticism over the way it's treating its warehouse and delivery workers amid COVID-19. - Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Five US senators want Whole Foods CEO John Mackey to explain the grocery company's union avoidance tactics.
In a letter sent to Mackey on Thursday, five Democratic lawmakers, including Brian Schatz (D-HI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Bernie Sanders (D-VT), asked what the company is doing to deter worker unionization efforts at the company, a potential violation of labor laws that encourage collective bargaining.
The letter follows Business Insider's report last month that detailed how Whole Foods is tracking and scoring stores it deems at risk of unionizing. The report said the company rates each of its 510 stores based on the likelihood that their employees might form or join a union, using an elaborate scoring system.
"We write to express our serious concerns regarding recent reports that Whole Foods is trying to interfere with workers' rights by tracking and monitoring employees that you think might exercise their right to collective action and union organizing," the letter said.
The lawmakers added that Whole Foods's focus on avoiding unionization, instead of trying to improve worker compensation and general working conditions, reflects "reckless disregard" for the welfare of its workforce. They said the company should rather look for ways to "improve workplace safety and health, especially during the current COVID-19 crisis."
The letter comes at a time when Whole Foods's parent company Amazon, which has a history of being anti-union, is facing unprecedented pushback from its employees over its working conditions. Amazon's warehouse workers have staged multiple walkouts over the past month in protest of the company's lack of safety measures, while some office employees publicly criticized the treatment of those workers.
Amazon fired some of the employees who led those protests, including warehouse workers Chris Smalls and Bashir Mohammed, as well as corporate employees Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, who have criticized the company's climate policies. Meanwhile, Tim Bray, a longtime Amazon executive and influential software developer, stepped down last month, after writing a critical blog post about the company's firing of activist workers.
Amazon's representative wasn't immediately available for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider