Center City Whole Foods workers vote to unionize, becoming first U.S store to do so

Big changes with Amazon in charge

Whole Foods Market was once a publicly traded company with different employee policies on the books, workers said in union campaign materials.

For example, Whole Foods Market employees had more benefits, such as gainsharing, a process where under-budget teams can get bonuses out of the savings, stock options, holiday bonuses, a human resources representative on site and health care options for part-time workers.

That’s when Whole Foods Market co-founder John Mackey was still the CEO.

But in 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion by taking the publicly traded company private.

Since Amazon took over, workers say their long-standing attendance policy was replaced with an unpaid time-off policy that’s criticized as a wage theft mechanism, according to the union. Workers also complained about a lack of communication.

Amazon does offer restricted stock units for eligible employees, such as store and facility team leaders.

The Whole Foods Market company declined an interview for this story and submitted a statement.

“At Whole Foods Market, we remain committed to listening to our team members, making changes based on their feedback, and treating all of our team members fairly in a safe, inclusive working environment, while providing them with career advancement opportunities, great benefits, and market competitive compensation,” the company said. “Whole Foods Market recognizes the rights of our team members to make an informed decision on whether union representation is right for them. We believe a union is not needed at Whole Foods Market and agree with the overwhelming majority of our team members who value our open door policy and our ability to quickly respond to the needs of our workforce.”

Both full- and part-time employees at the Center city store, including team members, team trainers, order writers, non-management supervisors and store scanning specialists, could vote.

That doesn’t include store team leads, associate team leads, store trainers, team leaders, assistant team leaders, office and clerical workers, security guards, managers and supervisors categorized as management.

This article was originally published by a whyy.org . Read the Original article here. .