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Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'
- wear_a_mask 7y agoAfter this catastrophe, I hope at the very least we have a national sick leave law. 1 week. For everyone. Period.
- elicash 7y agoHere's what they're asking for: https://www.coworker.org/petitions/global-retail-worker-sick-out https://www.coworker.org/petitions/global-retail-worker-sick... -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. -Reinstatement of health care coverage for part-time and seasonal workers. -Increased FSA funds to cover coronavirus testing and treatment for all team members, including part-time and seasonal. -Guaranteed hazard pay in the form of double pay during our scheduled hours. -Implementation of new policies that can facilitate social distancing between workers and customers. -Commitment to ensuring that all locations have adequate sanitation equipment and procedures in place. -Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. In such an event, all workers should continue to receive full pay until the store can safely reopen.
- wear_a_mask 7y agoI do not believe this to be unreasonable at all.
- orblivion 7y agoI generally have mixed feelings on unions, but overall these seem like pretty reasonable demands and it seems like a good thing for Whole Foods to do from a PR standpoint anyway. They would make me more confident if I were a Whole Foods shopper if nothing else. The one thing that I can't help but question, just thinking in terms of microeconomics (which I'm fairly basic on), is this concept of hazard pay. I've heard that some places are increasing wages already. Doesn't this sort of account for the increased risk? Or to put it another way: If you got a 2x raise but they didn't call it "hazard pay", would you still demand hazard pay?
- leetcrew 7y agoI don't think "hazard pay" has any legally defined meaning in the US. it might imply that they are only demanding the 2x pay for the duration of the crisis.
- amluto 7y ago> -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. This should be required by law of all employers. > -Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. This seems like overkill. How about having all employees wear masks (not N95) and cleaning the store thoroughly if someone tests positive? Or do they mean a few-hour or one-day shutdown?
- meheleventyone 7y agoStaff should be wearing gloves and masks already! After someone has been infected and all their contacts should be isolated is a bit late!
- knodi123 7y ago>> -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. > This should be required by law of all employers. All businesses should be required to tell every employee "You don't have to come in to work for the duration of the crisis, unless you feel like it. But you'll get paid regardless."?
- amluto 7y agoNo. All employers should be required to tell employees “if you believe you have a communicable disease that could infect your coworkers or customers, then you MUST NOT come to work, and we or the government will find a way to take care if you.” This should be the case regardless of any pandemic. Allowing an employee with a mild flu to come to work is irresponsible.
- alexpetralia 7y agoWhat prevents a worker from stating they believe they have coronavirus? Surely you'd agree there is an incentive to do so (stay home and get paid).
- amluto 7y ago
- nn35 7y ago-Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. This seems likely to shut down the majority of Whole Foods stores in short order. An unreasonable request, IMO. Grocery stores are genuinely essential to society and the death rate for < 40yo is very small. Put some masks on them and keep working. I do think high-risk employees should basically be allowed to stay home, though.
- rocha 7y agoHospitalization rate is hovering between 10% and 20% Edit: source https://covidtracking.com/data/ https://covidtracking.com/data/
- p1mrx 7y agoWhat's the hospitalization rate for starvation?
- rocha 7y agoI didn't imply they should shut down. I just wanted to point out that the risk that the workers are taking is significantly higher if you take into account how likely they are to get seriously ill. Their protection should be prioritized.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- travisporter 7y agoDisrespectful snide aside, probably 8-10 weeks with water supply, dependent of course on your excess body fat.
- nn35 7y agoWe don't know the hospitalization rate. That site counts confirmed cases; epidemiologists seem to think total cases are greater by a factor of at least 10x. It also doesn't break out by age group. Taken together, these considerations imply hospitalization rate for < 40yo should be far below the 10-20% figure. (On the flip side, many of the currently infected who have not yet been hospitalized will be hospitalized in the future.) I don't know the hospitalization rate for < 40yo, but the death rate is thought to be around 0.1%. It would be very surprising if the hospitalization rate were more than a couple percent.
- gameswithgo 7y agolots of room for reasonable compromise in there
- NovemberWhiskey 7y ago>Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. Does anyone have any idea how they're supposed to operate their business if they have to pay workers who don't work? I mean, they would have to hire replacement workers - who also don't need to come to work? Or are the replacement workers supposed to be second-class vs. the original workers?
- sickleave 7y agoCertainly Jeff Bezos could spare a billion or two.
- Nevermark 7y agoWhile I am sure he can, I personally like to see reasons that are more general than picking on particular people. Amazon can spare a billion or two. What would be even better is a country-wide system for essential workers, but I imagine that negotiating that at the political level won't be timely. EDIT: Even a recommended essential worker policy from the top would be helpful guidance for both companies and workers trying to quickly resolve these critical nation-wide issues.
- matz1 7y agoIts not going to work, if you pay people to not work, who is going to work then ? Money will become useless.
- pjc50 7y agoPaying people to not (come into) work is pretty much critical to not getting a huge number of people (not necessarily the same people!) killed in a pandemic.
- NovemberWhiskey 7y agoSurely you agree there are some workers to whom that does not apply? I'm fairly sure we can't send all the utility workers home, can we?
- Uhhrrr 7y ago> Guaranteed hazard pay in the form of double pay With unemployment skyrocketing, it seems to me very unlikely that this would be granted. What is the purpose of putting it on the list?
- airstrike 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
- downerending 7y ago> -Guaranteed hazard pay in the form of double pay during our scheduled hours. I too would like to double my pay. :-) I'm not entirely unsympathetic, but I've worked far more dangerous jobs for a lot less money. Beyond that, what's up with the writing? "Guaranteed" hazard pay? As opposed to "un-guaranteed"? What does that even mean? Guaranteed by whom? And "during our scheduled hours"? ??
- alistairSH 7y agoMaybe they mean paid each pay cycle. Vs a promise for a lump sum at the end of the pandemic.
- MivLives 7y agoDid Whole Foods finally remove health insurance for people on part time 20? Or are they asking it to be applied to non part time 20 workers.
- tracker1 7y agoWonder if grocery store workers will largely be forced to unionize and fall under similar terms as airline industry with regards to limitations on a strike. "Essential work"
- whyenot 7y agoAren't many grocery chains already unionized? I believe Safeway, Raleys / Nob Hill, and Albertsons are, at least.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoYes. It would make sense for existing grocers unions to assist in the efforts of these Whole Foods workers, and eventually expand to Amazon Fulfillment workers (perhaps working with other unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella). http://www.ufcw.org/grocery/ http://www.ufcw.org/grocery/
- junky228 7y agonone of those exist in my part of the U.S. I haven't even heard of the last two
- ken 7y agoIn the Seattle area, nearly every grocery store (except Whole Foods) employs workers represented by UFCW 21: https://www.ufcw21.org/shop-union https://www.ufcw21.org/shop-union
- taylodl 7y agoThey already are unionized - at least in my neck of the woods (Ohio). If the Whole Foods employees are not, well, then that should be their first order of business.
- tracker1 7y agoMy understanding is that a lot of their in-store employees are at-will and part time, and largely not covered by the unions... of course companies and states will vary.
- amelius 7y agoI sympathize but wouldn't a strike be illegal during a crisis?
- eropple 7y agoNo? They're not drafted, you can't compel grocery store workers to work. It just turns out that we rely more than people thought on some of the least protected of our citizens, and this is a pretty good chance to have their voices be heard.
- txcwpalpha 7y agoBeing drafted isn't relevant to the question. The NLRA does indeed specify that strikes can be illegal in certain situations, such as if doing so would cause a national emergency. I don't know if this particular strike falls under that or other criteria.
- fart_ratty 7y agoSomething like Eisenhower did with the steel workers could happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_strike_of_1959#Invocation_of_Taft-Hartley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_strike_of_1959#Invocatio...
- amelius 7y ago> you can't compel grocery store workers to work No but organizing to not work as a group is something else.
- ttul 7y agoI'm sure that one of the long term outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a (potentially short-lived) resurgence in unionization and a general leftward shift in global politics. This move to the left will coincide with governments continuing to exercise greater authority over the population and economy. Our reality after COVID-19 will look more like 1970s Britain.
- dr-detroit 7y agoI live in a blue state and the pendulum is swinging the other way unfortunately. Unions are an easy scapegoat and openly demonized in media, academics, and on social media. They took away everybody's pensions.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoWe're hearing a lot of stories about labor activism now because every employer allowed to stay open needs as many workers as it can get. When the rest of the economy reopens, and the millions of unemployed people start looking for jobs, that's unlikely to weigh on labor's side of the bargaining table.
- m0zg 7y agoI don't understand. WF charges 2-3x as much as a "regular" grocery store and prides itself on "ethics" and "sustainability". Why are we even having this discussion? Why aren't those employees fairly compensated and protected?
- draw_down 7y agoPerhaps because marketing isn't reality, and confusing the two is detrimental to one's sanity?
- usaphp 7y agoWhere do these “2-3x as much” figures come from? Their prices are not much different from Vons in my experience, they just sell a lot of premium items they you won’t find in your local vons - but for stuff you find in a regular supermarket - they charge around the same. And their 365 products sometimes are even cheaper than non organic alternatives
- ascagnel_ 7y agoI also find many of the 365 products are made differently in some subtle ways vs. other store brands or big-label items. One example I came across recently was ginger ale; the 365 version has less carbonation and is sweetened with cane sugar (vs corn syrup), so it had a substantially different taste than the name brand (Seagram's) I picked up when the 365 brand wasn't available.
- elicash 7y agoNot person you're responding to, but I think it's fair to say that they sell pricier products - in some cases, yes, even 2-3x, than where some get their groceries. My parents do a lot of their shopping at dollar stores and they're just far less expensive. But of course you're comparing here different products of the same "type," a box of cereal versus an entirely different box of cereal by an entirely different manufacturer, so I think they were misleading without that context. Also, pricier products doesn't necessarily mean bigger margins.
- nabnob 7y ago
- airstrike 7y agoSomewhat related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741887
- dang 7y agoRecent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22736512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22736512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729819
- new_guy 7y agoNot mentioned yet but relevant, back in September Bezos dropped health care benefits got Whole Food workers https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-healthcare-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-promises-business-roundtable-2019-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-healthcare-amazo...
- 34679 7y agoWhile grocery stores are essential, any individual employee is not. These are not skilled positions. Grocery store employees can and should be easily replaced. The alternative is the potential for a group of unskilled laborers to hold our nation's food supply hostage at time when many people who are out of work would gladly take their place. If they don't feel safe working right now, go home. Someone else will. Doubling their pay during a crisis won't make them any safer.
- parsimo2010 7y agoI empathize with the workers, but isn't striking while there are >3 million people out of work a bad idea? Whole Foods could fire the strikers and replace them. It's not like they need particularly rare skills, just about any of the current jobless could take a shift.
- elicash 7y agoIt's only a one-day strike. Unless you're openly an organizer, you're not taking much risk. The biggest thing you're thinking about in that situation is going without pay. But also, this is why strikes are only successful when you've got everyone taking part in them. The cost to replace an entire workforce is actually huge, and would shut down operations for a period of time. There would also be a campaign aimed at preventing folks from crossing their picket line: customers, new staff, etc. Enlisting elected leaders, etc. More generally-speaking, it's illegal to fire NLRA-covered workers for striking. Granted, the penalties are minimal (penalties are backpay MINUS what the worker earned while they waited for the case to resolve itself... no punitive damages). Also, you have to actually win in court, of course -- and I'm guessing Amazon has good attorneys that can win a tough case. But if you're firing the entire workforce, no attorney is that good. It's clearly retaliation. It's true that during economic downturns it can be hard to successfully organize, people in all industries feel more replaceable. But it's also true that at times when workers are feeling more pain, there can be tremendous activism. Additionally, there have been times in our country's past when workers were far worse off than today and yet risked far more than their jobs (in some cases, their lives) to win the protections we have now.
- LatteLazy 7y agoSupermarkets are quite essential in the current emergency. Essential workers can't strike for obvious reasons.