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Dear Whole Foods Leadership and Coworkers,

For the safety of myself, my family, and my teaching career, I am quitting. It has become abundantly clear during this pandemic that Whole Foods is obsessed with pushing us, the workers, to keep up production at the expense of our health and our customers' health. As of December of this year, Whole Foods Market has had outbreaks at nearly every store in the company. My location, Birmingham, Michigan, has had multiple cases of COVID, including a streak of seven cases in eight days leading into the week before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I’m not ready to absolve leadership and this company's complete lack of respect and caution for team members’ general welfare.

Team members have had to put themselves at risk constantly. Part time team members have seen their benefits removed over the last two years, and they haven’t seen these benefits return even during a global health crisis. I know team members who have lost family members and come to work understanding that if they do not have the PTO to support them, they won’t get paid. Instead, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey decided that the best remedy for sick team members was to ask everyone to simply share their limited PTO.

Whole Foods does not have team members’ well being at heart. There is no core value at Whole Foods of greater importance than pushing sales and Amazon Prime. When sick workers tried to organize in Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse facility as a response to a lack of protective gear and hazard pay, said workers were fired rather than immediately addressing these concerns. A team member who tracked COVID-19 cases for better transparency within the company got fired in May.

There has been no effort made by Jeff Bezos or John Mackey to spread their immense wealth back to the workers (their wealth has in fact grown enormously during the pandemic). They are more than able to redistribute some form of payments to workers whether it be retroactive hazard pay, better benefits, free PTO for sick team members or all of the above. Instead, we have been treated to meager bonuses and short-lived, token hazard pay.

Yet despite this indifference, Whole Foods and Amazon have certainly been active during the pandemic. Whole Foods may have neglected to enforce the mask mandate in our stores, but the company had no trouble introducing strict new dress code policies. As a result, team members who supported Black Lives Matter were told that they could not wear any BLM apparel or buttons - an attack on our rights as employees. Not only did Whole Foods take up the position that it would remain at best agnostic on a noble, fundamentally humanitarian movement, the store banned us from expressing our support. The dress code went, likely out of fear of dividing their consumer base.

These grievances are widespread, as evidenced by recent actions at Whole Foods stores across the country. The June walkout and class-action lawsuit in Cambridge, Portland and Wauwatosa’s walkouts on Labor Day, along with the Whole Worker-sponsored “Sick Out” back in March, are examples of workers trying to send a message to store leadership and upper management: our health and safety are not being adequately protected. Most of us understand this to be true, but few feel comfortable voicing their concerns, fearing retaliation from our management. Meanwhile, COVID cases continue to rise in our stores.

If we allow this to continue, the company will remain completely disconnected from the interest of their workers, taking advantage of our fear and desperation in these trying times.

No one would argue that the COVID outbreak is the fault of Amazon’s, but the company has no excuse for such cruel reactions to this pandemic. This company has more than enough resources to keep us safe. Whole Foods team members have expressed widespread support for the following policy changes:

· Reinstatement of the two dollars extra an hour indefinitely as a reward for workers feeding their communities during the crisis.

· Return of gain sharing, which was based on the idea that the workers who saved the company money on labor should share in its spoils.

· The return of the old dress code policy, as a sign of respect for the free speech and expression of Whole Foods workers. This includes our right to voice our support for contemporary civil rights movements such as Black Lives Matter.

· Return of health benefits for those contracted as part time workers.

· Expanded PTO coverage and payments to factor in the increased risk of exposure to COVID, as well as the burden workers must address at home with their loved ones during the pandemic. This should include paid leave for those who have to care for a child or relative and cannot risk exposure to COVID.

· Mandating mask or face shield coverage for customers when entering the store. Considering the overwhelming evidence to support masks reducing the spread of COVID, Whole Foods should not make any exceptions for entering the store without a mask on. They can easily accommodate those who do have actual medical conditions with face shields or curb-side pick ups.

· Mandatory yearly raises independent of performance. Workers generate all of this company’s wealth, and there is no reason why Whole Foods cannot even adjust our wages to keep up with inflation - let alone compensate workers for their seniority and part they play in the production within the company.

Speaking personally and practically, one of the best ways to achieve these demands is in the formation of a union and collective bargaining. This is not an outrageous goal to anyone, except perhaps to those who run the company. Nothing will make Whole Foods change its harmful behavior without a union, which offers us a chance to truly affect our working environment. I suggest that any workers interested in organizing and trying to protect their rights reach out to either a local UFCW, IWW, or Whole Worker Union. Any of these groups would be more than happy to help us locally and nationally. You should also know that by federal law neither Whole Foods nor Amazon nor any company that you work for can tell you that you cannot organize, and they cannot tell you to remove any sort of union apparel as long as it falls within the guidelines listed in the GIG handbook.

With this in mind, Whole Worker is creating union pins to protest against the new dress code. More information will come through their Telegram chat (link below). Wearing a union pin is a legally protected form of worker activism and sends a signal to leadership and your co-workers. It sends a signal that Whole Foods’ open door policy works and that a team member led union is absolutely necessary.

Additionally, if anybody is looking to whistleblow, air grievances, or find an anonymous platform to speak out, they can contact Michael Sainato at “The Guardian” or Lauren Gurley from “VICE”. They have experience covering workplace issues at Whole Foods, and will talk to anyone interested in sharing their experiences.

Amazon and Whole Foods could provide us with the benefits we need, but they choose not to in order to save money for the very few who own the company. When we ask strongly enough for something, we may get it in time, but on their grounds. These measures that I have listed -- at least in my opinion -- are not very radical and the least the company could provide; however, they are widely popular amongst Whole Foods and Amazon workers everywhere.

There is no way to justify this lack of transparency with the staff when outbreaks occur in the workplace. There is no reason that people should be denied raises in the middle of a pandemic simply because they are on a "final notice." These decisions are the result of incredible moral cowardice and weakness, and it falls squarely on the shoulders of those who run the company and make the rules.

I work with some very good people. My Team Leader, ATL, and friends in Meat and Seafood are incredible people who have sacrificed a lot to help their families and friends. No one knows how much they made working here so much better. I also do not blame the immediate leadership at the location. I would like people to know I did this because I only want to help you all.

I do not believe these demands are all that workers should settle for, but they are a start. Workers sometimes have differences of opinion; some of us have completely different politics. But you are all part of a community, and you deserve to have that voice and security within that community, at the very least in the form of a collective bargaining agreement. The company will only respond to our needs when it is forced to do so - and that is not acceptable.

You may come from a store that has already actively protested against what Amazon and WFM has taken away from us; you may come from a store like me, one that the word “union” is never even uttered within its walls. Some have even casted the thought of unionizing aside out of respect for leadership who they have close and loving relationships with as people. Chances are, whichever store you are in, TMs are trying to organize, unionize, or just even speak up; they are looking for you to speak up with what you want to see changed.

Charles Taylor

Whole Worker: https://www.wholeworker.org/contact

· Whole Worker Telegram chat: https://t.me/joinchat/KSwwM0vbl5IIxNfpM1edcQ

United Food & Commercial Workers: https://www.ufcw.org/tag/whole-foods/

IWW: https://iww.org/directory/

Michael Sainato: [email protected]

Lauren Gurley: [email protected]

Whole Foods Market- Birmingham Store

Seafood Team Member

2100 East Maple Road

Birmingham, MI 48009

(248) 430-140