After Amazon Increases Worker Wages, Whole Foods Responds By Cutting Worker Hours

schwit1 shared this article from the Guardian:
In response to public pressure and increasing scrutiny over the pay of its warehouse workers, Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage for all its employees on 1 November, including workers at grocery chain Whole Foods, which it purchased in 2017... But since the wage increase, Whole Food employees have told the Guardian that they have experienced widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees.

'My hours went from 30 to 20 a week,' said one Whole Foods employee in Illinois... 'We just have to work faster to meet the same goals in less time,' the worker said. An internal email shared by the employee from their department manager cited the across-the-board shift cuts as 'the direct result of guidance from our regional team'. In Maryland, another Whole Foods worker said their regional management is forcing stores to cut full-time employee schedules by four hours, to 36 hours a week. 'This hours cut makes that raise pointless as people are losing more than they gained and we rely on working full shifts,' the worker said...

In September 2018, several Whole Foods workers organized the group Whole Worker, with the goals of forming a union and providing workers a resource to organize since Amazon took over... 'There are many team members working at Whole Foods today whose total compensation is actually less than what it was before the wage increase due to these labor reductions,' said a Whole Worker spokesperson in an email to the Guardian.
Neither Amazon nor Whole Foods responded to requests fo a comment, the Guardian reports -- while the workers that they interviewed 'were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation.'

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