"Employees Are Bitter" as Whole Foods Chops Jobs and Wages

[HuckleB]

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/09/whole-foods-bob-mackey-job-wage-cuts-unions-wall-street

"Whole Foods Market co-CEO and co-founder John Mackey has never hidden his disdain for labor unions. "Today most employees feel that unions are not necessary to represent them," he told my colleague Josh Harkinson in 2013. That same year, Mackey echoed the sentiment in an interview with Yahoo Finance's the Daily Ticker. "Why would they want to join a union? Whole Foods has been one of [Fortune's] 100 best companies to work for for the last 16 years. We're not so much anti-union as beyond unions.”

On September 25, the natural-foods giant gave its workers reason to question their founder's argument. Whole Foods announced it was eliminating 1,500 jobs—about 1.6 percent of its American workforce—"as part of its ongoing commitment to lower prices for its customers and invest in technology upgrades while improving its cost structure." The focus on cost-cutting isn't surprising—Whole Foods stock has lost 40 percent of its value since February, thanks to lower-than-expected earnings and an overcharging scandal in its New York City stores.

Sources inside the company told me that the layoffs targeted experienced full-time workers who had moved up the Whole Foods pay ladder. In one store in the chain's South region, "all supervisors in all departments were demoted to getting paid $11 an hour from $13-16 per hour and were told they were no longer supervisors, but still had to fulfill all of the same duties, effective immediately," according to an employee who works there.

...

It's not unusual for a publicly traded company to respond to a market swoon by pushing down wages and sending workers packing. But Whole Foods presents itself as a different kind of company. As part of its "core values," Whole Foods claims to "support team member [employee] happiness and excellence." Yet at a time when the company's share price is floundering and its largest institutional shareholder is Wall Street behemoth Goldman Sachs—which owns nearly 6 percent of its stock—that value may be harder to uphold.

..."




Whole Foods lies about almost everything. It's entire marketing scheme is nothing but a scam. It has always worked to use employees up, to get what it can out of a community, while giving the absolute least. It is the epitome of the ugly corporation. Ugh.

[Bonx]

1. "one of 100 best companies to work for for the last 16 years."

So was that just a 16 year ruse ?

[HuckleB]

5. LOL!

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/11/14/3592524/whole-foods-workers-in-san-francisco-demand-higer-wages-better-working-conditions/

http://gawker.com/5824287/read-a-disgruntled-whole-foods-employees-epic-resignation-letter

And, as a health care provider, I have years of experience treating employees from Whole Foods who have extremely limited health care coverage, while their fellows at Kroger, Safeway, Trader Joe's, New Seasons, etc... have good coverage. The list goes on and on...

[Bonx]

7. Just curious. The peeps at our local WF seem fairly exuberant

compared to the sad sacks schlepping stuff at Beer Lion and Walmart.

[HuckleB]

8. That's your perception, and it's all a part of the expectations!

Make sure you pretend to happy when serving your customers! Have you never worked in retail?

And then there's the reality that Whole Foods main accomplishment has been to con people into buying expensive food for no actual, justifiable reason. There's just no real there there, at the end of the day. WF is classic Wall Street nonsense gone to its expected haywire end.

[Bonx]

10. So they're all actually miserable.

Got it.

[HuckleB]

12. So your anecdote is meaningless.

Yes.

[Bonx]

13. LOL

"one of 100 best companies to work for for the last 16 years."

No anecdote there.

[HuckleB]

20. Meaningless propaganda there.

I get it. You want to keep going to a place that is unethical, and you want to pretend that you can justify it. Whatever.

[Bonx]

24. Everything you disagree with is apparently 'Meaningless propaganda'

I get it.

[Lizzie Poppet]

11. Happiest grocery workers I see out here are at WinCo.

And WinCo is employee-owned. No coincidence there, I'm thinking...

[Bonx]

14. Safeway & Kroger both have much lower employee ratings on Glassdoor

[Waldorf]

17. My son used to work at Kroger as a floor manager for several years. He hated it.

He works for Sprouts now, loves it, and has rapidly moved up the chain.

[Bonx]

18. We don't have a Sprouts, but it sure looks good.

[HuckleB]

21. Cool. That really doesn't mean much.

Again, we get it. You want to be able to believe what you want to believe.

Any evidence to the contrary will be ignored by you. We get it. Goodbye.

[Bonx]

23. You're the one ignoring evidence.

[hobbit709]

2. Mackey was an asshole back when he ran Safer Way back before Whole Foods.

No he has another 40 years experience at being an asshole.

[closeupready]

3. VERY right-wing organization. I stopped shopping there when they lobbied against

health care reform. I'll never darken their doorstep again.

[brush]

4. Sadly we have to keep learning CEOs who claim their company is beyond unionism . . .

will always cut wages and jobs as soon as their own income is jeopardized.

History has shown again and again that the collective bargaining power of unions is what's best for workers.

Those workers at Whole Foods who have been demoted from management should immediately start organizing.

[HuckleB]

6. +1,000,000...000

[Lizzie Poppet]

9. "its largest institutional shareholder is Wall Street behemoth Goldman Sachs"

Oh, how shocking.

(Ass)Whole Foods...

[HughBeaumont]

15. What bullshit. Whole Paycheck was never about low prices.

$65 dollars for 7 basic food items. Not getting who can afford that. At Trader Joes, that gets you three bags full of groceries.

Why do the employees have to pay the price for John Mackey's profiteering?

[leftynyc]

16. Has this "stellar" CEO

promised to lower his own salary in order to help the bottom line? I'm guessing right wing asshole says no.

[kwassa]

19. Whole Foods overcharges for it's food? I'm shocked to discover this.

[KT2000]

22. they are also changing full-time

workers to part-time with irregular schedules. A friend who has put in about 15 years there at a low wage job can not pay her rent etc. It is another way of running people off.