The 15 buck minimum wage. I love it when a plan comes together

Whole Foods cuts workers’ hours after Amazon introduces minimum wage

An email shared with the Guardian by a Whole Foods employee cites the shift cuts as a ‘direct result of guidance from our regional team’

Michael Sainato

Wed 6 Mar 2019 06.07 ESTFirst published on Wed 6 Mar 2019 06.00 EST

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![Whole Foods employees saw their wages increase when parent company Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage, but hours have slipped.

Whole Foods employees saw their wages increase when parent company Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage, but hours have slipped. Photograph: Rogelio V. Solis/AP

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.

All Whole Foods employees paid less than $15 an hour saw their wages increase to at least that, while all other team members received a $1-an-hour wage increase and team leaders received a $2-an-hour increase.

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.

Workers interviewed for this story were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation.

The Illinois-based worker explained that once the $15 minimum wage was enacted, part-time employee hours at their store were cut from an average of 30 to 21 hours a week, and full-time employees saw average hours reduced from 37.5 hours to 34.5 hours. The worker provided schedules from 1 November to the end of January 2019, showing hours for workers in their department significantly decreased as the department’s percentage of the entire store labor budget stayed relatively the same.

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Don’t worry, socialists can fix that too, you just have to let them pass a new mandatory minimum hours act.

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I didn’t think of that, of course we should hav a requirement for employers to provide a minimum number of hours.

Perhaps we could also adopt from Atlas Shrugged a law preventing any employer that is profitable from terminating or laying off any employe.

Nirvana grows close every day.

Why didnt someone warn them that this would happen? Kudos to the employees who became more efficient and productive. We knew you could do it!

Don’t tell anyone as it’s a secret.

Business only have so much money to spend on wages and benefits then they hav to raise prices which makes them uncompetitive and likely to go out of business.

Perhaps people are just stupid to believe there are no consequences to actions like 15 buck minimum wages.

By and large liberal politicians have not ever run a business. Most have either been career politicians, college professors, or lawyers, and havve a problem thinking past their own narrow worldview.

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…and Whole Foods is already overpriced.

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They can also go out of business by losing customers due to lack of quality. If dropping hours of their workers leads to decreased quality at Whole Foods and this decrease in sales, you can bet your ass they will hire more workers and /or increase the hours of the people already working there.

Even without the minimum wage requirement, Amazon would have changed the operation of Whole Foods. That’s usually what happens after an acquisition. Amazon thrives on efficiency and that is what they require their newly acquired companies to do.

Neither have most republican congressmen/women.

No buddy… they will demand their employees work faster and smarter.

YOU !!TYPE YOUR TROLL POST FASTER!

Those employees will forever spit on you.

You got that right.

I go to Sprouts which has similar merchandise and costs far less.

If they could run their stores successfully with fewer man hours wouldn’t they do it regardless if the wage they are paying?

Nice incentive to hire illegals off the books and pay them a lot less.

But if they deem that can run the company with fewer man hours, wouldn’t they do it regardless of the wage level? How is it that they are just realizing now that they don’t need so many people I t heir stores?

Btw quality and service st our Whole Foods has been declining steadily since amazon bought them.

They will invent better methods to accomplish more with less. The employees thank you for making their lives more stressful.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

No more talking on the job!
WORK FASTER!

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They are going to do that anyway. How is that linked to wages? Companies constantly try to do more with less. Every day.

They will need to do more now.

The employees say thank you to you libs… and then they spit. You made their lives hell now.

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That’s because there is no direct link.

Somebody’s being dramatic. This is the same company that reported quarterly profits over $11 billion in 2018 while paying $0 in taxes, yet we’re supposed to believe the minimum wage hike is now killing them? Is everyone also ignoring the fact they did not increase their labor budget even though they anticipated their costs going up? Can’t sacrifice any of those billions in profits for their lowly employees who helped make them successful?

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(Looks outside) (notices pigs are not flying) (goes back inside)

Hey look! I actually agree with you!

Not sure why we aren’t holding businesses more accountable for their actions.