Why Amazon-Whole Foods may not be a prime union target

Show Caption Hide Caption Amazon buys Whole Foods Amazon is buying Whole Foods Market for 13.7 billion dollars. We talk to shoppers about the deal.

Like one of its organic peaches, Whole Foods Market would seem ripe for the picking when it comes to being a target for labor unions following its acquisition by Amazon.

But unions say this peach may be too high on the tree.

Whole Foods is known for higher prices than other supermarket chains, which often lead to higher profit margins from an affluent customer base willing to pay more. And Amazon hopes to close its $13.7 billion, all-cash deal for Whole Foods, the kind of money that unions home in on in hopes of fattening workers' paychecks.

But Amazon’s bid to purchase Whole Foods isn’t likely to aid unionization efforts at either company, despite the fact that the grocery industry overall is relatively highly unionized.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, whose members include 850,000 grocery store workers, has no plans to try to unionize Whole Foods’ grocery workers. At least not yet, said Marc Perrone, president of the union.

“If there are issues that arise, we’ll certainly have conversations with employees about it. We generally don’t go to places that aren’t looking for us to come to,” he said.

Even if grocery workers did organize, that might not serve as a toehold to organize other aspects of the company, like distribution centers, which are often in rural areas with limited job opportunities, said Perrone.

But the union already knows that Amazon and Whole Foods are tough nuts to crack.

“Both Amazon and Whole Foods have historically been anti-union and actively campaigned against unionization efforts. So it’s going to be difficult to make any headway with either of those companies when they are combined," said Ben Field,executive officer of the South Bay Labor Council, which covers Silicon Valley.

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Nick Rahaim was part of the effort to unionize the Whole Foods in San Francisco through the Industrial Workers of the World when he worked there in 2012. He thinks Amazon’s own actions, like job losses and increasing automation, will determine what will happen with labor.

“It depends on what kind of model Amazon brings to the Whole Foods corporate culture. Whole Foods has this whole idea of being a team and inclusive, though it’s mostly rhetoric. Some employees were happy working at Whole Foods. If Amazon makes some heads roll, there could be organizing,” said the 33-year-old, who now is a reporter at the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif.

However, he thinks the effort would be more about trying to keep what workers already have rather than fighting for more.

“Our team members have preferred the open door policy and direct lines to leadership,” said Whole Foods spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan, explaining why the natural-foods giant’s employees aren’t unionized.

One obvious entry point for unions at Amazon would be through its more than 70 warehouses and fulfillment centers in the United States, which employ more than 90,000 full-time workers. Efforts to unionize those workers over the years have failed, with the last big push being in Delaware in 2015.

It’s a different story in grocery warehouses in union states such as California, where the majority of such jobs, more than 250,000, are union.

Those positions pay as much as $26 per hour and include a pension, paid vacation and holidays and health care. Amazon warehouse jobs in California tend to pay between $15 and $20 an hour with few benefits, said Doug Bloch, political director for Teamsters Joint Council 7, which covered northern California and Nevada.

“There’s just no comparison,” he said.

However, Field thinks Amazon is more likely to influence Whole Foods than vice versa.

“I think Amazon is going to try to compete with Walmart by going after the cost of labor and making it even harder on workers,” he said.

Amazon has a reputation as a taxing workplace, both among its white collar workers and in its warehouses and fulfillment centers. An article in the New York Times in 2015 portrayed a driven, Darwinian culture where those who can't keep up are quickly pushed out — a portrayal the company has strenuously denied.

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Since its founding in 1994 Amazon has successfully fended off attempts at unionization. An effort in 2014 by Amazon warehouse maintenance and repair technicians in Middletown, Del. failed when workers voted against joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Amazon is proud of its workplace, said spokesman Ty Rogers.

“We offer good jobs with innovative and egalitarian benefits, competitive pay and company stock, tuition to pursue career aspirations and a network of support to succeed,” he said.

The public is welcome to come and see that itself, through Amazon’s public tours at both its corporate offices and fulfillment centers, he added.

To Paul Harrington, director of Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy, Whole Foods’ lack of unions is one of the things that made the chain attractive to Amazon.

“When you’re dealing with a union, it makes it harder,” he said. “They want to experiment with this and see where can I squeeze out costs and where can I can expand my market. They need flexibility in the way they use capital, labor and technology and they want that discretion.”

Harrington explained it’d be very difficult to accomplish.

“Bring in (Amazon) and you’re really taking on the 800-pound gorilla. I wouldn’t take long odds on successful union organizing there,” he said.