Starting November 1, Amazon is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour. While this move has been heralded as a major victory for the Fight for $15 labor movement, not everyone is delighted by the pay hike — namely, veteran Whole Foods employees who will suddenly find themselves barely earning more than new hires.
An internal email from Whole Foods CEO John Mackey obtained by Gizmodo outlines how the raises will work at Whole Foods, which was acquired by Amazon last year: All workers who currently make less than $14 an hour will have their pay bumped to $15 an hour, while employees who already make at least $14 an hour will get a $1 raise, and team leaders (managers) will get a $2 bump.
That apparently translates to some veteran workers scarcely earning more than new hires: One employee who’s been at Whole Foods for six years tells Gizmodo they’ll now make just $1 an hour more than new hires, despite having been promoted five times.
It will remain to be seen whether Amazon’s $15-an-hour wage floor will encourage other big corporations to follow suit. Senator Bernie Sanders recently called on McDonald’s, a major target of the Fight for $15 movement, to raise its minimum pay to $15 an hour. A 2015 study by the Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education indicated that 52 percent of fast-food workers need government assistance to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, talks of unionization continue to gain momentum at Whole Foods, with a group of current and former employees forming an organization called Whole Worker. In an interview with Grub Street, the organizers say the new pay raise has seemingly raised more concerns than celebration among Whole Foods workers, with employees worrying they’ll have their hours cut or that the wage hike is merely an attempt to stop unionization. Amazon has a history of squashing unions, and training videos leaked earlier this year showed how the company was sharing its anti-union tactics with Whole Foods management.
• Leaked Whole Foods Email Clarifies How Amazon Pay Raises Will Work [Gizmodo]
• Inside the Fight to Unionize Whole Foods [Grub Street]