Whole Foods recommended to its employees that they share paid personal time off with each other as the coronavirus continues to infect more people.
CEO John Mackey reportedly sent an email with a list of suggestions to avoid becoming infected with COVID-19, among which included sharing personal time off.
“Team Members who have a medical emergency or death in their immediate family can receive donated PTO hours,” wrote Mackey in an email, adding, “Not only from Team Members in their own location, but also from Team Members across the country.”
In the email, Mackey also reportedly said the company would provide unlimited, unpaid time in March and an additional two weeks of paid time off for employees who contract COVID-19. However, employees of the company have expressed frustration with the company’s proposals as the pandemic grows in severity.
“Considering [Whole Foods] is a billion-dollar company, I think it is selfish asking the retail workers to figure it out within themselves,” one Whole Foods cashier anonymously told Vice News. “The response from [Whole Foods and Amazon] has been quite poor. Being a front-end cashier, I feel like we are the most exposed to the situation … Some of us have sick family members [whose] immune system is weak, and [it] could be quite dangerous if they catch this virus.”
“This is an old Whole Foods policy of helping each other out. Amazon could afford to just pay us all for [sick time],” another employee who works from Chicago also told the outlet. The employee complained that the company could afford to abandon its old policy. “I have small children going through illnesses not related to corona, and [what Whole Foods has offered] is a big cushion. But Amazon is rich, and they can be doing a lot more.”
“The policy of being able to donate to co-workers before has been around for a while,” said former Whole Foods employee Matthew Hunt. “You’ve got the richest man in the world asking people who are living paycheck to paycheck to donate to each other. That’s absolute bullshit. With the amount Jeff Bezos makes in one day, he could shut stores down and pay employees to stay safe.”
