Amazon-Owned Whole Foods Health Benefits Slashes for Part-Time Workers

Amazon-owned Whole Foods is slashing benefits for 1,900 part-time workers at the start of 2020, with staff working at 20 hours a week, business insider reported this week.

The changes will not affect full-time employees, according to BI. In a sincere headache inducing statement to the site, a Whole Foods spokesman referred to the change as an attempt to make its "scheduling model" more "equitable and efficient":

Whole Foods said it was making the change "to better meet the needs of a more equitable and efficient scheduling model."

"The small percentage of part-time team members … who has already been granted medical benefits by Whole Foods Market's healthcare plan-less than 2% of total workforce -will no longer be eligible for medical coverage through the company," the Whole Foods spokesperson said.

It is undoubtedly more "efficient" for Whole Foods and its owner Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, who estimates Forbes is worth $ 114.4 billion, to kick around 2,000 people off a company health care plan. The Verge noted that when they reached out at Amazon, the spokesperson was sure to emphasize that these workers still qualified for a 20 percent discount on Whole Foods products. So equitable!

"I am in shock," one Whole Foods worker told BI. "I've worked here 15 years. This is why I keep the job – because of my benefits. "As BI separately noted, just last month, Bezos signed a Business Roundtable pledge which (loosely) committed signatories to" deliver value to all "stakeholders, not just shareholders, including by "Investing in our employees" and "compensating them fairly and providing important benefits."

According to the Seattle Times, workers involved in a union drive have all been raised to new levels of responsibility. An account associated with the lobby tweeted, "They already took our profit sharing. Now they're coming for our healthcare. "

United Food and Commercial Workers union president Marc Perrone, who has worked to organize Amazon food in the United States on the quality of jobs at Whole Foods and the communities they support. "

Congratulations to Bezos on padding his overstuffed wallet with a few more crisp, tainted bills' worth of human misery, though. After all-you do not get to the world's richest man by being a good person.