PHILADELPHIA — At Whole Foods’ flagship location in the city of brotherly love, management tried to lure workers away from a union rally on Monday by offering up no-cost hoagies and bags of chips. Just outside, however, their colleagues — joined by about a dozen elected officials — warned that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
“We work here and can’t even shop here,” Mase Veney, a Whole Foods employee, said just steps from his employer’s front door. Flanked by legislators and organizers with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, including dozens of rank-and-file members marching up and down the sidewalk, Veney and other workers argued that parent company Amazon — which reported a net income of $15.3 billion in its last reported quarter, up more than 50% from the year before — can afford more than just the occasional treats.
