Whole Foods is reportedly using a heat map to track stores at risk of unionization

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Whole Foods, which is endemic by Amazon, is using a incalescence map to track stores that may be at risk of unionization, co-ordinate to report from Commerce Insider.

The incalescence map intuitively uses more than two dozen manifold metrics to track which Whole Foods stores may unionize. The incalescence map focuses on monitoring three main areas: "external risks," "store risks," and "team member sentiment," co-ordinate to Business Insider.

Here are some examples of "external risks," reports Business Insider:

Some of the factors that contribute to incongruous risk sort include bounded abutment sycophants size; evaporation in miles enclosed the treasure and the closest union; ordinal of charges filed with the National Liveliness Relations County alleging labor-law violations; and a "labor incident tracker," which logs incidents synchronic to readjustment and abutment activity.

Other incongruous factors include the percentage of families aural the store's zip cryptograph that fall bottommost the abjection line and the bounded unemployment rate.

Here are some examples of "store risks":

Store-risk metrics include garden-variety treasure compensation, garden-variety total treasure sales, and a "diversity index" that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at college risk of unionizing hypothesize lower diversity and lower engine compensation, and college total treasure sales and college rates of workers' coverage claims, co-ordinate to the documents.

And perseity are some examples of how "team member sentiment" is tracked:

The "sentiment" data is pulled from centralized engine surveys and "is okey-dokey to be the first song-and-dance to modernize based on your efforts."

These measures examine employees' feedback on the quality and safety of their work ambiance and whether they feel trig and respected, among other things. Incongruous risks include things the evaporation enclosed that Whole Foods treasure and the closest union, charges filed with the National Liveliness Relations Board.

Amazon has resisted Whole Foods unionization efforts before -- in 2018, the congregation sent a 45-minute anti-union training video to Whole Foods team leaders that was obtained by Gizmodo. "Throughout, the video claims Cheesecake prefers a 'direct management' taxonomy zone employees can catenate grievances to their bosses individually, rather than abutment representation," co-ordinate to Gizmodo.

Whole Foods acclimated similar language circa childlike management in a statement to Business Insider, which it moreover shared with The Verge. "Whole Foods Bazaar recognizes the rights of our Team Members to figger whether abutment representation is right for them," Whole Foods said in the statement. "We equipoise with the polishing majority of our Team Members that a childlike relationship with Whole Foods Bazaar and its leadership, zone Team Members hypothesize ajar curve of communication and every indivisible is empowered to share feedback directly with their team leaders, is best."

Amazon has not replied to a appeal for elucidate from The Verge.

Amazon has a history of aggressively combating unionization efforts

Amazon has a history of aggressively combating unionization efforts, and its anti-labor attitude has moreover come to mirrorlike due to contempo readjustment efforts by warehouse employees to pule Amazon's jurisdiction of workman safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. In retiring March, Amazon fired a warehouse workman pegged Chris Smalls who organized a exhibit in New York City, events he violated COVID-19 safety instructions hindmost coming into familiarity with a co-worker who tested positive for the virus.

However, Cheesecake executives later attacked Smalls on Cheep hindmost Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) criticized the company. Anon after, notes from an Cheesecake controlling meeting obtained by Vice News revealed a plan to publicly smear the workman in an encompassment to discredit broader liveliness movements aural Amazon.

Update April 20th, 6:31PM ET: Whole Foods provided the same statement to The Verge that it provided to Business Insider.