Union Critical After Amazon Announces Chevy Chase Expansion

CHEVY CHASE, MD - When Amazon announced last Thursday it would be expanding its grocery store operation on the East Coast, including opening a new store in Chevy Chase, the move was quickly condemned by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which said the company's cashierless technology would further threaten jobs of America's 16 million retail workers.

Amazon was somewhat vague about its plans for the new stores: when they would open or if they would be under the Amazon Fresh branding umbrella. But a spokeswoman for the company said the store openings would create hundreds of jobs in the region. Other stores are scheduled in Washington DC and Philadelphia.

However, in a release, the UFCW said a recent report confirmed Amazon already is testing "Just Walk Out" cashierless technology in its Amazon Fresh grocery stores.

The UFCW said using the technology in stores, as well as licensing the technology to other retailers, would likely:

• Discriminate against over 24 million U.S. households which are underbanked.
• Threaten jobs of America's 16 million retail workers.
• Grow the cashierless retail tech market to $50 billion and force widespread adoption by other stores.
• Give Amazon unfair access to its competitors' customer data, raising privacy concerns.

Mark Perrone, UCFW's international president, was critical of the cashierless technology and of the fact that the company could soon control over 500 grocery stores nationwide, including Amazon-owned Whole Foods stores.

"Amazon is bringing its ruthless anti-worker playbook to the grocery industry with the expansion of these stores, and our country's essential workers and the families they serve will be the ones who pay the price," Perrone said in a statement. "This pandemic has made clear that our country's grocery workers are essential as we have looked to our neighborhood supermarkets to protect access to the food we need during this crisis."

Perrone made the connection between what he believes are Amazon's anti-worker practices in its grocery stores and those in its warehouses, and he called on the government to step in in order to contain the retailer's influence.

"Amazon failed to prevent nearly 20,000 COVID infections among workers at its warehouses and Whole Foods grocery stores," Perrone said. "With Amazon continuing to push its job-killing cashierless technology at these stores, it's clear that these markets will also represent a threat to the local economies across the country.

"At a time when millions of Americans are already struggling, when most Americans are one paycheck away from disaster, what does it say that Amazon wants to create stores that serve food and groceries and eliminate the jobs real people need? Now, more than ever, it is time for our nation's leaders – Democrats and Republicans – to wake up and act before Amazon and Jeff Bezos do permanent damage to America's economy and the future of work."