Tell Amy’s Kitchen to Respect Its Workers!
Andy Berliner, Chief Executive Officer of Amy’s Kitchen
Amy’s Kitchen workers in Santa Rosa, Calif. have joined forces with the Teamsters and the Food Empowerment Project in calling for safer working conditions, better health coverage and a living wage on the job. Instead of meeting with the workers and addressing their concerns, the company has ignored their requests and hired outside consultants to dissuade their staff from forming a union.
Being a good corporate citizen means treating your workforce with the same compassion and care that you bring to your environment and your community. Tell Amy’s Kitchen that if they want to live up the values they purportedly espouse, stop putting profit before people, stop the union-busting, and provide the basics needs their employees are asking for.
To find out more, check out the Food Empowerment Project website.
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To:
Andy Berliner, Chief Executive Officer of Amy’s Kitchen
From:
[Your Name]
Since it’s inception, Amy’s Foods has heralded itself as much more than just another food service company. As a family-owned B-Corp, it is clear that your business adheres to a set of values – environmental sustainability, responsibility to the communities it serves, equity, mutualism and above all compassion for all living things. It is for this reason Amy’s Kitchen customers learned about what has been going at your company with great sadness.
The workers at your Santa Rosa facility have numerous and serious concerns about safety standards, lack of affordable health care, and the substandard wages they are paid. The claims are not without merit, as demonstrated by the fact that there have been multiple OSHA violations documented at this facility. To address these issues, they are seeking to form a union with the Teamsters.
A company that seeks to be a force for good within the world would start from within. It would meet with the workers, respect their right to organize without interference and rectify substandard conditions of employment. This is plainly not what Amy’s has done. Amy’s has ignored its workforce and hired anti-union consultants, presumably with hopes that the Teamsters can be chased away and problems can be swept under the rug.
It is the pinnacle of hypocrisy for a company with your supposed pedigree to be treating its workers in this way. If your company seeks to bring healthy living to its customers, it needs to bring healthy living to its workers. If your company seeks a better planet, it needs to start with a better workplace.
For this reason, we the undersigned are demanding that if Amy’s Kitchen abide by what it advocates to continue to receive our patronage. This means a) immediately dismissing the anti-union consultants you have hired and b) meeting with workers in Santa Rosa and their chosen representatives, the Teamsters.
These actions will go a long way in alleviating our consternation regarding Amy’s Kitchen’s commitment to social and environmental justice. We thank you for your time.