For selling furniture to a migrant detention center, the employees of e-commerce housewares company Wayfair are planning to stage a walkout.
The news has spread throughout social media thanks to support from personalities such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who had just recently equated migrant detention center with Nazi concentration camps.
The Boston Globe reported, “Employees of the Boston-based online housewares giant Wayfair announced that they would stage a walkout at the company’s Back Bay offices Wednesday to protest the company’s decision to sell furniture to operators of facilities for migrant children detained at the southern US border.”
“We were disheartened and concerned about Wayfair’s business,” said an anonymous employee.
The business being referred to is the purchase by BCFS, the non-profit government contractor in charge of the detention centers, of $200,000 worth of bedroom furniture.
Upon learning of the order, more than 547 employees signed a letter demanding a stop to the sale, citing their “concern and anger about the atrocities being committed at the Southern border.”
“Over the last two days it has come to our attention that Wayfair has again engaged in B2B sales with BCFS, a non-profit government contractor managing camps for migrants at our Southern border,” the letter said.
“This particular order, for over $200,000 worth of bedroom furniture, is destined for Carrizo Springs, Texas, to a facility that will be outfitted to detain up to 3,000 migrant children seeking legal asylum in the United States,” it continued.
“The practice of detaining children and adults at our Southern border has been condemned since its inception but since the acceleration of the practice in 2018, and the increase in death and injury that has come with that acceleration, we have seen a more vocal condemnation of the practice.
We, the undersigned, are writing to you from a place of concern and anger about the atrocities being committed at our Southern border.”
Not only were employees demanding a cessation of business with BCFS but also the drafting of a code of ethics governing future sales to allow “Wayfair employees to act in accordance with our values.”
“We believe that the current actions of the United States and their contractors at the Southern border do not represent an ethical business partnership Wayfair should choose to be a part of,” the letter stated. “At Wayfair, we believe that ‘everyone should live in a home that they love.’ Let’s stay true to that message by taking a stand against the reprehensible practice of separating families, which denies them any home at all.”
Also replying through a letter, Wayfair management thanked its employees for expressing their concerns while recognizing the “importance of respecting the diversity of thought within our organization and across our customer base.”
The letter said: “As a retailer, it is standard practice to fulfill orders for all customers and we believe it is our business to sell to any customer who is acting within the laws of the countries within which we operate. We believe all of our stakeholders, employees, customers, investors, and suppliers included are best served by our commitment to fulfilling our orders.”
The response did not please employees and they have decided to stage a walkout as well as clamored for the $200,000 to be donated to charitable donations.
Speaking to Boston Globe, an anonymous employee said, “We’re disheartened given what we know is happening at the Southern border that there wasn’t a larger reaction. I know them all to be empathetic and we’ve seen that in other ways. We are a coalition of employees and we were hoping for something that spoke more to our values.”
The @wayfairwalkout Twitter account has received massive support in the form of more than 11,000 followers and backing from major left-wing figureheads.