Some employees at online retailer Wayfair’s contact center in Brunswick are expected to participate in a walkout Wednesday to protest the company’s decision to sell goods to federal detention centers that house migrant children.
A group of workers at the company’s Boston headquarters announced Tuesday on social media that they planned to stage a walkout at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday after failing to convince the company’s executives not to do business with a nonprofit agency that supplies furniture to the detention centers.
A representative of the protest group’s Twitter account, @wayfairwalkout, responded to a direct message on the social media site, but did not know how many Brunswick employees planned to participate. More than 400 employees work at the company’s Brunswick facility.
Some workers at Wayfair’s contact center in Brunswick plan to participate in a walkout Wednesday to protest the company’s sale of goods to federal detention centers that house migrant children. Times Record photo
In an open letter to Wayfair management that was shared on Twitter, the protesters said they learned Wayfair had sold over $200,000 worth of bedroom furniture to BCFS, a Texas-based nonprofit government contractor that manages migrant detention camps along the southern U.S. border.
A group of employees who oppose the treatment of migrants in such facilities disseminated a protest letter asking the company to stop doing business with detention facility contractors. The group said the letter garnered over 500 employee signatures.
“The United States government and its contractors are responsible for the detention and mistreatment of hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in our country – we want that to end,” the letter says. “We also want to be sure that Wayfair has no part in enabling, supporting or profiting from this practice.”
However, Wayfair management responded with its own letter, also leaked online, saying that the company has a policy of doing business with any law-abiding customer.
tl;dr – Wayfair sold beds to furnish border camps; 547 employees signed a petition to ask that we cease all business with border camps; CEO said no —>employees are walking out tmrw at 1:30pm. We ask that Wayfair donate all profits made from the sale to RAICES #WayfairWalkout
— wayfairwalkout (@wayfairwalkout) June 25, 2019
“We believe all of our stakeholders, employees, customers, investors and suppliers included, are best served by our commitment to fulfill all orders,” the management letter says. “This does not indicate support for the opinions or actions of the groups or individuals who purchase from us.”
News about the protest quickly spread online Tuesday, aided by high-profile critics of the Trump administration’s border policies such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York. By 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, the protest group’s Twitter account had attracted over 10,000 followers.
The group also created a Facebook page to keep supporters apprised of its activities.
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