Monday, August 06, 2007

Whole Foods fracas in the UK? Hot tip or anonymous muckracking?


Up until yesterday, it had been All Quiet on the Whole Foods Front. Then the following anonymous comment landed in my Inbox:

Anonymous said...
More bad news for Mr. Mackey. It seems that Whole Foods employees from the states who were sent to the new Kennsington store in London on assignment were instructed to misrepresent their status as visiting workers and instead claim observer status in order to avoid the hefty work permit required by UK immigration. The problem is not all workers claimed the same status, yet all filled the same niche as temporary workers. I don't know who is in charge of the London stores but it can't look good for corporate headquarters in Austin.
12:53 PM

The allegations made in that comment sound wonderfully scandalous. However, there's one small problem: I can't find any corroboration. A half hour searching the news feeds, plus Google and even (gasp) Yahoo! Search has turned up nothing.


Is it true, or is someone anonymously trolling blogs and internet message boards spreading misinformation about WFMI? If the latter, the irony is too obvious to need mentioning.


So, the two questions I've got are: is the story true, and whose sockpuppet is Anonymous 12:53?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lee
Your confirmation should hit cyber space before Friday. The North Atlantic Region office of Whole Foods was in damage control mode Wednesday, all staff who had been to the UK were instructed to not speak to the press. There is real fear and trepidation amongst the Whole Foods Staff because Whole Foods is claiming they send staff, but not to do productive work. Staff claim they are going to the UK as tourists but put in a regular 8 hour day. That begs the question of why they are sending so many employees to the UK if they are not doing productive work.