547 Wayfair employees walk out after learning they're making furniture for migrant facilities
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BOSTON - More than 500 Wayfair furniture employees are walking out after learning they are making beds for migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border.
 
Employees wrote a letter to the company's senior management, slamming the company for enabling alleged abuse and poor living conditions at the facilities. The letter has 547 employee signatures.
 
"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 more vocal condemnation of the practice," the letter reads. "We, the undersigned, are writing to you from a place of concern and anger about the atrocities being committed at our Southern border."
 
The walkout is scheduled for Wednesday at 1:30 pm at the company's headquarters in Boston. Employees are demanding executives stop selling beds to the facilities and that all profits made from the transactions be donated to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
 
In an unsigned response, Wayfair leadership declined the employees' demands, reported The Boston Globe.
 
"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," the executives' letter reads. "We believe all of our stakeholders, employees, customers, investors, and suppliers included are best served by our commitment to fulfill our orders."
 
The letter then thanked the employees for feeling concerned, but that the company "believes in the importance of respecting diversity of thought within our organization and across our customer base."
 
Wayfair then confirmed their response to The Globe and other sources.
 
The employees continued:
 
"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. 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 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."
 
A Twitter account, allegedly created by the employees, tweeted about the walkout - going viral on Twitter and other social platforms. The tweet even reached representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who applauded the workers.
 
"Wayfair workers couldn't stomach they were making beds to cage children," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "They asked the company to stop. CEO said no. ... This is what solidarity looks like - a reminder that everyday people have real power, as long as we're brave enough to use it."
 
The Boston-based Wayfair employs close to 11,000 people at offices and warehouses throughout North America and Europe.
 

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Robert Dalheim

Robert Dalheim is an editor at the Woodworking Network. Along with publishing online news articles, he writes feature stories for the FDMC print publication. He can be reached at [email protected].