Whole Foods workers organized a national “sick-out” protest... Whole Worker, an organization of Whole Foods employees, called on workers to stay home sick... to pressure the company to improve health protections for grocery workers, including paid sick leave for all workers who need to self-isolate, reinstatement of healthcare coverage for part-time workers, better sanitation equipment, and the immediate shutdown of any store location where an employee tests positive for Covid-19. “We are working harder than we have ever worked. We are putting our lives at risk. We deserve to have our needs met,” the group wrote in an online petition.

... A Whole Foods spokeswoman said the grocery store had already increased employees’ wages by $2 an hour and increased overtime pay, as well as offering an additional two weeks of paid sick time for workers who had tested positive for Covid-19 and those in quarantine... [S]pokeswoman Rachel Malish... [in an email]... called the Whole Worker protest organizers a “small, but vocal group” and said that they did not represent “the collective voice” of more than 95,000 Whole Foods employees, who “are heroically showing up every day to provide our communities with an essential service”.