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Law360 (January 21, 2021, 6:53 PM EST) -- The United Food and Commercial Workers Union on Thursday condemned a round of layoffs Instacart announced earlier this week that would include the only unionized workers at the company.
In a statement responding to layoffs the grocery delivery service announced Tuesday, UFCW International President Marc Perrone called on Instacart to "immediately halt" the firings, which would include workers at a Skokie, Illinois, store who voted to join the union in February.
"As the union for Instacart grocery workers in the Chicago area and grocery workers nationwide, UFCW is calling on Instacart to immediately halt these plans and to put the health of their customers first by protecting the jobs of these brave essential workers at a time when our communities need them most," Perrone said in a statement, calling the move particularly "wrong" due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company told the UFCW local that represents workers at the Illinois store that the layoffs will affect roughly 1,877 in-store shoppers, according to a letter from Instacart's counsel that the UFCW posted with its statement.
Instacart said in a blog post that it would be laying off certain in-store shoppers at stores that will use their own employees to fulfill pickup orders for customers. The company plans to transfer workers to different locations that need in-store shoppers and work with other stores to hire laid-off workers directly, according to the blog post.
The letter from Instacart counsel said the company will also offer separation packages that will run between $250 and $750.
"We know this is an incredibly challenging time for many as we move through the COVID-19 crisis, and we're doing everything we can to support in-store shoppers through this transition," Instacart said in the post.
An Instacart spokesperson told Law360 that while workers who organized at the Skokie grocery store will be among the layoffs, their union status did not play a role in the decision. The spokesperson said the company has been negotiating with the UFCW local that represents the workers and will continue talking with the union about the workers' future.
Jeff Weiss, a spokesperson for UFCW Local 1546, which represents the workers, told Law360 that the union pressed Instacart to reverse course on the layoffs during a prescheduled negotiation meeting Thursday, but the company declined. He said there are currently no formal options on the table for the union to contest the firings.
"I wish we had control of their management decisions, but we don't," Weiss told Law360.
Weiss said the union was nearing an agreement on its first contract with Instacart when the company informed the union of the layoffs. The union believes the workers' decision to unionize had a role in the firings, according to Weiss.
The company told the union that workers who are laid off will have a chance to apply directly to their stores and it will work to assist workers who want to make the transition, according to the letter sent to the local by Stinson LLP partner Joseph Santucci Jr., who represents Instacart.
Santucci did not immediately return a request for comment.
--Editing by Neil Cohen.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
