The e-commerce housewares company Wayfair has now been targeted by the Left for selling furniture to U.S. migrant detention centers at the southern border. According to the Boston Globe, employees outraged by the business practice will be staging a walkout and have garnered massive support on social media from the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who made headlines recently by equating migrant detention centers with Nazi concentration camps.
“Employees of the Boston-based online housewares giant Wayfair announced Tuesday that they would stage a walkout at the company’s Back Bay offices Wednesday to protest the company’s decision to sell furniture to operators of facilities for migrant children detained at the southern US border,” reports the outlet.
An anonymous Wayfair employee told the Boston Globe that people were “disheartened” to learn last week that BCFS, the government contractor managing the detention centers, placed a $200,000 order for bedroom furniture.
“We were disheartened and concerned about Wayfair’s business,” said an employee.
In a matter of hours, employees drafted a letter demanding that the company stop the sale, expressing their “concern and anger about the atrocities being committed at the Southern border.” More than 547 employees signed it.
“Over the last two days it has come to our attention that Wayfair has again engaged in B2B sales with BCFS, a non-profit government contractor managing camps for migrants at our Southern border,” the letter said.
“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,” it continued. “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.”
The letter went on to not only demand that Wayfair cease all business with BCFS, but also for leadership to construct a code of ethics for future sales allowing for “Wayfair employees to act in accordance with our values.”
“We believe that the current actions of the United States and their contractors at the Southern border do not represent an ethical business partnership Wayfair should choose to be a part of,” the letter stated. “At Wayfair, we believe that ‘everyone should live in a home that they love.’ Let’s stay true to that message by taking a stand against the reprehensible practice of separating families, which denies them any home at all.”
The Wayfair leadership responded to the letter on Monday thanking the employees for sharing their concern while maintaining their belief in the “importance of respecting diversity of thought within our organization and across our customer base.”
“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 letter said. “We believe all of our stakeholders, employees, customers, investors, and suppliers included are best served by our commitment to fulfill our orders.”
Unhappy with the response, employees have now planned a walkout of the offices on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. and have now demanded that the company donate the $200,000 to charitable organizations.
“We’re disheartened given what we know is happening at the Southern border that there wasn’t a larger reaction,” the anonymous employee told Boston Globe. “I know them all to be empathetic and we’ve seen that in other ways. We are a coalition of employees and we were hoping for something that spoke more to our values.”
The Twitter account @wayfairwalkout has been blowing up on social media, garnering over 11,000 followers while being pushed by major left-wing figureheads.