Ocasio-Cortez Supports Wayfair Walkout Over Furnishing Migrant Camps

Wayfair employees have planned a walkout after learning the online furnishing company is going to fulfill an order to furnish migrant camps and Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is voicing her support.

The retailer is going ahead with a $200,000 bed and furniture sale to a Texas detention facility. Almost 550 Wayfair employees signed a letter on June 20 to executives stating that Wayfair should not fulfill the order to the Texas migrant camp, according to WaPo. The company responded Monday announcing it would be fulfilling the order.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted her support for the walkout, saying “this is what solidarity looks like.” Ocasio-Cortez has called migrant camps concentration camps.

“At Wayfair, we believe that ‘everyone should live in a home that they love,’” the employees wrote in the letter to executives. “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.”

“Everyone should live in a home that they love” is the Wayfair slogan, NBC News reported.

Employees planned the walkout for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday near the headquarters in Boston. The employees will meet at Copley Square to protest, Bloomberg reported.

This isn’t the first time Wayfair has sold furniture to a migrant camp. It fulfilled an order in September 2018 for another facility in Texas that housed over 2,500 teenagers, employees said according to WaPo. The Trump administration closed that facility in January because of health and safety concerns. Baptist Child and Family Services placed the most recent order to supply furniture to a migrant camp.

“We’re walking out in protest of our leadership’s decision to sell to reprehensible concentration camps,” an anonymous employee said according to WaPo. “We had hoped that raising awareness would be enough for them to do the right thing, but it wasn’t. We want to make it clear that this is not a political issue — it’s a humanitarian issue, and we will not back down.”

A Twitter account about the intended walkout created Tuesday has already gained hundreds of followers.

“Supporting racist policy for the right reasons still means you’re supporting racist policy,” an employee said according to WaPo. “Our attention and energy should be devoted to shutting camps down, not towards making them better.”