More than 500 Wayfair (NYSE:W) employees signed on to a petition and are trying to rally support for a walkout Wednesday to protest the company’s apparent sale of $200,000 of mattresses to a detention camp for migrant children along the Mexican border.
The company sold the mattresses on June 13 to a charity group that works as a federal contractor managing some of the camps along the southern border. The roughly 1,600 mattresses and 100 bunk beds are scheduled to arrive in Carrizo Springs, Texas, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Organizers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the company, have posted a copy of a letter they sent to management as well as the company’s response to a Twitter account called Wayfairwalkout.
They are trying to pressure the company into severing its relationship with Baptist Children’s Family Services, the nonprofit that placed the order and is helping to furnish the detention centre.
They added that the detention of migrants at the southern border isn’t "an ethical business partnership Wayfair should be a part of."
Wayfair didn’t return repeated requests for comment, likewise, the charity group.
The company’s shares tumbled more than 5% Tuesday, before rising 64 cents on Wednesday to $145.04
The company told employees in an undated response it was standard practice to sell to "any customer who is acting within the laws of the countries within which we operate," according to a copy of the letter posted to Twitter and verified by an employee who received it.
