Name: Rent The Runway Is Risking Workers' Lives To Ship Designer Dresses In A Pandemic
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Rent The Runway Is Risking Workers' Lives To Ship Designer Dresses In A Pandemic

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×U.S. EditionPart of HuffPost News. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.×Martina stood outside the Rent the Runway warehouse where she works in Secaucus, New Jersey, in mid-April and took a deep breath. She was dreading going inside — there were rumors that several of her co-workers had fallen ill from the as it ravaged the tri-state area, causing, by that time, 2,443 deaths in New Jersey alone. But she needed the money, and management had given warehouse workers two options: Work without hazard pay, or stay home and don’t get paid at all.So Martina put on her gloves and a homemade face mask and walked through the doors to find anxious employees doing their best to keep their distance from each other while sorting through dirty clothes. Her boss dismissed her a short time later because there weren’t many orders to fill, meaning she would earn two hours’ pay for the day, minus commuting costs.AdvertisementThe 43-year-old mother of two couldn’t understand why her employer — a billion-dollar designer clothing rental service — was still taking orders as usual. Why would anyone rent a Vera Wang gown or a Christian Siriano blouse in the midst of a pandemic? All nonessential businesses in New Jersey had been directed to shut down weeks earlier under an . In New York, just five miles from Secaucus, the death toll had soared past 10,000. Fearing for their safety, Martina and a group of her colleagues had to the New Jersey government in early April for violating the order, but they never heard back. The state directive — and issued in Texas, where Rent the Runway’s only other warehouse is located in Arlington — have exemptions for fulfillment center operations, which are primarily intended to ensure the distribution of necessities.Rent the Runway’s warehouses are distributing shipments of high-end fashion apparel to be rented and worn in isolation. Although Rent the Runway has given its customers the option to pause their rental subscriptions during this time, many have wearing items from luxury brands that would normally be unavailable, as Refinery29 noted in its , “I’m Still Using Rent the Runway — Here’s Why.”The company told HuffPost that it is considered to be an essential business under the fulfillment center carve-out and that it is providing “continued employment opportunities while ensuring the short and long term future of our business.” To make sure its operations are not disrupted, it has even drafted documentation for certain Secaucus warehouse employees to carry around in case police officers or government officials question them about the nature of their work: “Our operations are not covered by New Jersey Executive Order 107 and this employee is needed to provide on-site services,” those letters claim. Advertisement“They found a loophole they could take advantage of,” Randy, a 58-year-old clothing cleaner, said of his employer. “It was very sneaky of the company to remain open in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic so that women could order dresses and wear them for mirror selfies.”Behind the scenes, members of the largely immigrant workforce tasked with fulfilling rental orders feel like they’ve been forced to choose between their paychecks and their health. Some, like Randy, have started burning through the limited vacation days and sick leave they’ve accrued, trying to maintain their earnings from home. Others have forfeited their wages altogether. An employee named Kevin stopped going to work in early April, after the virus killed his great-aunt, out of concern for the welfare of his partner and child.Many of the workers staying home for such reasons have found themselves trapped in an unpaid state of limbo for weeks, even as millions of laid-off and furloughed Americans collect unemployment compensation. In and , employees’ refusal to accept available work from legally operating businesses can render them ineligible for such benefits, just as quitting their jobs would. So instead, they’ve been waiting out the crisis — in some cases, skipping bill payments and rationing their food to do so. Every worker who spoke to HuffPost said they wished Rent the Runway had just closed down its warehouses.“It’s like they just don’t care,” said Kevin, who reluctantly returned to work after running out of savings to live off. “It’s heartless. It’s really heartless.”AdvertisementRent the Runway is widely revered as a progressive champion of workers’ rights, where all employees receive the same benefits regardless of title, and, most important, “we show that we care about each and every member of our team equally,” in . But inside the rapidly growing startup, workers say that reputation masks a relentless, profit-chasing work culture that has left them feeling used.HuffPost spoke to 22 current and former employees and three former contractors — ranging from entry-level associates to managers in the warehouses, call centers and retail stores — who accuse Rent the Runway of treating them like cogs in a machine while publicly preaching the importance of workplace morality. Laid-off employees signed non-disparagement agreements as a condition of receiving severance payment, and, unless otherwise noted, all sources quoted in this story are identified by pseudonyms to shield them from possible reprisal, including Martina and Randy. (Kevin agreed to use his real first name; three others have gone on the record with their full names.)“We’ve always been expendable,” one said. “I guess it took a pandemic to bring that to light.”staff inside Rent the Runway’s five brick-and-mortar stores — where customers pick up, return and hunt for rental items in person — a week earlier, according to multiple sourcesAdvertisementAs the coronavirus devastates the American economy, it threatens to blunt Rent the Runway’s meteoric rise in the startup world. In 2017, Fleiss left to launch a new venture while Hyman stayed on as chief executive officer. “I shouldn’t have to be a seamstress, therapist and retail employee.”- Naomi, a former assistant retail manager Advertisement“In retrospect, that should have been a sign,” Madalyn said. Rent the Runway’s system of sharing an ever-expanding wardrobe among a massive network of women AdvertisementThat lack of support “drove a lot of talent awayRent the Runway adamantly disputes this. The company says that its corporate team has been readily available to aid staff as needed and that some executives, including Hyman, have even picked up the phones to help with customer calls during particularly stressful periods, like last September.That was when which resulted in ruined weddings and a slew of other “horror stories,” at the time. AdvertisementIn the end, the company gave every affected customer “It was a slap in the face,” Madalyn said. So when employees felt that Rent the Runway was neglecting their safetyAfter trying to communicate their concerns about COVID-19 to corporate leaders from within the company to no avail, Madalyn said, she and other frightened retail associates decided to take them public. They started AdvertisementAdvertisementRent the Runway has publicly acknowledged that it laid off all of its retail workers. But that’s not the full picture. The company also quietly axed the majority of positions in its customer service departments in Arlington and Denver that same day — blindsiding employees there who had already been working from home for more than a week due to the coronavirus and leaving their counterparts at the Secaucus call center to handle the brunt of customer communications.“The rug was completely pulled out from under us,” said Claire, who worked in Denver and said she wept in shock upon losing her job. “It felt so contradictory to what we were hearing from the business up until that point.”Unlike the retail layoffs, which happened all at once, the customer service terminations were executed haphazardly, in waves of small groups called into separate Zoom meetings throughout the day, according to those affected. Some employees got the email with Hyman’s video in the middle of being let go — only to lose access to their email accounts before they could watch it.Their department had endured a round of terminations just a couple of weeks earlier, in which a number of customer service workers, including 29-year-old Diallo Chavez, were all fired at once for reasons purportedly related to their performance.“It didn’t make any sense, because up until that point, my [performance ratings] were the highest in the office,” said Chavez, who agreed to use his real name. His team in Denver operated out of a temporary workspace in a windowless college basement, which workers called “The Dungeon.” (The company had promised month after month that it would soon move them into a permanent space, multiple sources said, but that never happened.)AdvertisementOn March 27, the same day her company shed a significant portion of its staff, Hyman tweeted () an enthusiastic message of gratitude to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for his role in establishing , a massive financial support package in response to the coronavirus crisis.“To my fellow founders,” she wrote, “help is on the way.”Rent the Runway told HuffPost that it has not applied for a loan under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.AdvertisementAdvertisementof dirty clothing and potential virus carriers. Employees say they’re unprepared. Rent the Runway did not implement social distancing in its warehouses until late March, according to multiple warehouse employees in Arlington and Secaucus. The company says this is untrue and claims that it introduced measures including enhanced cleaning protocols as well as rearranged workspaces and common spaces in mid-March. But time-stamped photos and video provided to HuffPost show crowds of associates packed into the Secaucus break room without masks or gloves on March 19 — three days after retail stores had closed.Employees say face masks were not provided until mid-April; Rent the Runway noted that this happened in accordance with the government’s own guidance and timelines, Sam, who worked in the Arlington warehouse as a clothing cleaner, still felt that the danger was too great. The 26-year-old didn’t want to work for a company that he thought was putting him — and, by extension, his two baby daughters, who have asthma — at risk of contracting the virus, so he quit in the final week of March. His wife, Meredith, worked next door, in Rent the Runway’s Texas call center, until she was laid off that same week. She has since applied for unemployment benefits but says that she has yet to be approved.Advertisement“It’s hard right now. I don’t mean to get emotional, but it’s been really hard,” Meredith, 25, said through tears. The couple hasn’t been able to keep up with their bills, they said, and last week their lights were shut off.“[Sam] didn’t want to quit because he wanted to provide for us. He was even willing to sleep downstairs, but, you know, there’s still a risk he could come into contact with the girls,” Meredith said. “I just couldn’t risk losing him for some $12-an-hour job for a company that doesn’t give a fuck about us.”“We’re touching dirty clothes all day. ... How is that safe?”- KevinAt first, the option of calling in to stay home from work without penalty was set to end on May 1 — causing many workers to count down the days in fear, dreading their mandated return to the warehouses. After HuffPost reached out, Rent the Runway said that it had extended that deadline by at least two weeks and that it had long been planning to do so. AdvertisementThe company declined to say whether any employees have contracted COVID-19. Workers say they have received no communication about that. Rent the Runway declined to share its rental numbers. AdvertisementthislastAdvertisementAdvertisementThe 39-year-old, who was featured among Time magazine’s last year, is outspoken about the sexism she has overcome to get where she is today. In interviews with HuffPost for “I’m a person who needs a job. But that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to risk my family, that I’m going to risk my health.”- MartinaHyman’s success in spite of such challenges is inspiring to many; several former Rent the Runway employees told HuffPost that it was herAdvertisementMartina, the 43-year-old mother of two who prepares rental orders in SecaucusAdvertisementThis story has been updated to note that Rent the Runway said it has not applied for a loan under the CARES Act. A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus Suggest a correction

×U.S. EditionPart of HuffPost News. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.×Martina stood outside the Rent the Runway warehouse where she works in Secaucus, New Jersey, in mid-April and took a deep breath. She was dreading going inside — there were rumors that several of her co-workers had fallen ill from the as it ravaged the tri-state area, causing, by that time, 2,443 deaths in New Jersey alone. But she needed the money, and management had given warehouse workers two options: Work without hazard pay, or stay home and don’t get paid at all.So Martina put on her gloves and a homemade...

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Rent The Runway Is Risking Workers' Lives To Ship Designer Dresses In A Pandemic

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