In a heartwarming story out of Manhattan, NY, the leadership at Avoil – a feminist lifestyle brand doing new and exciting things with avocado oil – made sure to use gender-neutral language to lay off its employees for the inexcusable offense of joining a union and requesting living wages.
Yay! Progress in action!
Fifteen employees received an email early Monday morning telling them to prepare for a Zoom call at noon “with an important message from your/their boss.” Sources confirm this is not the correct way to use they/them pronouns and only served to make the email extremely confusing.
Upon logging on to the call, the company’s CEO, Shannon Villaro, greeted everyone by saying, “Hey guys – sorry, folx. So, as you may know, shit has really hit the fan.”
The “shit” to which she referred was the 15 employees on the call having recently voted to form a workplace union. It is illegal to fire an employee for joining a union under the National Labor Relations Act, but Shannon did not seem to know or care, instead taking great pains to emphasize that she was not firing them for identity reasons, just “the union thing.”
“We believe it is everyone’s right to be treated with respect at work regardless of their gender identity, sexuality, or race,” she continued. “But joining a union is a little far, no? Kind of rude when we’re actually a family.”
There has been no indication that Avoil’s employees have ever been treated like family. This is just a thing Shannon loves to say.
Sources confirm that months ago, leadership promised to adjust wages for inflation, then decreased wages by the inflation percentage, which is not the same thing at all. They also replaced employer-funded insurance with a pizza party every third Tuesday of the month, then appeared surprised when employees met about unionizing.
“I just don’t know why you ladies and gentlemen and theydies and gentlethems would need to be so combative about this,” Shannon continued, even though no one on the call identified as nonbinary or took pronouns other than “he/him” and “she/her.”
One employee, Dan Jung, missed the Zoom meeting and was instead laid off via pamphlet, the cover of which read, “Sorry, you (or they) are fired! Sleep with one eye open, bitxch!”
At press time, Shannon was served a labor lawsuit on behalf of the 15 employees.
“This is so inappropriate,” she told the press. “This lawsuit is addressed, ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ and we just don’t use gendered language like ‘Whom’ anymore! It’s 2023, people!”
