Seattle City Council member Lisa Herbold called on Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos to advocate for gig economy workers as the Seattle-based retail behemoth moved forward Wednesday with its $13.7 billion acquisition of natural and organic grocery chain Whole Foods Market Inc.

Herbold acknowledged the labor market is changing, the gig economy is proliferating, and more of the workforce is made up of employees who are contract workers. “If this is the new face of labor and you are a visionary leading the evolution of this new model of work, should you not also be a visionary on the forefront of finding ways to help this new workforce — and your workers — thrive?” Herbold wrote in the letter. “Contract workers don't have the same rights and are not protected by many of our labor laws. But just because an employer can take advantage of contract employees with few rights under the law doesn't mean that employers should.”

Herbold asked Bezos to “convene a national conversation with other employers in the gig economy and labor advocates to plan how you will each treat your employees as well as you treat your customers, engaging with them not as data, but as people with real needs and real lives. Not as a metric. If the gig economy is indeed here to stay, you have a responsibility to participate in a conversation about fair work, schedules, and livable wages.”

Whole Foods acquisition

Whole Foods shareholders yesterday approved the proposed sale to Amazon and the Federal Trade Commission announced it would not pursue its investigation further. The deal is expected to close before the end of 2017.

Whole Foods operates 448 stores in the US, 13 stores in Canada and nine stores in the UK, according to its website. Instacart is Whole Foods’ exclusive delivery partner, but GeekWire reported last week the San Francisco-based firm is quickly recovering from the “breakup.”