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Whole Foods: Anti-Union and Anti-Universal Health Care
Submitted by Dan U-A on Thu, 07/23/2009 - 1:56pm.
I frequently shop at Whole Foods. It is the closest grocery store to my house. They have excellent cookies, good produce, etc. They employ or have employed a bunch of my friends, and seem to pay them fairly well, even if they do not always treat them as kind as their image would suggest. And, after reading any Michael Pollan book, it is pretty hard to totally buy into Whole Food's take on organics. But still, despite all that, and that it creates a (w)hole in my wallet (badda boom!), I end up going there a lot.
But that said, it is worth remembering a few things for when you have a choice of where to shop. First, in an industry that is largely unionized, Whole Foods stands out as being anti-labor. This is a comment from their CEO:
The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.
Well that is just so sweet of him. As the quote would suggest, Whole Foods has been working to kill Employee Free Choice, a hugely important reform for working families.
And now, the same whack-job is lobbying against true universal healthcare:
John Mackey, chief executive of Whole Foods, said that while his company offers coverage, he worries that an employer mandate would lead to more stringent federal rules on what employer plans must include.
He said that would drive up the cost of employer benefits, motivating companies to end their benefits and instead let employees sign up for the public insurance option, figuring that paying a penalty would be less costly. This would result in eventual domination by the public insurance plan -- something Mackey suspects is reformers' secret hope.
"It's a Trojan horse," he said.
As Jake McIntyre notes, if you take an employee mandate and a public option out of health care reform, you are basically left with nothing except a huge payout to insurance companies, with millions upon millions of people still uninsured.
Does the fact that the CEO of Whole Foods is anti-labor or anti-universal health care mean I will never shop there again? No. But, there are a considerable amount of grocery stores that are much more friendly to labor, and presumably, to health care for all. From the United Food and Commercial Workers 1776 page, we see for example, that the following grocery stores are unionized:
Acme Markets
Giant Eagle
Shop Rite Supermarkets
Super Fresh Food Markets
It doesn't list Fresh Grocer. I have no clue about them. But either way, that is a big portion of our city's groceries stores.
And when you combine that list with the 30 or so farmers markets around Philly, most of which sell organic, locally made, fresher than Whole Foods goods, you kind of realize, yes, you do have a choice.
Will I forever boycott Whole Foods? No. Will I try to be more conscious of where I am shopping in the future? You better believe it.
Makes me feel even that I
Makes me feel even better that I can get superior produce @ Weaver's Way Co-Op.
-Z
i had a friend who worked at whole foods in boston
he hates them now, won't patronize them, because they were virulently anti-union.
he also had nightmare stories about the way management played favrites with the employees, pitted them agaisnt each other, and in general did not play fair.
I won't shop there either; they are way too expensive for my wallet.
fresh grocer is unionized. I called and asked.
The politics of grocery stores is complicated
Councilman Kenney wants us to boycott Shop Rite because he blames them for helping to defeat his ban on plastic shopping bags. On the other hand, I personally often return my plastic bags from a whole variety of stores to Shop Rite as they are one of the only places that collects them (they say to recycle them) around the city. Shop Rite and Fresh Grocer are also noteworthy also for taking a chance on building new in underserved areas in my general neighborhood, as well as other chronically underserved areas of the city.
I tend to prioritize what I see as substantive community economic investment over the plastic bag issue and try to bring my own bag as often as I can remember.
Whole Foods won't even give you a plastic bag but they support an awful national agenda and have an awful reputation for how they treat workers. And they are terribly expensive.
In a lot of things its the dollars and sense issues that matter most.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
More about ShopRite's community investment
briefly
Sorry for the long quotes but I feel the positive benefits of investment in communities that lack access to fresh foods speak for itself. When the Mayor says they talked to "every major chain in the country" I take his word for it and it matters that SR followed through.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Clarification from Whole Foods Market
Just to clarify, there is no Whole Foods Market or John Mackey lobbying effort regarding health care. Alec MacGillis at Washington Post asked for John Mackey’s opinion for his article and John provided it. We have worked hard as a company to ensure that our current Whole Foods Market health care plan is a sustainable one that allows us to pay 100% of the premiums for our full-time team members – that’s over 85% of our 50,000 team members. Part-time team members are also eligible to participate in our benefits plan by paying their own premiums. We also fund a "Personal Wellness Account" (PWA), giving team members up to $1,800 annually to use towards health care expenses. More than 80% of Team Members enrolled in our plan receive enough PWA dollars to come within $100 of the medical deductible amount. Our plan is very well received by our team members and we continue to refine it every three years by holding a benefits vote where Team Members help decide what the coverages, premiums and deductibles will be. We just don’t want to see employer mandates that would force changes to our plan that is working so well for our team members.
—posted by P. Brady for Whole Foods Market
Perhaps, as an organization, you should consider
your place within a larger community. Assuming, as you say, that your plan works well for your employees, a lack of an comprehensive health insurance nation-wide negatively impacts others - many of whom, no doubt, shop in your stores. No doubt, as a highly profitable company, you will find a way to prove that a national healthcare plan and providing good healthcare for your employees are not mutually exclusive.
It is shameful for your CEO to oppose the provision of health insurance to many of the very same people that his business profits from.
This is good
but why then do you go on and cite a public position for the store on the matter?