January 29, 2006

Whole Foods and the union

As Whole Foods, the 180-store natural foods grocer, now pretends to be using wind energy (and everyone seems to believe them), it is probably an appropriate time to bring up the fact that they hate unions, i.e., they hate that their workers might be able to look to another organization to defend their rights instead of simply submitting on the beneficent paternalism of the Whole Foods executives.

In 2002, the employees of the Whole Foods in Madison, Wis., successfully organized with United Food and Commercial Workers. The primary organizers were fired for sharing a botched latte instead of throwing it out. Founder and CEO John Mackey then toured the country to tell his employees how much they would lose if they unionize. He also threatened to pull advertising from magazines that ran ads for union drives.

A web site by the Madison workers keeps the union drive alive: www.wholeworkersunite.org.

Some interesting comments can be found in a discussion at Vegan Porn.

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