About three months after it started, a national boycott against Whole Foods seems to be petering out—but local activists are determined to keep the pressure on the company and specifically its CEO, John Mackey.
Calls for the boycott were sparked by an op-ed piece the libertarian Mackey wrote for the Wall Street Journal back in August, in which he argued against a health care reform that would increase the government’s role in the system. “[T]he last thing our country needs is a massive health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficit and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health care system,” Mackey wrote.
The Western Mass. Single Payer Network and Western Mass. Jobs With Justice were among the groups that sounded the call for a national boycott of the supermarket chain. In a recent progress report on the effort, Jon Weissman, coordinator of WMJWJ and a member of the single-payer group, wrote, “The Whole Foods boycott ran out of steam nationally but continues locally,” and suggested new directions Valley activists might take.
“Mackey’s denial of health care as a human right struck a nerve with Whole Foods customers everywhere, as in [the] Pioneer Valley. In addition, his extreme anti-unionism was an eye-opener for many customers too,” Weissman wrote. Mackey has been widely criticized by labor activists for his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act; meanwhile, last spring, Mother Jones magazine reported that it had obtained an internal Whole Foods document that named remaining “100 percent union-free” as a key corporate goal.
Among the actions suggested in Weissman’s progress report is a local boycott that would end “when the Hadley Whole Foods workers gain improved wages, hours, and working conditions, including health insurance.” (Right now, Whole Foods workers who work at least 30 hours a week qualify for coverage through a high-deductible plan; they also get “Personal Wellness Accounts” that Mackey argues empower employees to make smart health care spending decisions.)
“The best way to win such improvements is through a union and collective bargaining, so if the workers want to form a union, we will help,” Weissman added.
Libba Letton, a spokeperson for Whole Foods, said the company supports its employees right to unionize. “So far, none of our employees have chosen to go through with unionizing. That choice is always open to them. They can choose to unionize or not to unionize. It’s always 100 percent their choice. We support that. It’s the law.” Letton also said Whole Foods has “an exceptionally high number of employees—70-80 percent nationally—who qualify as full time, which means they’re eligible for our health care plan. I think that speaks well of us as a place to work.”
Weissman told the Advocate last week that activists are also considering addressing freedom of speech issues at the Hadley Whole Foods after a September incident in which the property owner obtained a trespass order to keep activists distributing leaflets away from the store’s entrance. (The activists continued their action in the parking lot instead). In contrast, Weissman noted, WalMart is bound by a National Labor Relations Board ruling that requires it to allow union activists the same access to leaflet at store entrances as other groups, such as people seeking petition signatures for ballot questions.
Such actions would address multiple issues, Weissman said. “There’s the right of [Whole Foods’] workers to have healthcare, and a union if they want. And our right to inform the public at the door instead of being kicked out into the parking lot.”
Before any actions are taken, Weissman said, JWJ plans to confer with United Food and Commercial Workers (the union that represents supermarket employees) and the Franklin-Hampshire Healthcare Coalition.
