Is Whole Foods Just Another Evil Corporation?

[katty]

Is Whole Foods Just Another Evil Corporation?

By Sharon Smith, CounterPunch. Posted May 11, 2009.

Beneath the surface of Whole Foods' fuzzy, progressive image is a company hell-bent on preventing its workers from unionizing.

more: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/139931/is_whole_foods_just_another_evil_corporation/

EXCERPT:
Whole Foods also has a distinctive reputation for rejecting traditional corporate management models in favor of decentralized decision-making, described as an experiment in workplace democracy.

There are no departments at Whole Foods stores, only "teams" of employees. And Whole Foods has no managerial job titles, just team leaders and assistant team leaders. Nor does the company admit to having any workers, only team members who meet regularly to decide everything from local suppliers to who should get hired onto the team.

Generally, the company strives to achieve consensus at team meetings, where workers brainstorm about new ways to raise productivity. And new hires need to win the votes of at least two-thirds of team members to make the cut.

[Hannah Bell]

1. yes, it is just another greedy corporation, & those worker management techniques

are just sneaky ways of getting more buy-in from employees & stealing their ideas & labor without paying for them.

[katty]

4. yes, I grow and get veges fr local growers-I think I have

been to WF maybe once in the last 8 mos for some goat cheese.

[Clear Blue Sky]

2. Great store though.

Good products, green friendly, but pricey.

[billyoc]

3. Yes.

[zipplewrath]

5. No

It's a new and unique kind of greedy corporation hiding behind a psuedo progressive reputation. In some senses it's attempting to redefine what being progressive means.

[graywarrior]

6. I'd rather shop there than Shaw's

[truedelphi]

7. Whole Paycheck is a devious corporate

Mechanism by which you buy the SAME food that you would at the local grocery and pay triple the price.

I have yet, for instance, to see any organic corn sold at Whole Foods. Their conventional corn is much more expensive, and of course, is most likely GMO.

No employee I have ever queried about this denies it.

It also promotes the notion of "Exotic and foreign" being wonderful. You can get fish from Ecuador and oranges from Brazil. Dates and raisins and figs from Turkey. But hard to find local, small family farmer produce.

Ugh. Whenever possible, I bought from local farm market stands. And also, now I buy from a conventional grocery that buys locally - I see no difference in the non-organic apples ast the conventional place to the "organic" apples that Whole PAycheck's heavily perfumed workers were handling there. I couldn't even eat them, the apples were so perfumed.

[Mist]

10. The Whole Foods here (Chapel HIll) sells locally raised meat, chicken, and produce. Yes, I

would have to say that as for Whole Foods being another corporate monster, I would say it's half-and-half. I like that the people there are really up on vitamins, supplements, health issues, etc. In what grocery store will you get that level of interest and knowledge in such areas?

HOWEVER, Whole Foods is totally anti-union, as some of the cashiers at my local Whole Foods often tell me.

[truedelphi]

16. Good to hear that over the three years I have avoided them,

They started to get wise to the use of small, friendly local family farms and their produce.

Oh yeah - the anti-union issue is another thing.

[Dr.Phool]

21. Locally raised meat. Like Smithfield?

They're local in NC.

[Yunomi]

8. A loud and emphatic YES!!

They have found new and creative ways to screw their "team members" while making them like it.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

9. Most assuredly.

As a worker at a considerably smaller, locally owned grocery chain, I know that WF also seeks to destroy its competitors. The CEO, John Mackey, was once a true pioneer of local, sustainable, and organic food practices. He's turned into the standard corporatist bully.

Mackey spent years pseudonymously denigrating Wild Oats Markets' business practices and stock in an attempt to reduce the value of its stock so WF could buy it up. Link here.

Once Whole Foods owned Wild Oats and the FTC started crying monopoly, WF started gunning for the smaller chains (like my employer). Recently, we were hit with a subpoena requesting years' worth of market analysis, sale figures, and expansion plans. All highly proprietary information, which we are being forced to turn over so that Whole Foods' lawyers can prove that WF is not a monopoly.

[katty]

13. he decimated Wild Oats and I liked our WO mkt-many here

in LA were really pissed when WF took over.

[GentryDixon]

17. Since they took over my Wild Oats in Salt Lake the only

thing I buy there is the organic dog treats.

The store has suffered in the quality of food and the cleanliness. I have made complaints to the management of one store more than once about their bakery section. I read on the Health Department website recently the number of demerits this store has had. I knew there was a reason I stopped shopping that store.

[shireen]

18. why on earth did they subpoena your store?

They can't take legal action against small family-owned stores just to swallow them up, can they? How does this work? It's very troubling to hear about this.

I shop at Whole Foods because i trust their sources for food. The Baltimore/Mt. Washington store is very good, with great staff and good products. They also host weekly farmers markets during the growing season and sell local as much as possible. But I've heard about the ugly side of that corporation (Mackey is Libertarian), and it's sad.

Besides Costco, are they any big chain progressive companies out there?!

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

22. We were subpoenaed

along with 50+ other stores around the country, ostensibly to allow some judge to look over our documents and decide that WF is not, in fact, attempting a monopoly (but also conveniently allowing WF lawyers to peek into the inner workings of the competition).

The last time that a similar subpoena went out, much of the private information actually found its way to the WWW.

[Fire1]

11. Is Plum Market (WF competition) anti-union also? I guess I

can look it up but just thought someone might know off hand. One just opened in my neck of the woods and I went in to be nosy, of course. They have many of the same organic products as Whole Food but also regular store brand products, as well.

[texastoast]

12. Helluva lot better than Wal-Mart

Tries to buy locally, pays their employees better at the start, values the opinion of the folks at the bottom of the ladder.

Perfect? Not by a long shot.

[cachukis]

14. I like the civil dither dather.

[bemildred]

15. Well, very expensive anyway. nt

[bertman]

19. This article gives me an even better reason to shop at the local co-op grocery and

farmers markets.

Too bad about WF, but WTF is the union-busting but corporate bidness as usual.

[KoKo]

20. Make sure you check their frozen veggies..."China" for frozen brocolli and spinach?

I returned packages...asking them how they could sell frozen bags of brocolli and spinach as "organic on label" and I get home and find "Product of China" marked on the bag? Sales person returned my money but never answered.

You have to check everything you buy there. And...remember that "Boutique Grocery Stores" are not required to list country of origin on fresh produce. Even my local grocery stores now post COO..above or below the fresh product. But, Whole Foods, Earth Fare and Fresh Market stores are not required to post. Sometimes they put up if it's grown in USA prominently...but if it isn't they don't have a label.

And, Whole Food's chickens are coated in oil to make them stay fresh. I can't stand their chicken parts and most of the time their other meats look like Smithfield Factory Pork and the beef doesn't have fresh white fat in the trim. It's mostly bloody and that's not good for beef.

In our store in Raliegh there's always an odor of "fish past it's prime," near the fish counter.

I buy rice, soup and organic products in cans there. Sometimes veggies if they look fresh and organic cat food. Otherwise...it's hit or miss with them. I can find organic in my local grocery stores..so why would I need to bother with them...