Triumph of the Macrobiotics

Reader R.Y. writes that "the thing about Whole Foods" is that:

It's one of the most viciously anti-union companies in the country. Not fascist (of course!!!) by any means. Still, this could present Jonah with something of a problem--every typology of fascism--as well as its actual, historical iterations--include the crushing of labor unions. So, it sounds like maybe Whole Foods is a GOOD candidate for proto-fascism, no?

But Jonah LIKES union busting--making him, by that logic, something of a proto-fascist himself!! Thus the whole thesis collapses upon itself.

He should have stuck with Hillary Clinton....

This is why I'm such a strong supporter of labor law reform. Whole Foods is a great place to purchase food. It's great, in part, because it's owner is a devious practitioner of the capitalistic arts. Naturally, given our current socio-political climate, this makes him "viciously anti-union." My heart cries for the UFCW every time I buy a delicious, delicious Whole Foods tomato and contemplate the awful state of the produce on sale at DC's Safeways and Giants. I could take or leave the "organic" food concept, which feels to me like a scam, but there's no denying that WF has better fruits and vegetables than the competition. But the guilt. So Whole Foods needs a union and it needs a legal environment in which it can get a union no matter how viciously anti-union the management may be.

Comments

Where do workers seem happier to you? My wife worked for whole foods for three years while putting herself through school and still misses that job. Not sure if the people at safeway feel that way. The fact is that whole foods treats its employees as if they were a union, for example, by letting them vote on benefits decisions. They also have profit sharing for every employee. And they pay much better.

Posted by m g | June 28, 2007 9:56 AM

Also, the way our political system is set up, I would think that the appropriate place to express your feelings about unions is at the ballot box, not at the cash register.

Posted by Jim W | June 28, 2007 9:59 AM

Daughter had a summer job at a UFCW organized Giant Eagle in PA years ago, which job was to end last days of August. Was asked if she'd like to work a couple days 1st week of September and so did. UFCW rule says you work one day in a month, you owe dues for the entire month. Paycheck was close to nil. UFCW can eat shi t and die.

Posted by Joe S | June 28, 2007 10:06 AM

I could take or leave the "organic" food concept, which feels to me like a scam.

Thank God somebody said it.

Posted by Cain | June 28, 2007 10:12 AM

That's interesting. The only way of being "anti-union" that is acceptable to me is to treat your workers so well that they don't feel a need to unionize.

However, should Whole Foods start not being so nice, the workers should be able to easily unionize. The threat of unionizing can be as effective as an actual union in having workers' rights preserved, and it's certainly less expensive...

Posted by badpoetry | June 28, 2007 10:12 AM

My heart cries for the UFCW every time I buy a delicious, delicious Whole Foods tomato

Maybe things are different in DC, but I always found it very odd that

a) even in the middle of July, the Whole Foods on Wilson Blvd in Arlington had nothing but the same awful hydroponic Canadian or Mexican tomatoes as Safeway and Giant
b) it didn't charge any more for them than Safeway or Giant
c) meanwhile, down the road in Richmond, Kroger and Ukrop's would have great Hanover Co. tomatoes all summer long for $.99/lb.

Posted by Steve K. | June 28, 2007 10:14 AM

As far as organic food goes, My Money linked to some information about which foods are worth buying organic. I'm kind of in the "whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger" school of pesticide consumption though, so I'll stick with whatever's cheap and tasty.

Posted by Drew Miller | June 28, 2007 10:19 AM

Pesticide consumption is great if you want your penis to shrink.

Posted by Christmas | June 28, 2007 10:27 AM

I always thought that many varieties of fascism were not so much "anti-union" but rather were variants of a corporate state in which unions are other organizations of civil society are brought under the wing of the state (i.e., incorporated into the state as agencies or quasi-agencies).

Some the regimes that fit under this description are probably ones that Jonah et al would approve of (Brazil under the generals), others not so much (Argentina under Peron). Other than having national health care systems, though, I don't see much what they have to do with liberalism or Hillary Clinton.

And if not having a national health care system is a sign of a free society, then Jonah must love the new China, which has largely dismantled its government health system in favor of reliance on the market and private insurance.

Posted by Gene | June 28, 2007 10:31 AM

I worked there (at the Boston version - "Bread and Circus"). It was an ok job but I certainly wouldn't say they treat their workers well. There are all sorts of stupid rules (I was once told I had to shave or be fired) and they certainly do their very best to keep more or less full time employees at the all important 30-35 hr mark.
The best thing about working there is that customers attribute a different level of respect to you than they do say a safeway employee. In my experience, many customers want the approval of whole food workers, as I guess it validates their standing in the organic gemeinshaft.
The other great thing about working there was this guy I met who had a "Murder She Wrote" t-shirt.

Posted by berger | June 28, 2007 10:40 AM

The other advantage to organic food, aside from not consuming pesticides, is that you aren't contributing to the huge negative environmental externalities of industrial agriculture. See Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

Posted by Phaedrus | June 28, 2007 10:41 AM

From the article you posted, Christmas:

Guillette said he doesn't support a total pesticide ban, saying their use is proper for public health and probably in agriculture.

Organic food appeals to vague notions of "natural" and "purity" that may or may not have any basis in science and reality. You can, indeed, ingest certain amounts of pesticides (or "chemicals", as their often called in that crowd) safely without doing any harm to yourself. Just because something has any amount of chemicals on it doesn't mean it's bad; the dose makes the poison, in other words.

Posted by Cain | June 28, 2007 11:12 AM

This is an interesting firsthand account from a former Whole Foods worker in Madison, Wisconsin about their effort to form a union.

It's both an eye opener about what kind of guy WF CEO John Mackey and is yet another example of why we need to strengthen ordinary workers' ability to form organizations at work.

[The workers at the Madison store did vote to form a union with the UFCW but WF refused to acknowledge the vote and pressured workers to hold another vote to vote the "right" way.)

Read more at:
http://www.utwatch.org/archives/issue/issue4_wholefoods.html

Posted by Brendan Sexton | June 28, 2007 11:21 AM

I could take or leave the "organic" food concept, which feels to me like a scam.

OK, this may be particular to me, but abuse of the word scam in this context is a long-time annoyance. Scam implies trickery. You might think the "organic food concept" is meritless, or overhyped, or misdirected, but surely it isn't actually a massive case of outright fraud. If people want to spend more for pesticide-free tomatoes, so be it. That's their prerogative.

You sometimes hear the scam accusation flung at products like bottled water, as though bottled water is anything other than what it purports to be: water in a bottle. Sure, the attendant fluffy marketing is surely bullshit, but that hardly makes the product a scam.

There is a political angle to this, by the way (and this is where the pet peeve comes in). Certain types of contrarians love to dismiss policy prescriptions they don't support as scams. Drives me up a wall.

Posted by Adam | June 28, 2007 11:24 AM

I have actually found that the produce at the capitol hill Safeway better tehn Whoel Foods. Gratned teh selcetion isn't as good, but the produce itself better.

Posted by nathaniel | June 28, 2007 11:26 AM

Berger - "Bread & Circus" wasn't the Boston version of Whole Foods, it was an original long-standing Massachusetts based organic food business that Whole Foods bought in the '90s and subsequently trashed, incurring the permanent wrath of Boston-area leftists (yet another reason Jonah's title is so stupid). Did you work at "Bread & Circus" before or after Whole Foods acquired it? "Bread & Circus" as I remember it was far more "liberal", and a more interesting place to shop, than Whole Foods. To most old Bread & Circus customers Whole Foods really feels like a fake pastiche of an organic supermarket.

Posted by vanya | June 28, 2007 11:29 AM

I worked at a Bread & Circus which had already been purchased by Whole Foods for a while. They didn't change the name for quite a while though because Bread & Circus had a lot of brand loyalty. Not much really changed when it was bought though, except Whole Foods brand products were sold and used. I worked in the prepared foods dept. It was an OK place to work. They were indeed very anti-union, but they also paid more than any other grocery store deli. They had lots of quirky labor incentives such as payouts to departments for going under budget on labor, which were great for the people in some depts. which were always able to do so. Our dept. was over every time but one, so I only got the payout once. It wasn't some hostile, terrible place to work though. I think you'll find that a lot of what are labeled as 'liberal' companies are actually just a new model of corporation trying to out-compete the older models, and part of how you do that is have low labor costs, which means - no unions. Good for business, bad for workers, you know which one is going to win out. Sad but true, Whole Foods stockholders, largely left-leaning folks I would imagine, also have a financial interest in the company now allowing unions...so its a bit complicated, eh?

Posted by itsbenj | June 28, 2007 11:36 AM

I'm not sure it's just the legal environment. There's the often noted Wal-Mart factor. Unionized employees at at least several chains have seen their wages stagnate or decline in recent years, and benefits be cut on the rationale that Wal-Mart was coming to town at any moment.

Some of the execs at these grocery chains are practicing a kind of slash and burn strategy, looking forward to a Wal-Mart induced apocalypse and stashing as much in cash and perks as they can get for themselves. The inside game is to convince as many mid-level operators that they're just like the boss, but of course in the end they get burned just like the low level employees.

There's also the laziness factor. What I think any number of well-meaning liberal journalists can't seem to understand is that part of the reason Americans don't seem so inclined to unionize is that they or family members have been members of unions in the past and have seen how often they can be appallingly lazy and ineffectual in protecting the best interests of workers. I've seen it myself in the past both as a unionized employee and union activist.

Posted by Linus | June 28, 2007 11:38 AM

dismissing the topic of organic foods as a 'scam' is just laziness. yeah, those diabolical organic farmers, have they no shame??? how could something with deadly poison all over it be worse for you than something...without deadly poison...all over it.

yeah...

Posted by itsbenj | June 28, 2007 11:40 AM

The other advantage to organic food, aside from not consuming pesticides, is that you aren't contributing to the huge negative environmental externalities of industrial agriculture.

Interesting. So how do they stock the shelves of Whole Foods? Do they bring the lettuce in on horseback?

Posted by sglover | June 28, 2007 11:59 AM

"My heart cries for the UFCW every time I buy a delicious, delicious Whole Foods tomato and contemplate the awful state of the produce on sale at DC's Safeways and Giants."

This would be reason enough not to shop there. It's important to support union shops.

Here in the Chicago area, my favorite supermarket is Jewel Foods. The first thing you see when you walk in is the "UFCW" sticker on the door.

Posted by leo | June 28, 2007 12:25 PM

You can, indeed, ingest certain amounts of pesticides (or "chemicals", as their often called in that crowd) safely without doing any harm to yourself.

This is certainly true, but it bears mentioning that environmental and dietary exposure to pesticides and herbicides can often differ wildly from laboratory conditions. Measuring a toxic dose of any given chemical is much more straightforward than gauging the long-term effects of the dozens of different compounds their breakdown products acting in combination. There are a number of disturbing trends (reduced male sperm count, increased breast cancer rates, immune disorders) that are suspected to be linked to pesticide use, particularly in regard to "environmental estrogens" or xenoestrogen.

While this issue has occasionally been overhyped by environmental groups, and the research has some vocal skeptics, there is actually a large and growing amount of data to suggest cause for concern.

What bothers me personally, having worked on some projects with the National Cancer Institute and CDC, is the abysmal methodology for studying the effects of environmental pollutants on public health. There is an institutional bias toward finding causation in exercise and diet, rather than environmental factors, which is particularly maddening given that our "diet" is impacted by "the environment." Surveys look for geographic clusters, and find very few, but they never seem to control for factors such as the source of drinking water, where people shop for food, whether they wash their fruits and vegetables, and so forth. The ingrained assumption is that you and your next-door neighbor are equally impacted by pollutants, which simply isn't true.

All this is to say that while there are some good reasons to be skeptical about some of the claims made by organic food promoters, there are also good reasons to be skeptical about the safety claims made by proponents of pesticide and herbicide use.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 28, 2007 12:30 PM

1) I occasionally hunt pheasants -- mostly for the outdoors experience. I strongly believe in "fair chase" -- so I regard Dick Cheney's Euro-style slaughters with contempt.

2) But what really pisses me off is factory-farming --stuffing animals like chickens in cages for their entire life until they are developed for market. I consider that an abomination. Hence I buy "free range" eggs and chicken.

But has anyone ever heard Hillary Clinton denounce the practices of Tyson Foods of Arkansas?
Why does it take "The American Conservative" magazine to expose the evils of factory farming? See http://www.amconmag.com/2005a/2005_05_23/cover.html

3) When it comes to the nature of outdoor systems, urban liberals sometimes seem like Martians. They view outdoor scenery as if they are watching TV -- with no recognition of the interplay of life's systems. No recognition of how wild species needs water and living space. With no recognition of the impact population growth has on our environment.
No Knowledge of where their food comes from.

At least hunters contribute toward wildlife habitat -- whereas suburbanites don't seem to realize how many wild animals die each year due to the bulldozers of urban sprawl. Or starve on millions of acres of close-cropped lawns.

4) Pennsylvania once had 3 million wild pheasants. That population was destroyed within 3 years when Richard Nixon destroyed the Soil Banking program in order to encourage farmers to move toward massive use of fertilizers and pesticides --with the goal of expanding US exports of crops to China.

Now, Pennsylvania gamelands are stocked with farm-raised pheasants every spring -- which die out every fall due to lack of habitat.

Posted by Don Williams | June 28, 2007 12:31 PM

"Interesting. So how do they stock the shelves of Whole Foods? Do they bring the lettuce in on horseback?"

Trucks that run on "organic" diesel fuel.

"I'm kind of in the "whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger" school of pesticide consumption though, so I'll stick with whatever's cheap and tasty."

Me too. Sorta like Keith Richards. I just assimilate the pesticides and toxins and they make me immune.

Posted by Peter K. | June 28, 2007 12:32 PM

> how could something with deadly poison all
> over it be worse for you than
> something...without deadly poison...all over it.

Read up on the details of what the W Administration's FDA considers "organic". Just as "zero trans fat" now means "up to 0.5g trans fat per serving" (as you can see by comparing the fat table to the ingredients list), the FDA now allows food that is grown with standard industrial farming techniques that may or may not include the use of chemicals to be classified as "organic".

Hell, they just voted to allow fully non-organic hops to be used in "organic beer" due to the short of ... wait for ... real organic hops. So the "organic" label on beer is now a total lie - yet I suspect Whole Foods charges a nice 25% premium for it.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 28, 2007 12:33 PM

In DC, get your tomatoes at the Saturday Farmers Market at Eastern Market. They taste like tomatoes. Also buy the peaches and nectarines.

Posted by Eli Rabettq | June 28, 2007 12:42 PM

Buying and eating organic doesn't just mean you, the consumer are eating food free from chemicals, it means the farmworkers aren't exposed to this crap day after day.

Posted by Joe | June 28, 2007 1:53 PM

Having had a bevy of flaky housemates, including an Arkansas-bred history major, who shared a common lack of scientific knowledge, the organic scam is no longer an effete affectation. It's much better to save the dosh spent on organic veggies and spend it on free-range meats and organic dairy... synthetic hormones pose a much bigger threat, even though the spectre of Rachel Carson looms large.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | June 28, 2007 2:15 PM

My son is allergic to eggs, so Whole Foods is a convenient place to get all sorts of vegan products that he can eat. We bought a vegan birthday cake from Whole Foods.

Posted by blah | June 28, 2007 2:25 PM

Vanya- you're quite right, sorry to imply otherwise. I went to B&C as a kid and then worked under the occupied version later - they are two entirely different beasts.

Posted by berger | June 28, 2007 7:05 PM