[BCN] Musing: these stores arent true Organic Markets or CoOps....

[Amatul Hannan]

Musing...
  Lower prices or higher, the bad managment and a lack of voice make most  of these stores ...well, IMHO.....very sad excuses for organic markets  or CoOps.
    A CoOp is Co-Operated.
  
  I worked for WFM for two years and some months, in three departments.
  I quit when they had a "holiday party" with no chairs, no refreshments,  and a lottery drawing compitition for one lucky fellow or lady to beat  the rest of us and win a TV, Radio, or Sterio system. Some Party.
  
  They payed us differently according to our visible ambition, our  skills, our ability to prove accomplishment, and our ability to fill  out the SelfEvaluationForms 
  (we all had to beg for our raises in written english, our superiors  didnt write reccomendations for us and automatically raise us as the  cost of living went up, we had to write for any bit of a dime or  quarter more per hour, etc etc.) 
  
  WFM didnt allow Unions or union talk, and insisted that we had PROFIT  SHARING, so we were all so happy there is no need to change anything..  but the latino and islander and asian and and black peoples of the  diaspora working the registers and cutting fruit and meat in the back  rooms made $7.50 to 8.50 per hour. On the floor the lighter-skinned  more educated or europian managers (barely any black managment at any  level, nationwide, forget seeing Latino or Asian store managers in  latino or asian neighborhoods) 
  Well, the "more skilled " or "customer Service" folks... basically "we"  made $9.50 to 11.50. I made $9.50. Our management had a book we could  look at and see the overall positions and salery levels and salery  caps. - WFM has an"open door policy" - I looked and saw 11. up to 20.  to mayyyybe 25. per hour.. and that was it... then you move to salery  and work very very long hours - but the reward system was in the STOCK  OPTIONS and staying with the company five years or more to get to buy  stock when or if you could afford it 
  
  - so, if we slashed our prices, yet buy tonnes and get the best sales  numbers (by paying produce employees low wage and not having to deal  with unions, as well as putting smaller markets out of business by  being "better than they are") if we do all that, and you STAY WITH US,  then you get rich with us - IF you become  managment. 
  
  And who was managment? mostly white, corporate-minded folks, mostly  middle to upper middle class and well educated, and mostly looking to  make margins, make profit share, and move on up in the chain.. 
  
  No one stayed at the Prospect Street store very long - if they did well  there, they moved on up and out to a larger store in order to get a  saleried position with stock and rewards..
  
  Thats the scoop from my POV. 
  Personally, I think its immoral to pay carribian and latino women with  children $7-$9 per hour. I wont shop at Whole Foods, and I miss  Cambride Food COOPs when they were real honest-to-goodness  cooperatives, with votes, accountability, actual process... like you  caught embezzelers and fired them. Or if a leader messed up for a  while, the collective called them on the carpet and corrected them.
  
  My mother worked at Erewon on Mass Ave near Porter Sq. 
  Before the yuppies moved there.... back when Hippies were real...
  
  If you want your food cooperative to be respectful, and sucessfully  market to the actual people of Cambridhe Central Square, you will   need to TALK TO people of other colors and other class strata and other  educations than yourselves, and make the connections PERSONAL. 
  
.....
  Blaming WF
for Harvest's high prices is a cop-out, an
avoidance of recognizing the failure of Harvest's
business strategy.
  Of course, we Co-op loyalists share an
anti-corporate ideology, so we value the Co-op
for what it isn't.  But the Co-op cannot grow by
promoting itself for what it isn't.  And the
Co-op can only get greater buying-power, and
therefor lower prices, thru growth.  
  The potential for Co-op growth lies in the
difference in potential relationship with its
shoppers between the Co-op and WF.  WF doesn't
have Members, only shoppers.  So, it's the
Co-op's development of the Member relationship,
which is the key to growth, thus lower prices,
and survival.
  But Harvest doesn't have, and has never had, a
Membership development program.  The blame for
this can be placed on ourselves.  Our interest in
the Co-op has only been for what WE need from the
Co-op.  We haven't cared enough about people who
don't already share our culture and values, to
ask ourselves what THEY might need from the
Co-op.  If we cared at all about people different
than ourselves, our Co-op's 'Membership' would
mean more than simply a category of shoppers.
    
  I TOTALLY AGREE...
  


* * * * * * *
"...justice has two meanings. The elevated definition, the one that we
associate with spiritual masters such as Jesus or the Buddha, is the idea of love and fundamental fairness and equity among all people. 
Then we have the exact opposite meaning, which is what I believe our national leaders, for instance, use when the say, 'We want to bring the terrorists to justice.' We don't want to bring them to love, fairness, and equity; we want revenge against them. By having two opposite meanings for the same word, we're able to trick ourselves, or cloak our true meaning..."

--James P. Kimmel, Jr., JD (author of "Suing for Peace" Hampton Roads: 2005) http://www.nonjustice.org
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