I have a liberal bourgeoise* friend who won't shop at Wal-mart because she can't shop there in good conscience. She does a lot of her food shopping at Whole Foods, a supposed 'progressive' company that offers higher (expensive) quality foods.
But my friend who can't shop at Wal-mart in good conscience is beginning to learn she can't shop at Whole-Foods in good conscience either.
Whole Foods and Wal-Mart are not that different from each other. Both corporations are strongly anti-union.
(* as she calls herself)
The president of Whole Foods John Mackey claims EFCA violates "violates a bedrock principle of American democracy"
Of course Mackey would be right if he substituted the word democracy with corporatism. Mackey is just another corporate capitalist making nice profits, but can't stand the idea of giving American workers a few more crumbs.
Mackey states his anti-union EFCA stance
Armed with those weapons, you will see unionization sweep across the United States and set workplaces at war with each other. I do not think it would be a good thing. That so few companies are unionized is not for a lack of trying, but because [unions] are losing elections--workers aren't choosing to have labor representation. I don't feel things are worse off for labor today.
Because the fucking corporate masters make it almost impossible to join a union. They (the corporate f*ckers) spread so much fear and distortion as to what a union is, and in doing so are standing in the way of a better life for millions of Americans. Unions are the only effective corrective measure against people like Mackey. (According to a 2006 poll over 60,000,000 Americans wanted to join a union)
This is what we are up against.
In January, Whole Foods launched a nationwide campaign, requiring workers to attend "Union Awareness Training," complete with Power Point presentations. At the meetings, store leaders asserted, "Unions are deceptive, money-hungry organizations who will say and do almost anything to 'infiltrate' and coerce employees into joining their ranks," according to Whole Foods workers who attended one such meeting.
"According to store leadership," the workers continued, "since the mid 1980s, unions have been on decline because, according to Whole Foods 'theory', federal and state legislation enacted to protect workers rights has eliminated the need in most industries (and especially Whole Foods stores) for union organization...No need to disrupt the great 'culture' that would shrivel up and die if the company become unionized."
In 2002 Madison Wisconsin a majority of Whole Food workers voted for a union only to have Whole Foods spend "the next year canceling and stalling negotiation sessions, knowing that after a year, it could legally engineer a vote to decertify the union."
Mother Jones reported, "An internal Whole Foods document listing 'six strategic goals for Whole Foods Market to achieve by 2013...includes a goal to remain '100% union-free.'"
How I want to see that goal defeated.
Another thing wrong with Whole Foods is its
Aggressive monopolization.
Tons of independent co-ops throughout the country don't exist any more because Whole Foods bought them out. Whole Foods also absorbed all its significant competitors (Wild Oats, Bread & Circus, Fresh Fields, Bread of Life, Merchant of Vino, Nature's Heartland, Food for Thought, Harry's Farmers Market, Mrs. Gooch's Natural Foods Markets, and U.K.-based Fresh & Wild).(2) They've thus created a virtual monopoly in the natural foods grocery business. Consumers are better served by a diversity of stores, but Whole Foods has been trying to wipe out the competition -- and has been quite successful at doing so.
Bernie Sanders was right "there is a war going on, a war that doesn’t get discussed in the corporate media. That is, a war against the middle class and working families."
EFCA probably isn't going to pass and if does not pass people like Mackey wins.
America needs an assertive left-wing. A left-wing that is unabashedly labor. No more putting the interests of corporations over the interests of workers. That means putting an end to the disaster of the market-driven neoliberal agenda.
We need class based politics. But at the very least we need to close the gap between the rich & poor, break up the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, and allow workers to organize and bargain collectively without fear.
I am also tired that the Democratic Party is constantly undermined by its corporate centrists, constantly selling out the base (workers) while bending over backwards to appease the ogliarchs & corporatists.
ok, I'll end simplistic rant.....