Whole Foods, Starbucks & Costco .VS. EFCA

[R_P_A_S]

I was wondering if anyone here has been following this. I was listening to the radio and there was this lady on there who said she was the attorney for a coalition of some sort between Whole Foods, Starbucks & Costco retailers.
I'm not very up to date on the EFCA bill, from what I read I think it's a step forward for workers in the U.S. however this 3 corporations are not going to sit pretty and are taking their own action. From what I read it's just confusing me more. I know that we have nothing in common with the bosses and that our interest are different. However they use this nice words and sentences that I can easily see workers taking sides with their employers as opposed to being open to a Union. My flat mate works for Whole Foods and he told me that they are having meetings with them to discuss the faults and cons of Unions and EFCA.

any insight on this?

[PRC-UTE]

I remember reading somewhere, I think it was in the Wobblies paper about Whole Foods being violently anti-union. Something like nearly running union organisers over.

Anyway, can you post more about what they said?

[KurtFF8]

This was on Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/23/headlines#14) yesterday (just the headlines)

I'd like to see some more info on the Whole Foods/IWW though.

As I posted at PoFo: this shows that the most "left" corporations will come out very openly to support their class interest in times like this (although even if times were good I'm sure they'd do the same)

[R_P_A_S]

I remember reading somewhere, I think it was in the Wobblies paper about Whole Foods being violently anti-union. Something like nearly running union organisers over.

Anyway, can you post more about what they said?

Whole Foods is shit! I remember when I first discovered the store I thought it was great and the workers there seem so happy. When my flat mate needed a regular job and came to live with me I suggested him Whole Foods because he had some grocery experience. Well He has managed to be there for 4 years and he said that they make their workers sign something that says they will never seek union membership and question on the application asked him if he was in a union or sympathetic.

He also tells me that every 3 months they get 3 new managers. The turn around is on average 3 to 5 months. When he first started working there he told me that their departments had options to make extra money at the end of the month if they had the most sales and growth, like they will get the growth profit to split between their department. That's no longer practice. I'm not very up on shares but Whole Foods used to let their employees buy lots of shares at a good price or something, well now that has gone really down. I wish I know the terminology but it was something like 170 dollars? to 27 dollars now.

[leggy leftist]

Whole Foods is strongly anti-union. I won't shop there. Trader Joe's - same thing. I try to stick to Lucky's and Safeway, where they still have union employees.

Bank of America and some other financial institutions have already had high-level meetings about how to fight the EFCA legislation. This happened back in November after they received their first bailout. They knew that with Obama being elected, there was a chance of EFCA making it through committee, and they were already trying to figure out how to defeat it. (In other words, who to pay off in Congress.)

I wouldn't hold my breath on EFCA. Isn't Obama already backpedaling on it? This Congress is going to do what their donors want, and the working class are not their donors.

[R_P_A_S]

Whole Foods is strongly anti-union. I won't shop there. Trader Joe's - same thing. I try to stick to Lucky's and Safeway, where they still have union employees.

Bank of America and some other financial institutions have already had high-level meetings about how to fight the EFCA legislation. This happened back in November after they received their first bailout. They knew that with Obama being elected, there was a chance of EFCA making it through committee, and they were already trying to figure out how to defeat it. (In other words, who to pay off in Congress.)

I wouldn't hold my breath on EFCA. Isn't Obama already backpedaling on it? This Congress is going to do what their donors want, and the working class are not their donors.

I shop where ever I can get the deals and most of that time thats trader joes and even whole foods with my flat mates 20% discount. I just hate all the yuppies walking around there who think they are saving the earth by shopping there.

[YSR]

The OP is referring to a conference call between several corporates and their advocates. An interesting analysis is made here (http://tcsbuxunion.com/2009/02/13/the-starbucks-problem/) by a buddy of mine (and also serves as a shameless plug for our organizing at Starbucks vs business unionism.)

[Unclebananahead]

Trader Joe's is anti-union? That makes me feel kind of shitty since I shopped there yesterday.