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Whole Foods, Costco, and Starbucks Against EFCA

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Aug 30, 2009 at 16:30:42 PM PDT

This isn't news but it's news to me. Months ago Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Costco formed a front group called the Committee for a Level Playing Field. When I looked at Whole Foods' lobbying reports, I was surprised to see that they weren't lobbying on the Employee Free Choice Act, given their well known anti-union stance. The reason it appeared to me that they weren't lobbying on EFCA was because I had neglected to look at their front group's lobbying report. The front group spent $200,000 on lobbying in the first half of this year, all on gutting the Employee Free Choice Act.

And who is their lobbyist? The vile Lanny Davis, who is ALSO currently shilling for the Honduran Chamber of Commerce in favor of the coup government of Honduras. He's got ties to both parties, as he was a member of the Democratic National Committee for many years, then served President Clinton, and was then appointed by Bush to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in 2005.

Jill Richardson :: Whole Foods, Costco, and Starbucks Against EFCA

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Whole Foods, Costco, and Starbucks Against EFCA | 2 comments

I posted this eairler in Curtis Abbey's (4.00 / 2)

Boycott of Whole Foods Week 2

I don't participate in boycotts too often
And I can't participate in a Whole Food boycott seeing how I've only been to the basement of the one below the Time Warner Center for lunch a few times.
I do however always participate in union actions and If I did go to Whole Foods I would have stopped back when I read that Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods are union busters?
Sadly I'm so addicted that I'm still hitting Starbucks more often that I should. But on top of John Mackey's health care bullshit he is also trying to kill The Employee Free Choice Act and the Democrats seem helpless against such power.
So if I was a Whole Food shopper I would have stopped for life after reading that.

I'm proud to say that after reading Curtis Abbey and my reminder that left me questioning my own commitment, I went out an got a stainless steel thermos and have not been to Starbucks once since.

by: Eddie C @ Mon Aug 31, 2009 at 03:04:39 AM UTC

I can understand your feelings on union busters (4.00 / 1)

for sure. I'm not sure if the union thing is perhaps outweighed by some of the other things about Whole Foods - like the fact that I can walk there and that the store doesn't physically give me a migraine. Plus they sell produce from my friend Phil's farm. That's not true of other grocery stores in the area. My choices for where to shop are already limited by my health problems, without adding boycotts to the picture. Usually the migraines keep me out of most retailers that I might otherwise boycott anyway.

Most of my food comes from the farmers' market of course. And if I'm doing a big shopping trip, I ALWAYS head to the co-op. My two big sticking points on Whole Foods are that it's not a co-op and that it's not local. I would absolutely rather support my co-op than Whole Foods, any day. But that doesn't add up to a total boycott, especially because the co-op requires driving and Whole Foods doesn't.

As for EFCA, the freaking U.S. Chamber of Commerce is really the 800 lb gorilla to be angry at. They spent more money in lobbying in Q109 than ANY OTHER company or group in the U.S. and you know they are behind a bunch of this anti-EFCA nonsense.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Aug 31, 2009 at 06:27:23 AM UTC

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