Autopsy of the Whole Foods Union

Throughout 2002-2003, workers at Whole Foods in Madison were engaged in a tough organizing drive and support for that campaign became a major focus of area labor activists. That drive eventually failed and the fledgling union was crushed.

It’s taboo to talk about our losses. Some think it’s demoralizing. Others are concerned that any critique of what went wrong in a campaign will come off as criticism of internationals and local affiliates. So we burry our dead and march on, never learning the lessons of our failures.

But the losing campaign at Whole Foods has some important things to teach us. So, let’s have that discussion.

As a refresher, in the spring and summer of 2002 workers at Whole Foods organized themselves. Wages, benefits and working conditions weren’t all that bad compared to other stores in town. It is worth noting, I think, that a work rule against piercing was one of their initial complaints. Not your average gripes. Worker empowerment seemed to be the overarching demand.

Some of us met with the organizers and offered advice. We told them the company would engage in an anti-union campaign and gave them an idea of what that would look like. That there would be union-busting consultants, captive audience meetings, a company-organized anti-union campaign among co-workers and some of them would probably get fired. I also suggested that they avoid affiliating with an international at this point, at least until they got organized and had some experience running their own affairs. Instead of hooking up with an international, they should reach out to local union activists for assistance.

They listen politely but simply didn’t believe us. Whole Foods management was progressive and green, they said, too cool to engage in old-style union busting. And they had been talking to the United Food and Commercial Workers union, who offered them expertise and legal help.

Of course, by that time Whole Foods had already hired a slick legal firm out of Chicago and they ended up running a textbook union-busting campaign. They stonewalled negotiations, fired union leaders, discriminated against union supporters on the job and eventually organized a decert campaign.

The UFCW’s reputation turned out to be a millstone around the neck of the new union. The union-busters assembled data on the fat salaries of union officials, the cost of dues and the fact that the UFCW contracts in the area weren’t really better than what was already in place at Whole Foods.

The turning point came on November 20, 2002, when the company fired two key organizers. Debbie Rasmussen was working the coffee bar and mistakenly made a latte with soy milk instead of skim milk. Rather than toss it, she gave it to co-worker and fellow union supporter Julie Thayer. It was common practice in the store. But a fink turned them in and both were fired for “theft from the employer.”

It was obvious to everyone who worked there that the only reason these two were fired was because of their union activities. Everyone waited to see what the union would do. Would the boss get away with it?

It was the fork in the road for the campaign. What would the union do?

Some of us argued that, come Saturday morning, we should fill the Whole Foods parking lot with a thousand pickets, demanding that the two be rehired. The lot would eventually be cleared, but we’d come back. We’d be on the news. Some customers would stay away out of solidarity. Others for fear of being tear gassed. Whole Foods business would suffer and we wouldn’t let up until they rehired the union supporters.

The UFCW lawyers told the workers to rely on the law. Mass picketing would bring an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the union. Instead the union filed Unfair Labor Practices charges against the company for the firings. Time passed and eventually the fired workers got a hearing. Of course, the NLRB takes a dim view of “theft from an employer” and upheld the firings.

At that point, the union was all but busted. The company only had to bide its time. Following the consultants’ advice, the company simply wouldn’t agree to anything at the bargaining table. Negotiations dragged on for months and the union had no strategy to force concessions. Workers saw that the union was ineffectual and that it couldn’t win concessions from the boss. That it couldn’t even protect its own leaders from retaliation.

By September 2003, “team members” at the store (the union-busters’ euphemism for the anti-union organization they’d created) petitioned to get rid of the union. The enlightened green capitalist who run Whole Foods announced that “the best way to respect the wishes of our Madison team members is to withdraw recognition from the union.”

The course of the Whole Foods campaign had been predicted from the beginning. But, it didn’t have to be that way. We know how to win. The question is: What will we do next time?