> [WS:] Not according to BLS http://www.bls.gov/news.release/
> union2.t03.htm, whose data show that union membership in retail
> industry is 5.7% - BELOW, the private sector average of 7.9%.
He said supermarkets, not all of retail. Food and beverage stores are about 18% of retail employment.
[WS:] Perhaps. But I find it hard to believe the 80% figure. The corresponding figure for the public sector, definitely the most unionized sector in this country, is about 36%. That would make US food retailers the most unionized industry in the US, and probably in the world.
> I think that singling out retailers like Whole Foods has more to do
> with blue collar anti-intellectualism (your use of vernacular seems
> symptomatic) and silly resentment and kulturkampf against "yuppies"
> than any serious effort to advance the cause of labor in this country.
I doubt that. Whole Food trades on its crunchy image, but it's
furiously anti-union. I wouldn't be surprised if Wal-Mart isn't
[WS:] No doubt, but so is most of the US industry. So why singling out Whole Foods, which suspiciously coincides with the blue collar vitriol against environmentalism and urban liberalism? My point is not that anti-union image is unfair for Whole Foods, but that singling it out is - and smacks of culture wars. It is akin to attacking capitalism by singling out Jews - it makes one think that anti-capitalism is really a veneer for a kulturkampf.
Wojtek