On Aug 28, 2006, at 4:12 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> 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.
You're misquoting again: "union density in many regions in supermarkets is like 80%!"
>> 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.
Oh please. There's something extra-annoying about profit-maximizing businesses that pretend to be better than everyone else. Whole Foods is a nasty union-busting firm but it gets to pretend to be all sensitive and shit. With Wal-Mart, what you see is what you get. I hate all those socially responsible business types, and I can play urban elitist with the best of them.
Doug