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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>Jim:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Another thing to factor in:<br>
Whole Foods ain't union, and has actually fought union drives with twisted
progressive or 'alternative' rhetoric.<br>
<br>
However, leaving them and big-box stores like wal mart and target aside, other
than that retail food supermarkets are a bastion of organized labor in the
service industry. I'm writing an article about this for a magazine called
clamor, and have been sort of surprised to learn that union density in many
regions in supermarkets is like 80%! !! !! I was a ufcw member when
I worked at a superfresh thru high school.<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>[WS:] Not according to BLS <a
href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm">http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm</a>,
whose data show that union membership in retail industry is 5.7% - BELOW, the private
sector average of 7.9%.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>Wojtek<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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