labor

I try now to write sparingly in OP about matters pertaining to our local grocery co-op, Weaver Street Market, where I attempt to be an active worker-owner.

But the WSM management are currently proposing changes to the WSM Board Policy ‘Treatment of Staff’ which dramatically diminish the few remaining co-operative and economic rights WSM employees still retain, and we workers need the support of the some 18,000 WSM consumer-owners in rejecting these changes.

We workers learned of the proposed changes only this past Friday (October 16), and we have until October 26 to register objection.

WSM Employee Policy (as of two years ago) now prevents me reproducing the text of the proposed changes publicly. In what one local newspaper editor has described as an anti-whistleblower whistleblower policy.

In the June 8 edition of the Independent Weekly, Joe Schwartz reports that a housekeeper at UNC Chapel Hill has filed a lawsuit against the university alleging sexual harrassment in what appears to be the latest in a series of reports of poor working conditions for UNC housekeeping staff.

Dozens of people are commenting in public at rallies, in newspapers, and in Town Council meetings about how two men, Kerry Bigelow and Clyde Clark, were fired from the Chapel Hill Public Works department last fall. However, almost none of those people have access to the private details of the personnel decision that was made by the Town. How is it that these folks have a better understanding of the Manager's decisions than the Manager? Why don't the two fired workers make these details public? As Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt pointed out tonight, they and they alone can speak publicly about their ongoing appeal process with the Town.

I am increasingly alarmed at the confidence of statements I hear from people who seem to know almost nothing about the situation. No-one likes to see people lose their jobs, but I haven't heard any evidence that the Town has done anything wrong, and I'm not willing to condemn any staff members nor elected officials - who are legally obligated not to comment on the matter, especially while the appeal is ongoing.

Do you know the truth? If so, please spill the beans. If not...