Comment from guest #2
Just another thought I had. Again, this would probably apply to many co-ops, not just Ann Arbor's...
Assume a worst case scenario. Business is down, and due to unfavorable working conditions, good employees are hard to find. Offering competitive prices gets increasingly difficult as people tighten their purse-strings in a reaction to high energy prices and a difficult job market. The co-op ends up in the red. Sales start to decrease, and people get laid off one by one. The end is near. Hypothetical, of course...
What checks and balances are there? What happens if it gets to the point where the money isn't there to support such a top-heavy organization, and member drives can't raise enough money to solve the problem?
Does the board actively seek answers and changes? Or is it Whole Foods' fault? It seems to me that if (and let's hope this doesn't happen) -- just if -- it is beggining to look like PFC might end up having to shut down for good -- will the board, at a certain point in time where the PFC is getting precariously close to the precipice, take decisive action to remedy the situation, or... does the current management go down with the ship?
In other words, would there be any conceivably possible situation at any point in the near or far future where the board would make an attempt to change the personnel or somehow supplement the current management with real professionals that can create a vibrant retail establishment with a consistent rate of growth?
Is there an "evacuation plan", or a roadmap? Perhaps the only thing that management fears is the loss of their own jobs if/when the co-op shuts down? Is anyone in management afraid of getting fired for failing to achieve certain rates of growth? Keeping turnover (which is more expensive than many people seem to think) in check? Maintaining the financial stability to be able to provide ALL employees a living wage? Certainly something like a living wage ought not be a stranger to something like a natural foods co-op? Or are they just afraid of the store having to close its doors?
This is the basic thought that I had just now. Is there a check, a balance, is there pressure being placed on managment to succeed, to do really well? Or is that pressure not there. I've never seen it anywhere. Is there any real oversight? The kind of oversight one would have if it was a single individual who owned the business? Whose money is it that we are talking about? Why is it a struggle to get 10% of the people to vote? I think part of the problem is that it is very difficult to get thousands of thousands of members to speak with one voice about what kinds of ROI's they would like to see. The money is fragmented in coming from thousands of people, therefore the responsibility to work hard and do something productive with that money gets fragmented as well and we end up with a fragmented dream, or vision, of what PFC could really be. Drug testing? Oh. My. God. What on EARTH are you thinking. A retailer of wholistic, alternative medicine products in a city where the medical marijuana legislation was passed by over 70% of its voters. PFC is not ALL that's left of the counterculture. As a matter of fact, it's not counterculture at all.
Perhaps if step back and get a good look at the big picture, we will realize that if the structure of the retail product member co-ops in this country does not change, they will fail to thrive. They will fail to live up to their potential. I believe this has to do with the fact that the membership fees are fragmented between thousands of people (in REI's case, it's 2 million and counting), and there isn't any framework by which the democratic process can effectively hold the managements accountable to higher levels of professionalism and higher levels of excellence such as those that are typically demanded from companies publically traded companies on Wall Street, for example. The many thousands of "owners" are simply either unwilling or unable to speak with one voice and demand the type of performance that would raise everyone's wages and everyone's working conditions.
It shouldn't be "about" managment. It should be "about" the co-op as a independent entity. A living, breathing, pillar of the community with a life of its own. Like many people, the way I feel is that "I love the co-op". But, I can't stand to shop there because of what is being done to it by the people in charge there. I see what the co-op COULD be, and it makes me sad to see what it has become.
There is risk anytime you do something like a co-op. One of the risks is that it will fail. Perhaps we have identified a new risk now, a phenomenon occuring throughout the country. As the job market gets tighter, as corporate neckties allow even less circulation to take place, as working until retirement age for one employer becomes less and less of a certainty for most working people today, as the baby boomers begin to place a strain on our social safety net - upper level co-op managers grandparent themselves into stable, significantly better than living-wage positions with freedoms that most working folks could only dream of. Meanwhile, the remainder of the employees drift closer and closer to minimum wage, increasing turnover rates and their associated costs.
I would like to one day be able to walk into PFC and feel good about it. Perhaps it will take a crisis for PFC to rise again, having learned its lessons. I certainly hope so.
Assume a worst case scenario. Business is down, and due to unfavorable working conditions, good employees are hard to find. Offering competitive prices gets increasingly difficult as people tighten their purse-strings in a reaction to high energy prices and a difficult job market. The co-op ends up in the red. Sales start to decrease, and people get laid off one by one. The end is near. Hypothetical, of course...
What checks and balances are there? What happens if it gets to the point where the money isn't there to support such a top-heavy organization, and member drives can't raise enough money to solve the problem?
Does the board actively seek answers and changes? Or is it Whole Foods' fault? It seems to me that if (and let's hope this doesn't happen) -- just if -- it is beggining to look like PFC might end up having to shut down for good -- will the board, at a certain point in time where the PFC is getting precariously close to the precipice, take decisive action to remedy the situation, or... does the current management go down with the ship?
In other words, would there be any conceivably possible situation at any point in the near or far future where the board would make an attempt to change the personnel or somehow supplement the current management with real professionals that can create a vibrant retail establishment with a consistent rate of growth?
Is there an "evacuation plan", or a roadmap? Perhaps the only thing that management fears is the loss of their own jobs if/when the co-op shuts down? Is anyone in management afraid of getting fired for failing to achieve certain rates of growth? Keeping turnover (which is more expensive than many people seem to think) in check? Maintaining the financial stability to be able to provide ALL employees a living wage? Certainly something like a living wage ought not be a stranger to something like a natural foods co-op? Or are they just afraid of the store having to close its doors?
This is the basic thought that I had just now. Is there a check, a balance, is there pressure being placed on managment to succeed, to do really well? Or is that pressure not there. I've never seen it anywhere. Is there any real oversight? The kind of oversight one would have if it was a single individual who owned the business? Whose money is it that we are talking about? Why is it a struggle to get 10% of the people to vote? I think part of the problem is that it is very difficult to get thousands of thousands of members to speak with one voice about what kinds of ROI's they would like to see. The money is fragmented in coming from thousands of people, therefore the responsibility to work hard and do something productive with that money gets fragmented as well and we end up with a fragmented dream, or vision, of what PFC could really be. Drug testing? Oh. My. God. What on EARTH are you thinking. A retailer of wholistic, alternative medicine products in a city where the medical marijuana legislation was passed by over 70% of its voters. PFC is not ALL that's left of the counterculture. As a matter of fact, it's not counterculture at all.
Perhaps if step back and get a good look at the big picture, we will realize that if the structure of the retail product member co-ops in this country does not change, they will fail to thrive. They will fail to live up to their potential. I believe this has to do with the fact that the membership fees are fragmented between thousands of people (in REI's case, it's 2 million and counting), and there isn't any framework by which the democratic process can effectively hold the managements accountable to higher levels of professionalism and higher levels of excellence such as those that are typically demanded from companies publically traded companies on Wall Street, for example. The many thousands of "owners" are simply either unwilling or unable to speak with one voice and demand the type of performance that would raise everyone's wages and everyone's working conditions.
It shouldn't be "about" managment. It should be "about" the co-op as a independent entity. A living, breathing, pillar of the community with a life of its own. Like many people, the way I feel is that "I love the co-op". But, I can't stand to shop there because of what is being done to it by the people in charge there. I see what the co-op COULD be, and it makes me sad to see what it has become.
There is risk anytime you do something like a co-op. One of the risks is that it will fail. Perhaps we have identified a new risk now, a phenomenon occuring throughout the country. As the job market gets tighter, as corporate neckties allow even less circulation to take place, as working until retirement age for one employer becomes less and less of a certainty for most working people today, as the baby boomers begin to place a strain on our social safety net - upper level co-op managers grandparent themselves into stable, significantly better than living-wage positions with freedoms that most working folks could only dream of. Meanwhile, the remainder of the employees drift closer and closer to minimum wage, increasing turnover rates and their associated costs.
I would like to one day be able to walk into PFC and feel good about it. Perhaps it will take a crisis for PFC to rise again, having learned its lessons. I certainly hope so.
posted by Solomon at 8:43 AM
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