Food co-op board resists pro-union measure

By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian

posted October 21, 2005

BRATTLEBORO — Pro-union activists are demanding that the board and managers of the Brattleboro Food Co-op step aside and remain neutral if a simple majority of the staff say they want a union.

The board and staff say they’re already neutral. Yet they are actively opposing a members’ initiative on the co-op’s annual ballot that would institute a new bylaw requiring management to take a position of “proactive neutrality.”

In the October issue of the co-op newsletter, the board urges co-op members to vote no on the proposed bylaw “because it prevents a secret ballot vote by all workers.” The measure removes “a basic principle of the democratic process,” according to the statement, which is also printed on the ballot that was mailed to the co-op’s nearly 4,000 members in early October. Ballots are due back by Nov. 6.

The initiative, which achieved ballot status after 10 percent of the membership signed a petition, calls for the co-op to recognize a union if 50 percent plus one of the approximately 100 eligible employees indicate, either by union card check-off or petition, that a union is what they want.

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