The Lawrence Community Mercantile
An Accounting of my experience with our local natural food's coop and why I finally sold back my membership share.
November 2016 Update:
The past few years, I have invested a tremendous amount of time attempting to help the Lawrence Community Mercantile Board of Directors and management recognize some specific injustices that they were inadvertently contributing too. As I have written about repeatedly -- there is nothing remarkable about their not seeing these things -- all cultures teach their members to not see specific injustices that privilege some at the expense of others. This is how oppression of minorities, subjugation of women, forced painful bodily mutilations of the vulnerable, internment of Japanese Americans, the Tuskagee experiments and a zillion other bad things happened in spite of otherwise, "good people" being aware of them. What follows on this page are details of my efforts, an accounting of much that happened as it unfolded and ideas for how The Merc could change course and once again embody what once generated so much loyalty in our community, that when Wild Oats came to town and undercut The Merc's Prices, The Merc prevailed and Wild Oats was sent packing.
I think the people I have interacted with at The Merc are good people, who have contributed much to our community, but unfortunately got, "caught up" behaving in ways at odds with values they (and most of us) hold. My efforts were intended to bring awareness to the fact that this organization drifted off course, and that they discouraged members and employees from sharing their opinions and perspectives regarding how The Merc is run, and tried to silence concerns regarding the ethical issues, environmental sustainability or health consequences related to products they sell, and/or most aggressively promote. Let me reiterate --- in my experience, people who have been on The Merc's Board of Directors, or have been long-time employees there are obviously conscientious people with a history of contributing positive things to our community, but that in and of itself does not mean that they recognized that their personal actions -- or inactions, enabled things to happen that were undemocratic, and contrary to the spirit of what cooperatives are about. Of relevance here is the statement by Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, who conducted the classic experiments trying to understand how people might participate in things that harm others and said, "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process." I have written more on this subject in my latest essay, responding to the presidential elections HERE.
Sadly, I have failed in my efforts including my most recent effort -- trying to win a seat on the Board. In a moment I will provide details of the election results -- but first I want to inform you that I am done working to make a difference with The Merc . I decided it was finally time for me to sell back my membership share. This was for two reasons. 1) Because I know that if I remain a member, I will continue to feel like I need to address The Merc's non-democratic behaviors that come to my attention. I have put in enough time on this now to feel satisfied with myself that I gave it a good effort to try to address what I found problematic, and now believe my energy can probably accomplish more good elsewhere. 2) Because it appears to me, The Merc is a cooperative in name only now. In critically important ways, it is largely indistinguishable from "for profit" grocery stores. No question The Merc does do some great things for our community. So does Walmart. But doing some good things does not mean conscientious citizens should ignore when such entities move in problematic directions. And when it comes to how employees are treated -- The Merc does have much room for improvement according to a number of former employees who believe they were unfairly treated and/or terminated. Thus there is no reason for my $75.00 of equity to be tied up with The Merc, and getting it back will help to cover some of the printing costs I have incurred attempting to raise awareness on these issues. I may still shop at The Merc on occasion -- when doing so is convenient or should the deli and cafe shift to embracing a whole-foods-plant-based menu at a reasonable price. I hold no ill will for the place -- just sadness and disappointment regarding how it evolved.
So now, here are more specifics on the election. On Nov 1, a member of The Merc Board telephoned me to notify me of the election results and informed me that I did not win a seat. I asked for a breakdown of the results -- and wanted to know how many votes were cast, and how many for each candidate. I was told there was a policy against sharing this information. The following day I received an email from this board member telling me that she checked and found it would be permissible to inform me of my own vote count-- which was 59 votes . But at that point I still did not know the total votes cast or how many went to each of the other candidates. Since I consider such a policy undemocratic and believe a member owned coop should have transparency about its elections, I wrote about that fact on this page in my initial response to the election.
On Nov 11th -- I decided to call the store and ask for the election results just to see what response I would get. My call got referred to management who told me they planned to disclose all the election results at that evening's annual member meeting. Then she clearly told me, that there was NO policy prohibiting full disclosure of the results. I have no idea if I was earlier misinformed, or if the policy changed as a result of my posting about it publicly. I was then told that there were a total of 293 people who cast votes in this election. Each person who voted got to vote for TWO candidates. I believe that there are around 7000 members now. The vote broke down as follows:
Jennifer Ananda (incumbent and board president) 35%
Jake Johannes 25%
Denise DeTommaso (incumbent) 17%
JoAnn Farb 10%
Liliana Bernal 8%
Vicki Seeger 4 %
I am ready to turn my attention to other projects now, so I probably will not be writing about this further. However I will leave this page as is -- with my candidate statement, (below) links to essays that I wrote about THE Merc firing me for what I wrote on my blog, links to the relevant blog posts and of course my ideas about how problems I have discussed might be fixed. Perhaps down the road, something good can come out of my efforts. At the very least this page can stand as an accounting of what happened. Feel free to share it. I will no longer include this page's name as a tab at the top menu of my website -- but will place a link to it under the heading, "Of Special Interest" along the right side of my main page where it says, "The Lawrence Community Mercantile".
--JoAnn
As both a member/owner and a former nutrition educator/culinary instructor at The Lawrence Community Mercantile Natural Foods Coop, I have a longstanding relationship with The Merc. In recent years I have been saddened to see changes at The Merc that have encouraged eating patterns that accelerate climate change, have also been linked to the major causes of death and disability to humans, and furthermore require unnecessary violence towards non-human beings. Additionally problematic, is the fact that current policies at The Merc discourage the free and open expression of member/owner perspectives on this subject. How many other people, less willing than me to come forward have also felt their perspective unwelcome at our Merc? So now I am running for the Merc Board. If elected I will work to change these things. Elections run through the end of October. Below, you will find my specific ideas for how we can improve The Merc, and you can read my full candidate statement at the bottom of this page.
Will The Merc survive in the current competitive environment? Many are anxious about this. With Natural Grocers and Sprouts in town, and rumors that Costco and Whole Foods will be here soon too, The Merc cannot compete on price with any of these, due to their economies of scale.
I believe The Merc's ONLY hope to survive with any meaningful resemblance to the entity so many of us have loved, is to cultivate customer loyalty -- and for enough people to feel like The Merc really is OUR own coop. But this won't happen if management or the board is making decisions about WHOSE speech get's welcomed, and whose speech get's discouraged. MORE opportunities for all of us to share our perspectives and feel heard (including employees) builds community, and will secure more loyalty then simply being the grocery store that carries more locally produced goods than anyone else.
While the big chains chase the most profitable sector -- high end, extremely classist meat, dairy and eggs from small farms -- The Merc's best bet to stand-out from this crowd, is to focus upon what really matters -- the health of the community, the health of the planet and social justice for all beings. Silencing legitimate concerns from members who'd like The Merc to be a leader in addressing the most significant problems facing our world today, is counterproductive. It may help The Merc stay profitable in the short term, but it is undermining everyone's long term well-being.
I believe The Merc's ONLY hope to survive with any meaningful resemblance to the entity so many of us have loved, is to cultivate customer loyalty -- and for enough people to feel like The Merc really is OUR own coop. But this won't happen if management or the board is making decisions about WHOSE speech get's welcomed, and whose speech get's discouraged. MORE opportunities for all of us to share our perspectives and feel heard (including employees) builds community, and will secure more loyalty then simply being the grocery store that carries more locally produced goods than anyone else.
While the big chains chase the most profitable sector -- high end, extremely classist meat, dairy and eggs from small farms -- The Merc's best bet to stand-out from this crowd, is to focus upon what really matters -- the health of the community, the health of the planet and social justice for all beings. Silencing legitimate concerns from members who'd like The Merc to be a leader in addressing the most significant problems facing our world today, is counterproductive. It may help The Merc stay profitable in the short term, but it is undermining everyone's long term well-being.
For Starters, Here is What I Propose to Improve The Merc:
A) The Merc will conduct quarterly in-service trainings of all staff, that review the science showing:
- Arrest and reversal of heart disease and diabetes with a whole foods plant-based diet.
- The science showing that telomeres (which control lifespan) have been shown to increase in length on a plant-based diet.
- Dietary factors associated with healthy aging and longevity in populations around the world.
- The carbon footprint, water footprint and energy use of plant foods, relative to animal foods and explain how "buying local" is only a small piece of what makes various food items more or less good for the environment.
- Impact of various dietary patterns upon incidence of the more common cancers, and the science showing how some existing cancers -- like prostate can be made to grow more slowly by removing animal protein from the diet.
B) Merc policies should explicitly embrace informed customer choice, by facilitating the sharing of information related to food, and the health and environmental impacts of food, as well as any ethical concerns member/owners or shoppers may have regarding the production, or consumption of any products that the Merc carries or might consider carrying.
- Class instructors will never be told they can't share factual information, or their opinions about the healthfulness, environmental impacts or ethicalness of products that The Merc carries or might carry.
- The Merc will install a wall-mounted rack that will enable distribution of flyers, and information sheets, and newsletters IN THE CAFE AREA that member/owners and shoppers might wish to share with the community about issues of importance. This would make people really feel like this is THEIR MERC, and make our community stronger.
- Classes in the education department, will never be disallowed simply because they educate about problems with buying specific items. If shoppers stop buying certain products, they will shift to buying others, and over time, this mechanism will best support The Merc's product line evolving to reflect the highest health, environmental and social justice standards.
- Articles in the Merc News or postings in the store that make controversial statements -- for example touting the healthfulness of fish or suggesting that seafood can be sustainably eaten (by wealthy westerners with ample other options) will be accompanied by articles that provide the counterpoint to these statements. (i.e. ALL fish are bioaccumulators of environmental toxins and science shows that eating them and or fish oil actually INCREASES inflammation in the body -- in spite of the omega 3s they provide -- probably due to the PCBs and mercury) This way people will be able to hear ALL the information and make up their own minds.
C) The General Manager will be held accountable to establish pricing and marketing of store products in a way that encourages sales of food categories that have the lowest carbon footprint, lowest water footprint, and are least likely to contribute to heart disease, diabetes and cancer -- the top causes of mortality and morbidity.
- This will promote health in our community by encouraging shoppers to eat in a way that is consistent with the majority of what good science suggests reduces risk of developing the major chronic diseases that plague Americans.
- This will make it easier for those with fewer economic options to access foods most likely to reduce their risk of chronic disease.
- This could take some pressure off of over-taxed Douglass County social services -- less illness in the community, means less stress on families and more productivity, without needing as much from social services.
- This will help make Lawrence a good world citizen by improving our community's collective environmental impact.
- This would be the most significant thing The Merc could do to slow climate change, as the UN has stated that animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gasses than the entire transportation sector.
D) The General Manager will be encouraged to facilitate a work environment for employees that encourages collaboration amongst all staff, and makes it safe for staff to express their opinions about how to improve The Merc.
- This will improve employee retention, so that less time is spent training new people
- Every single employee at The Merc potentially has valuable first hand knowledge about how to make things function better in the store. An environment that encourages them to share their perspective and insights -- even when it suggests a path different from the current path, would build morale, and may at times provide better options.
E) When The Merc began, the focus was upon people coming together and cooperatively purchasing whole, minimally processed, bulk plant foods, so as to be able to individually acquire such food, at low cost. Over time, this emphasis has shifted to not just providing, but heavily promoting, expensive local meat, dairy and eggs. The price point of such foods, puts them out-of-reach of many shoppers. Furthermore, when the privileged consume these foods, it encourages and reinforces eating meat, dairy and eggs in our community -- but since most cannot afford these from small local farms, their only option is to continue to support factory farms and industrial agriculture.
One of the arguments justifying The Merc's emphasis on selling the more classist meat, dairy and eggs, is that doing so, enables The Merc to, "Give Back" to the community with charitable donations, but I think those with fewer economic options, would mostly prefer to NOT survive on charity, and would really rather just have a more level playing field that includes healthy, affordable food.
While it may be possible in select locations to produce animal based foods, in ways that are not as terribly wasteful of land, resources, water and with the huge carbon footprint that most of it is -- there is no way, that such production can ever feed very many in a truly sustainable way. This is a problem with the current focus, that is not being addressed.
One of the arguments justifying The Merc's emphasis on selling the more classist meat, dairy and eggs, is that doing so, enables The Merc to, "Give Back" to the community with charitable donations, but I think those with fewer economic options, would mostly prefer to NOT survive on charity, and would really rather just have a more level playing field that includes healthy, affordable food.
While it may be possible in select locations to produce animal based foods, in ways that are not as terribly wasteful of land, resources, water and with the huge carbon footprint that most of it is -- there is no way, that such production can ever feed very many in a truly sustainable way. This is a problem with the current focus, that is not being addressed.
UPDATE: Monday September 19, 2016
Elections at The Merc began over the weekend, and they published the candidate statements of the six of us seeking election to the 2017 board on their website -- although several people have told me that they were unable to see the statements, as they didn't realize they even existed (you must roll over the names of the candidates to realize that they are links to our statements.)
I am the only candidate for whom the board chose to put an introduction preceding my statement. In it, they claim that some of what I say is, "unfounded." Most interesting to me, is that many of their numbered responses to points that they highlighted in my statement -- aren't really even on point to support their claim that what I have said is, "unfounded." Read it carefully and you will notice this...Here is what they say:
I am the only candidate for whom the board chose to put an introduction preceding my statement. In it, they claim that some of what I say is, "unfounded." Most interesting to me, is that many of their numbered responses to points that they highlighted in my statement -- aren't really even on point to support their claim that what I have said is, "unfounded." Read it carefully and you will notice this...Here is what they say:
Here is my response to the Merc's comments.
- The first statement essentially validates what I have said -- They admit that a previous board (in 1999) adopted policy governance for the first time, which began the decline of the board's oversight. Boards since that time, have further disempowered the member/owners by increasingly watering down, "The Ends" and making them more vague and thus holding the GM less accountable to the member/owners.
- I never stated that the Board made the decision to fire me. In fact what was said to me by my supervisor in the meeting which followed my being removed from the teaching schedule (the first time -- but then I was reinstated) was this: "If the board had their way, you would not be teaching here." Clearly there was pressure from the board -- which is my point.
- I have evidence which strongly contradicts this -- which if necessary to prove publicly that I have been truthful, I can come forward with -- but I suspect my evidence would be upsetting to some of the Merc's management and I am not seeking to embarrass any of them personally, merely to uphold what is just and support the truthfulness of my statements.
- As I have previously written about -- many of us do not feel welcome at the Merc. This idea of being welcoming, only applies to those who hold the majority perspective, like the current board and management do. Much about the way The Merc is currently run shuts down conversations that contradict this -- management is largely insulated from appreciating the bias in terms of WHO feels welcomed and WHO does not.
- I DID contact the Marketing department and HERE was our emailed conversation about my attempts to get approval for my newsletter to be available in the cafe. Furthermore, as a class presenter, I was explicitly prohibited from even giving copies of my newsletter out to the people who came to my classes there -- who among the members would ever guess that The Merc would have such a policy? Not letting class presenters share their own personal newsletter with people who CHOSE to take their class -- does that sound more consistent with a cooperative model...or a corporate one?
- There are a lot of former Merc employees wandering around town, as well as disappointed member/owners who are all sharing this similar sentiment: The Merc is nothing like what it used to be, and we all mourn the loss. It will take someone willing to start difficult conversations to change this -- and I can tell you, the deck is stacked against incoming board members doing this -- what struck me most powerfully in my interview with the board in preparation for this election, was how they made it clear what box board members are to carefully stay inside of. This is what put me off from running the first time --- I couldn't at that time even SEE a way out of it! But now I can and that is why I am running. If enough people want me to work to change things, then I will give it my best shot! I believe strongly, that we should base our efforts to address problems, NOT so much on our estimates of how likely we are to be successful, but MORE on whether it is consistent with our values and what we believe is most is just. Both in terms of the global environmental situation and as to whether we can actually save The Merc -- regardless of outcome, I want to know that I did my best and didn't just turn a blind eye to the situation.
JoAnn Farb's full 650 word candidate statement :
Currently I speak and write about health, social justice and environmental sustainability, inspired by my former job as a microbiologist with a different Merck (global pharmaceutical company). My previous board experience includes the Vegetarian Union of North America and “Vegetarians of Kansas City” (both 501C3’s). I was a Merc nutrition educator/culinary class instructor for many years, until recently.
I am a big picture person, good at making connections between seemingly unrelated things. I love problem solving, and enjoy sharing information to empower others. I am versed in the scientific literature showing arrest/reversal of diabetes, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and prostate cancer, using a whole-food plant-based diet --also shown to increase the length of cell’s telomeres (which control lifespan). I’d like to see The Merc be a leader in disseminating that science and teaching how to shift to a plant-based diet, which has the potential to improve local people’s lives more than anything else the Merc has done. It is critical we take a leadership role in giving people accurate information about the environmental harms of consuming animal products as quickly as possible, in order to slow climate change. According to the UN, Animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gasses than the entire transportation sector, and World Watch Institute has stated that the human desire for meat is a driving force behind every category of environmental destruction. Grass fed meat is NOT the answer – grass fed animals grow more slowly, so emit more greenhouse gasses per pound of meat produced. Fortunately new plant-based products are exploding in the marketplace. We could become THE shopping destination in Eastern Kansas by promoting alternatives and having the best selection, especially since plant-based is encouraged by growing numbers of health care providers like Wash U Cardiac Rehab, Montgomery Heart and Wellness, True North Health, and Kaiser Permanente.
I am running for the board, because I’d like The Merc to change directions. I almost ran two years ago, until learning a previous board had changed the by-laws decreasing the board’s influence. I thought I could contribute more via a different route and presented a power point to the board expressing my views and nearly lost my teaching job, until I argued that as a member/owner, I should be able to speak to the board, without endangering my job. But after I posted an article to my blog, discussing the Kaw Valley Farm Tour, and pointing out that meat, dairy and eggs from local farms was not really humane, some of The Merc’s meat vendors, lobbied for me to be removed from teaching, and I was.
I have remained a Merc member, because I believe in the democratic principles upon which the Merc was founded and would like to see a return to those, including allowing free speech, and having policies that encourage diverse opinions and discussions about how The Merc should operate. I find The Merc’s 4th end – about “hospitality” problematic, because I have experienced that the idea of being welcoming is only being applied to the viewpoint of the majority and is being used to suppress minority perspectives in the class descriptions, in what I was allowed to say in my classes, in which publications are allowed to be distributed in the Merc’s dining area, and even in which opinions can be safely expressed to the board.
If you agree with me, that the best way to help The Merc thrive, remain relevant, healthy and truly represent the best interests of our diverse community is to shift away from the current corporatized model, and back to the collective, cooperative model upon which it was founded, or if you believe it is wrong to hurt animals here and now in Lawrence when we have other options for food that are healthier, use less water, lower our carbon footprint, and don’t require us to engage in intentional violence against other beings, then vote for me.
I had my candidate interview with the Merc board on Monday Aug 15th, 2016. Following that interview, my daughter went to The Merc's online version of the 2016 candidate application form and took a screen shot of the instructions I had followed in writing my candidate statement. It is posted below: