Comments

1
Developers make donation to centrist corporate sponsored candidate in 3...2...
2
I say shut those fuckers down at Easy Street Records in West Seattle. $10/hr and NO benefits!
3
I don't understand... if the UFCW is worried about the wages of Whole Foods employees, then why don't they either (a) convince more people to shop at grocery stores manned by UFCW workers (the workers must be worth what I assume are higher wages, so the service must be better, right?), or (b) unionize Whole Foods.

Why do they need the government to step in and subsidize them via real estate regulations?
4
I'd rather work at Whole Foods than be a union schlub at QFC. Ever notice how happy and nice the staff are at Whole Foods?
5
Oh troll, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we wish someone would hire you.
6
@5 Sorry Cuntalina, I don't have enough tattoos to work at Whole Foods.
7
McGinn playing politics again. Time to check his contributions from Safeway and QFC, who want to keep out the competition. Too bad McGinn wasn't in office when the Trader Joe's deal went through -- he could've stopped that one for them also.
8
This bums me out. I would love to have a Whole Foods in West Seattle.
9
Very interesting that "McGinn's letter represents an expansion of the notion of the public good..."

And it's a good reason for me to reconsider voting for McGinn. Why not a "public good" test for every enterprise seeking any City permit or license, including The Stranger? I think government has plenty of regulation -- what we lack is wisdom and commonsense.
10
I'm impressed. If only the workers at the proposed SoDo arena would be offered stock options and gain sharing in the NBA team...
oddly, McGinn has no trouble with the street vacation for Mr Hansen's arena. Heck, we don't even really care too much about SEPA or evaluating actual, diverse sites (two in Seattle Center is fine).
11
There ought to be a decent, national minimum wage, benefits, and rights package for all workers, like in continental Europe.* But then the plutocracy wouldn't be able to divide and conquer the little people, and distract the slightly less little people, with crap like Whole Foods vs. Safeway.

* Europe's economy was crashed by the American-triggered Great Recession, with help in Spain from a popped housing bubble and in Greece from unexpected debt -- debt that was hidden from regulators and the public with the help of Goldman Sachs. And then the recession was aggravated by austerity mandated by the ECB's rigid national deficit guidelines. Moreover, Europe's official unemployment stats are a lot more accurate than ours, which understate the real US unemployment rate by a considerable margin. (Even compared to the old BLS method, our current stats are gamed.) In other words, any jingoistic free-marketers who'd like to tie Europe's higher unemployment to their dramatically higher labor standards can just STFU.
12
As someone that knows the local grocery scene pretty well (as a vendor to them), I can unequivocably state that Whole Foods team members are much, much happier as a whole than any of the other national chain grocers (TJ's excepted, perhaps). They are better compensated, treated as human beings, and frankly, just end up being better employees. WFM works harder to get good people and it shows. Do I shop there? Fuck no, partially because they (at least their CEO) have spoken out strongly against the new healthcare laws - even though they are already surpassing what will be required.

And then there is the fact that WFM fucked West Seattle over on another location just a block or two away several years ago, leaving the project mid-build with a huge gaping maw known by the locals simply as The Hole. It's been an eyesore we West Seattleites are reminded of every day.
13
Nice propaganda Goldy. McGinn is doing nothing but helping UFCW in their fight to unionize Whole Foods, when the employees themselves don't want to be UFCW members. First McGinn helped pass a Sick Days proposal forcing employers to give 9 sick days for every employee - but exempting Unionized workers. That's so Whole Foods would could save money by becoming a union house, as some UFCW members get only 1 sick day per year. Since that failed to get Whole Foods into the UFCW, McGinn is now blocking a development that most people in West Seattle want in order to force Whole Foods to allow UFCW in. If Whole Foods relents, then this project will go forward. In the meantime, UFCW endorses McGinn and donates to his campaign. This has nothing at all to do with what is good for anyone but UFCW's power and membership dues, and McGinn's campaign coffers. Pretty fucked up. At least it's happening to Whole Foods, whose owner is a total dickhead. But bummer for those who live in West Seattle and want to shop at a decent grocery store, unlike the shitty QFC and Mormon owned Safeway.
14
Cheesis sliced on toast! Fer corn's sakes there is a *fantastic* grocery store in W Seattle, locally owned and committed to local sustainable farming and practices: PCC. Dont know if they're a union shop or not, but the employees are all happy and the place is great to shop. Screw Safeway, go die QFC, and most off all, fuck off Whole fuckin Foods.
15
PCC's meat and fish departments are beyond pathetic. I swear, I wonder if vegans are running them the few times I'm forced to shop at PCC.
16
@14

Their site says they're a union shop.
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/pccgree…
17
It's interesting that the UFCW actually put a figure on how much their employers are contributing towards employee health coverage. It's an interesting commentary on how employers can hide just how much (or how little) they pay employees by throwing in all kinds of benefits that are hard to quantify.

To me, that's another argument in favor of single payer health coverage. If you know your insurance will be the same no matter where you work, it's easier to make comparisons between jobs.

I don't understand employees who don't want salaries disclosed across the board. I've worked in places with widely published pay scales (the military, public school districts) and I've worked in places that make discussing wages a fireable offense (Comcast). It strikes me that at the latter, it's the company that stands to benefit from keeping wages secret, especially if your name happens to be Lily Ledbetter.

I'd be in favor of a law that obliges all employers to publicly disclose each and every employee's wage scale, including what the company pays in benefits. I think if anything it would be better for everyone all around. Both employers and employees would be much more confident that wages were fair.

As a nice side benefit, it would also give us a clear idea of whether or not unions were effective in helping their members earn more.
18
Where was all the union outrage when German owned, non union Trader Joes went in a couple of blocks from the proposed Whole Foods?

Safeway and Kroger (QFC) are not union every place they operate in the US, either.

I have family in West Seattle an I know they would appreciate having another grocery option besides the poorly stocked Safeway and QFC within walking distance of the junction.
19
This seems like cherry picking to me. It's not as if Whole Foods is the worst of the bunch out there. By this logic, Safeco and Qwest fields should never have been built since, I assume, those Sodexho/etc jobs are basically minimum wage and likely offer no benefits whatsoever.
20
What about the public good of creating more jobs?
21
Sheesh.
1. As a CD resident: West Seattle is already a shopper's paradise to me.
2. Everything I need to know about Weingarten I learned from their neglected properties at 23rd & Jackson.

While redlined (in commercial terms, at least) South Seattle/CD remains in dire need of amenities, quaint West Seattle is being Ballardized, pounded with outsized developments.
Aggressive, tone-deaf developers like Texas–based Weingarten smell money there (unlike in my neighborhood, strangely—I put it down to racism), and as they use and abuse the charm of the Junction to line their own pockets, they suck the place dry.
Locals in WS are organizing, hoping to get a voice in the matter. I support them.
22
Based on this decision alone, anyone voting for McGinn is a fucking idiot.

This will be challenged in court, and the City will have to pay for this stupid fucking decision... The SCOTUS just ruled that the government can't dictate what a person does with land, and while vacating an alley is theoretically the city's property, the way the city applies this is completely inconsistent.

Whole Foods would be a major win for West Seattle.

McGinn Doctrine... that's just fucked up.
23
@22, it's a meaningful gesture in the right direction. I am willing to pay my share of the costs of defending this. I don't think Whole Foods is the devil, but their unionbusting earned them the privilege of having to fight for our alley. I have voted for McGinn, but never actually liked him until now. Funny what it takes to win over some people.
24
If someone could build a supermarket or two at 35th and Morgan or a bit south, or anywhere at all on Delridge, they'd be doing West Seattle one heck of a favor.

I bet you could get all the extra building permits you asked for, if you decided to put up an alternative to convenience stores anywhere in the 5-mile desert* between the bridge and the Westwood Village QFC.

 

* Pink: low food access, green: low access and low income. Source. To reproduce, search for 'seattle 98106', open 'component layers', and tick 'low access at 1 and 10 miles.' Food access is noticeably worse in West Seattle than in South Seattle.
25
@24: that's what the unfinished parcel at High Point was planned to be. but getting someone to do it? the SHA's been 5+ years trying.
26
@13. Seattle paid sick leave law does not exempt unions. It allows collective bargained contracts to opt out. That is very different, and the purpose is to allow union members to tweak certain provisions in order to gain other benefits. For example, lets say a union bargains for 6 days instead of 9, because their short term disability kicks in after 6. Then maybe they can use this cost savings to lower HC premiums.

Why, you might ask, can't non-union employers have the same flexibility? Well, simply, because non-union employees don't get to bargain and vote on whether to accept the opt out, which union employees do.

@18 Trader Joe's wasn't asking for a transfer of public land.
27
@17,

Both employers and employees would be much more confident that wages were fair.


I suspect the former group is the one that would have the problem with it.

I actually would be willing to forgo being able to sue for pay discrimination if I could find out what I earn in comparison with other people with similar job descriptions. I've long suspected that my company is massively under compensating me, but how do I prove it? Knowing if what I make is in line with my coworkers who have similar experience and responsibilities would make it easier for me to decide whether to stay or go.

But employers don't want that; they don't want to lose the people they've been fucking over. Thus, the secrecy.
28
A divisive, short-sighted, gimmicky abuse of power.

Economic growth itself is in the public interest. There are hundreds of carpenters, accountants, etc. who will gain work from this mixed use project --- it's not all about Whole Foods. I suppose we'd rather have a vacant lot welcoming people into West Seattle.

Heck, purely on the Whole Foods front, having more people eating nutritiously is in the public interest. It's not like it's a McDonald's coming in. God forbid the private sector accomplish the goal of making Seattleites healthier, rather than some government scheme.
29
"Wow. So Whole Foods is a worker's paradise."

Could the Slog be any more adolescent when it comes to business coverage? I didn't even talk like that when I was a 15-year-old socialist.
30
Yep, there are six Whole Foods stores in Seattle. McGinn waits until the week the primary ballots are mailed out to bleat about a proposed store #7. Gosh. What courage!
31
Whether or not we want to legislate wage issues through land use code, you don't wait until a project and alley vacation request have been through months of community input, Design Review Board and Design Commission meetings and approvals and THEN add another hoop. Development costs money and this project is millions of dollars into the process. Vet the idea, examine the consequences, allow for public process, then implement.
32
@31, it's not about the land use code, or about wage issues. It's about a desperate, flailing campaign by a mayor whose unpopularity continues to expand. He's the classic epileptic in the swimming pool, pretending it's a jacuzzi.

Please wait...

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