Whole Foods - a supermarket, but not as we know it

Ahh, Whole Foods, I know ye of old. I have a love-hate relationship with them; they are the Walmart of the bohemian lifestyle. (Founder John Mackey says that unions are "like having herpes". Charming.)

Whole Foods is coming to Britain; well, at least to London, so we'll see if they make it here. As the article says, some people didn't think Starbucks would make it here - too un-British, too expensive. But then, ten years ago this country did not have skinny lattes, blues soundtracks and comfy armchairs in their cafes and now you can hardly hope to survive as a new coffee shop without them. (Yes, I know a cafe and coffee shop are not the same thing, but that's not the point is it? Ten years ago, if you wanted a coffee you went to a caff, or something worse.) So, will Whole Foods be a force for good - pressuring mega-retailers like Tesco to up their game and give the people what they never knew they wanted? Will grocery shopping cease to be the nightmare it still is in the UK? Or will WF be a force for evil - breaking the backs of grocery workers unions, driving up prices, co-opting local suppliers and simultaneously undercutting them with flown-in organic wares? Or will the brutal behemoth that is the British retail sector break WF and send it back to the US with its tail between its legs? Should be interesting.

More Wal-Mart news than you can shake a big stick at

LabourStart, the excellent online news source and organising tool, has a dedicated Wal-Mart page. Get all the hottest late-breaking news about those corporate buzzards that bring you Asda supermarkets. Along with scofflaw child labour practices, political ads comparing their opponents to Nazis, and health-care benefits for their workers that are so lacking that in most states Wal-Mart workers get their only health-care from state benefits (if they exist in their state that is, otherwise, nada.)

Latest Criminal Scourge: Wal-Mart Openings

City Pages (of Minneapolis/St. Paul) reports on the way that Wal-Mart is using the police force to do its private security work. In this particular case, threatening and "warning" union members who might be thinking of protesting Wal-Mart's viciously anti-union tactics at one of their store openings. I don't know whether it's the union members (who ought to know better) or the reporter who is so naive as to think that this is something new, but it really isn't. It wasn't just the Pinkertons in the labour wars of the past who were providing the muscle for the corporate side; just as often, it was the local police or the national guard.

Fighting Walmartization

Via Daily Kos, in a blog called Fight for the Future, a union (SEIU) leader is posting a series about opposing the global hegemony of Walmart and its one-sided rules.

Walmart and Asda

I have a bit of a quandary here. There is a Walmart boycott called for in the US, and Walmart own the supermarket chain Asda in the UK. Our town's largest cheapest supermarket is Asda. They irritate me, but DH ain't going to shop anywhere else (except the greengrocers, which is even cheaper - thank God for greengrocers, long may they wave.) So I don't know about this boycott; it is only called for in the US, which makes me think most of the organisers don't even know about Walmarts overseas holdings. And it's a pretty woosie boycott - it's only for the holidays. Hmmm.

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

This is the Fast Company article referred to in the post below "The Walmart Dilemma". It is very, very good. Quite long, but rewards the effort.

The Walmart Dilemma

How to Save the World has an excellent article that explains everything you need to know about globalisation and free trade and macro-economics using superlative visual aids and the real-life case of Walmart as a model. This is highly recommended, even if you think you don't like or understand economics.

When Wal-Mart comes to town

Gary Younge, in the Guardian describes the immense cultural and economic power of Wal-Mart. In America, free speech is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, but that doesn't stop Wal-Mart from censoring CD lyrics, de-listing magazines, or broadcasting its support for the Gulf War on its in-store CCTV channel. Wal-Mart has more customers per day than the whole population of Britain, and more people in its uniform than the US Army has.