BRATTLEBORO — Workers at the Brattleboro Food Co-op have been trying to improve their working conditions for quite a while.
Their struggle became apparent when Co-op employees began organizing to unionize, with the ultimate goal of obtaining a contract with their employer.
With community support, on Nov. 14, 2012, workers at the Co-op were recognized as part of United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1459.
Let's fast-forward to June 2014. Why is it, after 20 months, Co-op employees still do not have a contract? What is going on inside the Co-op?
History has shown us that labor struggles and the resulting union contracts benefit both companies and workers, but in today's exploitive political and economic climate, the perception is that workers are the only side that benefits from such a contract.
If the situation were different, Co-op employees would have a contract they were proud of and the Brattleboro community would know what is going on inside its walls.
Management, too, is functioning under the misconception that the Co-op has a lot less to gain than its employees do from a completed contract. As such, the main element for the lengthy contract negotiation directs us to the negotiators for the business side of the Co-op.
This is likely true - otherwise, an agreement would have been carved out a long time ago. Co-op employees have chosen to have a contract. Co-op workers have plainly stated that they want a voice in their workplace. Consequently, it would be counterproductive for Co-op employees to stop pushing for a contract.
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As a small community, we tend to come by general local news fairly easily. Why, then, has it been challenging to find out what is going on inside a prominent local business? Not to mention a business that claims, on its website, to operate “for the benefit of its members”?
So what is happening under the roof of 2 Main St.?
Often, when labor struggles are muted in a similar fashion, like at the Co-op, the silence speaks for itself. It is worth asking: Who benefits from the secretiveness? Why are Co-op workers maintaining their speechlessness? The answer to that question resonates in ear-splitting tones.
Labor history tells us that Brattleboro Food Co-op workers are experiencing hostility at work and at the bargaining table and are unable to speak freely because they live in fear.
But let's turn to what is going on around the negotiating table, the heart of the Co-op's labor struggle.
The lead negotiator for Co-op management has been its human-resources manager, Phil Brodeur. While he is not alone at the table, he likely receives support from other managers and has been put in charge of representing the ownership of the Co-op.
Under Brodeur's guidance, the Co-op continues to postpone transparency and worker representation by obstructing labor peace. Brodeur's current behavior and actions contradict his personal response to the Baystate Franklin Medical Center's nurses' contract negotiations in Greenfield, Mass. in a letter published Feb. 3 in The Recorder.
In his own words, he details how Baystate presented a package that was unacceptable to the nurses, yet when the nurses refused it, Baystate management put forth that the workers were steering negotiations toward an impasse. Brodeur concluded that Baystate should leave Greenfield if its management was so unwilling to cooperate with the nurses. Accordingly, Brodeur does know what he is facilitating at the Co-op and the environment he is creating.
As community members and Co-op shareholders, we have entrusted the Co-op managers, including Brodeur, to represent us at the contract negotiating table.
If Brodeur's reasoning allowed him to see how Baystate did not fit into the working culture at the Greenfield hospital and led him to conclude that Baystate should leave Greenfield, what then should we call for, since he is treating valued community members with the same venom?
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So how, then, do we want our community's cooperative run?
As for me, I want Brattleboro to be a great place to live and work. And if our local businesses are a reflection and an integral part of our lives, then the Brattleboro Food Co-op employees need the transparency and equality that they seek in their workplace.
The leadership at the Co-op needs to be held accountable for creating such a rancorous working environment. It affects us all.