by Mike Pach –
by Mike Pach – What is most remarkable and unique about the Co-op is that all of these benefits are provided within a member-owned and directed governing structure strengthened by democratic polices, bylaws and procedures reflecting the seven (7) principles adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance.
Considering this grand community asset and its lofty aspirations, I was disappointed when the current Board of Directors belatedly rejected an initiative, despite the initiative’s organizers having followed all the bylaws and procedures required for its inclusion in members’ ballots.
The initiative sought to allow members to vote on whether Israeli products should be boycotted from Co-op shelves until the Israeli government recognizes and respects Palestinian human rights. The organizers spent weeks standing in front of the Co-op gathering enough member signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot.
Once obtained, instead of validating the signatures as expected, the Board rejected the initiative as ‘illegal’ and ‘improper’. Subsequent inquiry showed that the rejection was primarily the result of intimidation from a vocal minority of Co-op members who threatened to cancel their membership if the initiative went to the entire membership body for a vote.
Admittedly, the initiative was controversial as issues addressing human rights often are. But what if the initiative involved equally disturbing issues such as; genetically modified foods, unfair labor practices, deforestation, fraudulently labelled organic certification, privatization of public water systems, just to name a few? Would the Co-op board reject these as well because they might be construed as divisive, or not really related to Co-op business? Is that how social responsibility, equality, equity, and solidarity are envisioned by our Co-op leadership?
And what about the democratic principles that are so proudly displayed on our Co-op’s website, are they just empty words? Case in point: A group of members study what is required to qualify an initiative on the ballot, they present their intentions to the Co-op management for approval, fulfill all their responsibilities, then are told that their initiative is ‘illegal‘ and ‘improper‘ when it seemed on the verge of qualification.
That’s not democracy, that’s cowardice in the face of smug intimidation. It’s also manifest disrespect of Co-op members themselves who were denied an opportunity to accept or reject the initiative on their own terms.
It is this abject failure to safeguard Co-op principles and democracy that’s prompted me to become a candidate for the Davis Food Cooperative Board of Directors. I want the Co-op to not only help the Davis community meet its nutritional needs, but also live up to its democratic principles and greater social responsibilities, too.
The Co-op has met this challenge before, supporting Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers Union’s grape boycott in decades past. Somewhere along the way this ideal has been misplaced. I intend to retrieve this ethic as a Co-op Board member and would very much appreciate your support.
Mike Pach is a Candidate for the Davis Food Cooperative Board of Directors. While the Vanguard welcomes commentary from all segments of the community, the publication of this letter should not be construed of support or opposition for any candidate or viewpoint on this subject matter.
I wonder what the Coop Board’s response would be to a Coop membership attempt to collect signatures to place a similar ADVISORY initiative before the membership, calling for our Coop to join in a national and international(Mexico) call to BOYCOTT Arizona economic activity? This dramatic populist call for a boycott is described, by an Hispanic Arizona legislator, as necessary to let Arizona lawmakers and their constituents know that there are “real consequences” to this attack on civil and human rights.
The boycotts of the past dealt with food safety and sustainable practices (and worker safety for those working in the fields harvesting the very food we are consuming). The Israel boycott is not food related. The COOP is about FOOD.
Mike Pach’s purpose and focus for running for COOP Board seems to be political and not about FOOD. He should run for City Council and leave the COOP to people who are interested in FOOD.
[b]Mike Pach:[/b] Where is your resolution to have the Co-op boycott Syrian produce? Are you going to propose a boycott of food from Egypt? Iran? Libya? Burma?
I’m not holding my breath for those boycotts.
“The boycotts of the past dealt with food safety and sustainable practices (and worker safety for those working in the fields harvesting the very food we are consuming).”
Ryan: I am old enough to remember well what the “grape boycotts” were about and your description is inaccurate. The grape boycotts, supported by our Coop members, were actions of principle and social responsibility in solidarity with those who were attempting to confront and resist the overwhelming powers that were denying them their fundamental human rights. The worker-condition issue such as the short-handled hoe,demanding a lifetime of stoop-labor and resulting disability,and pesticide exposure were manifestations of the violation of these human rights.
I too am old.
You are correct and so am I. I referred to “worker safety for those working in the fields harvesting the very food we are consuming.” The conditions you describe refer to that. Examples of abuse were sending workers into the fields to work immediately after the fields received aerial spraying of pesticides, etc.
What is important is that the boycotts were directly related to food. The proposed Israel boycott does not and is political in nature.
Did the Co-op ever have a boycott on products from South Africa or on companies to divest from S. Africa? Would this qualify as a different situation than the situation with Israel?
I have to say that food is about the most political things there is in the world or tied with water for it. Scarcity in food is the probably the reason we have monetary systems. Durable and manufactured goods came along only after we had a secure and plentiful supply of food.
That said, I think the co-op makes an error getting involved in fights that have little to do with its main purpose and will act as polarizing issues. It may be that few people objected to grape boycotts or apartheid boycotts, but Israel is a different story. In Davis, you probably could get away with an Arizona boycott, although I have not tested those waters on this forum.
“What is important is that the boycotts were directly related to food. The proposed Israel boycott does not and is political in nature.”
If the boycott had not been about grapes and abuse of farm workers but rather about sweatshop abuses in organic clothing sold in our Coop, I am confident that our Coop would have stood in solidarity with these non-food workers in such a hypothetical non-food boycott situation. Claiming that the Coop movement is about food, period!, is a disingenuous cop-out,IMHO, to avoid allowing the Coop members to vote(remember, this was an advisory initiative to allow the Coop members to let the Board know how the membership felt about the boycott; it was not mandatory for the Board to act upon the results). The critical point is that the Coop Board was threatened with consequences if they even permitted the membership to give advice to the Board on this issue, a clear violation of article 2 of the International Cooperative Alliance that states that Coop members shall actively participate in ADVISING the Board on policy issues.
“It may be that few people objected to grape boycotts or apartheid boycotts, but Israel is a different story.”
So… the Davis Coop bylaws need to be rewritten to say: Coop members have defined membership rights EXCEPT when the Coop Board is subjected to intimidating threats if they attempt to carry out their duty to adhere to the Coop bylaws.
I didn’t say that.
“I didn’t say that.”
I know you didn’t, David but that is the conclusion one must reach if you are really attempting to address the issue here, namely,whether esisting Coop bylaws can be discarded when intimidating threats are brought to bear. Your opinion that the Coop “makes an error”…. is really beside the point.
Honestly my answer wasn’t really keeping in mind any thought toward the bylaws, I merely stated from a political standpoint what seemed a prudent course.
“…..what seemed a prudent course.”
A “prudent course” is always in the eye-of-the-beholder. This initiative did not meet the strict Coop bylaw criteria for the initiative result to be mandatory(which not-a-few initiative supporters desired). Allowing this advisory initiative to go forward WAS a compromising prudent course, authorizing the Board to make the final decision(as called for in the bylaws while taking into consideration the “advice” of the membership)and publicly demonstrating that our Coop Board representatives would not be “bullied” into abandoning its member’s “rights” as defined in the Coop bylaws and International Cooperative Alliance.
davisite 2 – did you ever think of the possibility that the Davis Food Co-op is beginning to realize that it should stick to matters relating to its mission of selling food rather than getting entangled in political fights that cause so much divisiveness that either 1) Co-op members become alienated from each other; 2) people stop shopping there because of the heated political atmosphere?
For instance, I, for one, get highly irritated when the City Council goes outside its authority and starts passing resolutions on peace, or takes a political position on some emotionally charged world issue. The City Council needs to “stick to business” just as the Davis Food Co-op does. I don’t know why in the world some people in power think they have the right to express “my views” for me on issues not within their purview…
And as an important aside, do you want to “stick to your guns” on a position that any political issue is fodder for a resolution to the Davis Food Co-op Board, even if it would ruin business and jeapordize the Co-op’s very existence? Just curious…
“….did you ever think of the possibility that the Davis Food Co-op is beginning to realize that it should stick to matters relating to its mission of selling food rather than getting entangled in political fights…”
Elaine: As you know very well,there is a PROCESS for the Davis Coop MEMBERSHIP to make such a decision. The bylaws would need to be changed. As the bylaws now read, all of the requirements for getting on the ballot were met. The Board tried to declare the initiative “illegal” which it was not, according to the US Commerce Dept that wrote the statute cited. When that was exposed as false, the initiative was declared “improper” which it was not since as an advisory initiative, it was a vehicle for the membership to “actively participate in Board policy decisions”,clearly proper under article 2 of the International Cooperative Alliance articles. The Board’s final gambit was to treat the initiative as if it was mandatory for them to act on the results. This was clearly a fraud since the initiative in no way met the strict bylaw criterea in the Coop bylaws for mandatory initiative action.
“And as an important aside, do you want to “stick to your guns” on a position that any political issue is fodder for a resolution to the Davis Food Co-op Board, even if it would ruin business and jeapordize the Co-op’s very existence? Just curious…”
As the bylaws now read, an initiative that gathers the appropriate signatures and is legal can be put on the ballot as advisory to the Board. The Board can and should then take the members” voting results into consideration along with all of the other considerations that they have a responsibility to deal with. The Board makes the decision. An advisory initiative THREATENS NOTHING unless the concept of mutual respect for differing views is now declared “quaint”(as the Bush DOJ declared the Geneva Convention) in Davis.
davisite 2 – I don’t have access to the Davis Food Co-op by-laws, but am not convinced that any initiative whatsoever on any conceivable subject can be brought to the Bd of Directors if enough petitions are gathered. There has to be a very careful reading of the by-laws. It seems to me from what I read there was a clause in the by-laws indicating something to the effect there must be a proper purpose in any initiative brought…so I am not willing to concede/believe that anything goes when it comes to the Co-op’s initiative process.
From your second answer, if I understood you rightly, you would bring forth an issue in the initiative process of the Co-op even if to do so would kill off the Davis Food Co-op as a viable business. But if you killed off the Davis Food Co-op, then what possible good did your initiative do/purpose did it serve? If the business dies, there will be no opportunity to get your point across in any intiative. Your logic escapes me…
Now here is another twist you may not have thought of. If “an initiative that gathers the appropriate signatures and is legal can be put on the ballot as advisory to the Board”…but “the Board makes the decision”, and ALL Board members are in complete agreement the intiative is not something they will support, they have no reason to allow the initiative process to go forward, no?
“there must be a proper purpose in any initiative brought.”
The advisory initiative was a proper purpose as it is the memberships right to actively participate in advising the Board on policy matters. The history of the Coop with regard to boycotts in solidarity with those resisting exploitation and denial of accepted international human rights is undeniable.
“…issue in the initiative process of the Co-op even if to do so would kill off the Davis Food Co-op as a viable business.”
I don’t accept your premise that it is acceptable for the Board to permit a probable minority group , of unknown size but vocal and aggressive, to intimidate it so that the membership is not even permitted to offer its input into the Board’s deliberations. Such members who choose to “muzzle” their fellow-members so that they cannot even have input to Board decisions are, IMO, not people who are supportive of the principles that make the Coop different from Safeway.. The Davis Coop would be well rid of them! Their values will be the death of the Davis Coop whatever its organic food agenda.
“…but “the Board makes the decision”, and ALL Board members are in complete agreement the intiative is not something they will support, they have no reason to allow the initiative process to go forward, no?”
Emphatically, NO! The Board is , according to the most hallowed principles of the International Cooperative Alliance, to which the Davis Coop proudly trumpets its adherence, is to allow the “active participation of the membership” in the Board’s policy decisions. Note, not make the decision which is the Board’s perogative, but participate in it. The advisory initiative was that vehicle and the Board essentially said, We have already made our decision (based by all accounts on the threats that even allowing the advisory initiative to go forward would cause these “loyal” Coop members to never shop at the Coop again) and we are not going to permit the membership to express its position to us. This is a matter of PROCESS!
davisite2: “The advisory initiative was a proper purpose as it is the memberships right to actively participate in advising the Board on policy matters.”
But therein lies the all important question – “advising the Board on policy matters”. I would take “policy matters” to mean policy as to how to run the business of selling food – not political stands on issues having nothing to do with selling food. Just bc taking political stances in the past has been done does not mean they were proper policy matters to be considered. I would argue not. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one…
No… here you are mistaken, Elaine. There is a unanimous understanding of all the parties that “policy” matters are NOT exclusively business in nature. The Board has the final authority to decide policy; the membership can advise but does not have any authority to actually make the final decision except under the strict Coop bylaw criteria for a mandatory initiative. These policy decisions are about issues that are not clearly defined and codified in the bylaws. Board decisions on ALL “policy” issues explicitly permit, as I cited earlier under the articles of the International Cooperative Alliance, for the membership to have the opportunity to actively participate in the decision.
“…issue in the initiative process of the Co-op even if to do so would kill off the Davis Food Co-op as a viable business.”
A Coop in the state of Michigan dealt with a similar advisory initiative by putting it on the ballot after it had gathered the required number of signatures and met all of the other requirements. The Coop membership voted and rejected the advisory initiative’s call for a boycott. This Coop did not self-destruct and I assume is still a thriving operation.