by Andrea Helm
Picking a good wine isn't as simple as it used to be. Consumers, whose only concerns used to be a wine's bouquet, clarity, body and vintage, now have to consider that their choice may contribute to the oppression of farm workers.
An ongoing controversy at the Puget Consumer's Co-op over whether or not to pull Chateau Ste. Michelle wine from store shelves has escalated to the point of a membership referendum on the co-op's boycott policy to be held May 1- June 8, 1993. Currently, the wine is shelved along with printed notices informing shoppers about the boycott against the Woodinville-based winery, whose field workers have fought management for years in hopes of gaining the right to bargain collectively.
The referendum - in which members are being asked, 'Should PCC support boycotts by removing products from the shelf?' - is a non-binding one, meaning that the PCC Board of Trustees, the co-op's legal authority, can follow or ignore member sentiment.
Some members say the existing passive boycott policy doesn't go far enough. One co-op employee says the notices are ineffective and, more often than not, not readily visible or not posted at all.
"The overall feeling and attitude I get is that this co-op is moving away from the true spirit of a co-op, where social issues are as important as providing food," said a long-time co-op employee who asked not to be identified. "[PCC] is a grocery store; little else. [Boycott notices and informational] fliers are not a deterrent."
The employee said he hasn't even seen any of the leaflets that provide information about the Chateau Ste. Michelle wine boycott.
Trustees' Deaf Ears
Leaflets or not, seeing the wine on the shelves disturbs 10-year co-op member Mary Ann Shroeder. Shroeder, who works with a local farm workers' support group, said it is "pretty irritating" that co-op trustees resist pulling the wine off the shelves. The co-op should not carry the wine "in honor of the struggle for collective bargaining rights.
"This is happening right here in our state," Shroeder said. "It is inexcusable that people in our state have to be subjected to poverty and the heavy pesticide use in the wine industry. We have laws set up within the co-op if we want to pull a product from the shelves, but this is not happening."
Shroeder says co-op members twice have tried to get the board of trustees to pull the wine - not just place informational fliers in the store and leave it up to members to decide. In the summer of 1991, she said, members presented a petition to the board asking that the wine be pulled from the shelves. There was "some problem" with the petitions, they were told, so members collected signatures and presented another petition that fall. The trustees, however, decided to continue the policy of stocking the wine, placing informational fliers and letting individual members decide.
Trustee Bob Farrell, a vocal opponent of pulling the wine, and member relations/marketing coordinator Theresa Forhan Steig, both were out of town the week Free Press looked into the controversy.
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'The overall feeling and attitude I get is that this co-op is moving away from the true spirit of a co-op, where social issues are as important as providing food. [PCC] is a grocery store; little else.' -PCC employee
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"This is a matter of personal choice versus organizational action," Blackman said. As a matter of policy, she said, the board prefers to stock the product, inform co-op members of the issue, then let individual co-op members decide whether or not to buy that product.
The co-op's fliers provide data on five national companies/products that currently are boycott targets: Nestle, Ste. Michelle Winery, certain canned tuna, California table grapes and General Electric. Currently, only GE products are kept off the shelf. But as members and an employee pointed out, the GE boycott began in 1987 when the "co-op was more truly a co-op," and the products General Electric manufactures aren't stocked by the co-op anyway.
According to the flier, the co-op's Board of Trustees evaluates and supports consumer boycotts "to the extent that the co-op's membership agrees to support such boycotts." The flier also says, "The great majority of members prefer to make their own choices regarding whether or not to honor a particular boycott."
On the Chateau Ste. Michelle boycott issue, the Board of Trustees "reaffirmed its position of providing information to members ... and supporting Washington state farm worker legislation. The board asks members to make their own informed boycott decision."
One co-op member, Jamie Pehling, who was a member of a panel that examined the boycott policy in relation to the upcoming non-binding referendum, pointed out that the co-op has already taken a position on the boycott by deciding to buy the wine to begin with. He said he is disturbed by the the board's position that they have received "no clear sense" from members regarding the boycott policy, because Pehling believes members have been very vocal about their desire to have the wine pulled.
The current boycott policy just isn't good enough for Shroeder and other members. "We members have already spoken," she said. "We had the required amount of signatures to the board - twice. I feel that it's harder to get a boycott these days. This thing about choice is just a scam. If the co-op purchases it and stocks it, they want you to buy it. They have to sell it or they lose money."
Shroeder said she was told by Trustee Ken Jacobson that "boycotts have outlived their purpose."
Todd Putnam, publisher of the National Boycott News and a frequently quoted boycott analyst, said he agrees that most co-op members would like to see the wine pulled off the shelf as a show of support for Washington farm workers. Under the disguise of the boycott issue, however, is a more important struggle taking place.
"It's the same thing we saw with the Berkeley co-op," Putnam said. "The bigger picture is that of taking a socially responsible, locally-owned membership co-op and turning it into a big chain."
Please see "PCC Members to Board: Don't Sell Anything We Wouldn't Buy"
Plus: A reader responds to this piece.
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Contents on this page were published in the May, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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