Co-op divided on union – Ashland Daily Tidings (Oregon)

A months-long discussion of employees unionizing at the Ashland Food Co-op has some workers eager for more say in forming the store's internal policies, but others see it an unnecessary and premature move.

Beginning their push to unionize, employees concerned over what they believed to be unfair treatment from management and some of the store's punishment policies approached the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union as early as last April.

Since then, the co-op's management has held four open-forum meetings to address concerns among its employees, but some workers still think UFCW is the best route to equality and accountability between management and staff.

"A lot of employees are interested in more equity across the board, from department to department in management," said 35-year-old Christopher Moreno, a four-year employee at the co-op. "Basically, with this whole thing, what we are looking for is to uphold the co-op's values."

Moreno, a former staff council member at the co-op, said he wouldn't discuss any particular instances where management treated employees unfairly, but said, with current policy, firings can happen without provable evidence of a wrongdoing.

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