It's never been about Whole Foods. Three guesses as to what this is really about.

Hey Jason,

Then why don't you quit what you're doing and work for Whole Foods? Pay your mortgage on that.

Ben

Why aren't you going after Stop and Shop Ben? And were people comfortably paying their mortgage on the Hi-Lo pay scale? Silence? That's what I thought.

Obviously, that's not the question. The real question is, how many of the 28 or so ex-Hi Lo employees hired by Whole Foods would quit their jobs to return to work for Hi Lo?

Ben, My mortgage and the salaries that Whole Foods pays its employees are entirely unrelated. No one is forced to work at Whole Foods, those who choose to know what they are being paid and can decide for themselves if that salary works with their budget and financial commitments. Personal Responsibility Ben, look it up.

No one is forced to work at Whole Foods, those who choose to know what they are being paid and can decide for themselves if that salary works with their budget and financial commitments. Personal Responsibility Ben, look it up.
___________________________

well put!

Unfortunately "personal responsibility" are two words that Ben Mauer cannot combine together and make sense of. He believes that there should be some sort of hipster utopia where a small group of people in Sally Jesse glasses and ill fitting sweaters make the decisions for the rest of their community as they see fit. They pick and choose what businesses to attack at random, don't know how to debate, and cannot answer pointed questions or criticism levied at their ideas. It's quite pathetic really.

Steve you forget this is pretty much an online blog site. They aren't interested in news.

While it may not be news, it's something I read here first and I'd like to know about these sorts of things, so thank you, Patch.

Whose Foods... Does every employee at WF have to support a family of 4? Isn't there something to be said about starting at a certain point and earning raises over time?

Please stop embarrassing JP.

Thanks for the information and the links, Anne!

They don't cap stock options, so total compensation is completely different than salaries. The flat pay scale is just a ruse, unfortunately. Whole Foods is not relatively progressive as a business. It's the second largest non-unionized retailer after Wal-Mart. The CEO has spoken out vehemently against universal health care and in fact Whole Foods has programs that penalize employees for being fat. That's not progressive.

hey if i can't be Sumner Hiller anymore, how come you can be Guy Pondside?

Hi "Guy Pondside," this is Chris Helms, editor of the site. I'll be reaching out to you via email to let you know or remind you about our policy of requiring real names on the site.

Thanks for posting the Whole Foods statement about all this!

Sad day. I'll miss WhoseFoods; it provided a moment of levity amid the axe-grinding and poor reporting on this site.

I second momahr's comment and would also very much like to know how many people attended the job fair. I suspect that it is more than the number of signatures on the Whose Foods/Whose Community document.

Hi momahr (and others), here's a step-by-step to change your user name:
In the upper right of the homepage you should see a "Log In" button. Click it.
Now in the upper right you'll see "Hi [Your Name]" Please click that link.
This takes you to your user profile page.
On the left of this page, you'll see several options under "The Basics." Click "Edit Profile"
Change your name to your real name, ideally your full name.
Click "Save" at the bottom of the page.

Oh, and to your point, I did update the article yesterday afternoon with Whole Foods' responses. Even before then, I had included a lot of material from Whole Foods from previous Patch stories. If you haven't read through the article since it was originally posted, please take a fresh look. Thanks.

Here's the thing, Chris: most people don't come back to articles to see if they've been updated after the fact to abide by journalistic standards. Even online, it's best to get it right the first time and not call backsies later and pretend it's all OK.

Also, quoting both sides' press releases in the article is _not_ objective reporting.

Hi James, I agree that the old practice was for reporters to gather all their information and hoard it until they produced a story. That's what I did for most of my career. In my last three jobs (editing the Cambridge Chronicle, Watertown TAB and here at JP Patch), we've been moving to try to tell people what we know when we know it. Some stories become more additive than one shining, golden finished product for the masses to glady accept. It's more of a collaboration with readers (as evidenced by these comments). I'm getting used to it myself, but mostly I like it. When there are holes in stories, readers will find them and ask, as some of you have done here.

I agree with Chris on this one.

The traditional days of journalism are a thing of the past. When an article is published on a site such as the Patch, it's much different than running in a hard copy of the Globe - or even the Gazette. The readership is online, and it is an interactive community that encourages people to come back over and over again to comment, have a public discourse and lets the article evolve as events do. If Whose Foods calls out Whole Foods, no matter how ridiculous their demands may be, this is one of the only ways that a response can be obtained, having it put out in a forum such as this one. The same thing happened in major print publications when the JPNC requested Whole Foods donate a certain percentage to the community. It was reported before Whole Foods had to issue a response. I see nothing wrong with that.

Michael -- I see what you and Chris are saying, but this new model really only works for those of us who haunt the comments and check back regularly. We're the fanatical exception, not the glance-at-it-and-forget-about-it rule. The vast majority of users never comment here (unless the Patch's numbers are _really_ dismal) and probably read an article once and move on, because frankly, most people have better things to do than check whether a piece has changed in the past few hours. Those people, then, end up with a skewed perception of events because they saw what was, deliberately by design of the entire system, an incomplete story. Not to say that print journalism is perfect in this regard either, but the rush to write something, I think, is misinforming people in a manner similar to the constant yammering heads reporting half-stories with no actual information that dominates 24-hour cable news. And when you couple it with what appears to be a decision not to report on the job fair at all, except in the context of "here's what Whose Foods said about it," then you're dancing precariously close to the edge of doing more damage than good.

Sarah hit on the Achilles' heel of the Whose Foods argument: they are trying to hold Whole Foods to a standard to which no other business in the neighborhood is held. To those who agree with Whose Foods: should every employer be responsible to pay the mortgages of a four person family? Will you be making sure that the CEOs of every JP business agree with you on universal health care (I'm referring here to a point made by Ben Mauer above)? Can you explain why Whole Foods is uniquely responsible for mitigating the effects of gentrification on the neighborhood?

Until Whose Foods can come up with a reasoned, compelling argument for why Whole Foods is truly unique, its demands will continue to be perceived as arbitrary, opportunistic, and devoid of common sense.

Seriously, the whole "incentives for good health = WF HATEZ FAT PEOPLES" argument is more something the extreme right would make (viz. Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity, or local bans on transfats). I wouldn't have pegged Ben Mauer for a fellow-traveler with the Tea Party, so count that as my surprise for the day.

Hey Steve, yes. I emailed them early in the morning that day and they responded in the afternoon.

That's what Ben does Gretchen. I have called him out multiple times both here, on FB and privately, and he has yet to answer ANY reasonable and pointed questions. His attachment to the "movement" is baseless, contradictory and completely hypocritical. Why support something you can't defend?

He's a clown who should be ignored.

Oh come now, Michael. You Ben's a busy guy, what with all the youth jobs he and his laptop are creating in the community! Wonder if he makes sure that the custodial staff at the building where he doodles logos are all paid at least $13 an hour, regardless of seniority. I can't imagine him being able to live with the cognitive dissonance otherwise.

I know, Michael -- I have seen your repeated efforts to start a conversation. Since Whose Foods/Whose Community has been unable to answer these questions since this controversy erupted in January, it's time to move on. The good people of JP should continue to do what they have always done: support our neighbors and efforts to improve the quality of life for everyone in JP, continue to hold government agencies and officials accountable, continue to support and work with employers and businesses that bring jobs to our community and offer services and goods that residents need and want, continue to work to improve our schools, libraries, public spaces, public transportation, alternative transportation, health care access, political participation, and so on. None of these worthy efforts are impeded by having a Whole Foods Market in JP. Rather, Whole Foods, like City Feed & Supply, Harvest Co-Op, and many other JP businesses, is already part of strengthening the fabric of our community.

Thanks, kelli. As one of the people who opposed the opening of a gold-buying business in my neighborhood, I think there was principled disagreement there, not "bashing." Even if every person in JP approached every issue with the greatest good faith and open heart, there will still be disagreements about what is best for our community and what JP "needs." How we resolve these inevitable differences of opinion can either help strengthen JP or turn neighbor against neighbor, but it's also possible that there are some things that folks will never agree on.