Single-Payer Health Care Advocates Picket Whole Foods
By Sewell Chan AND Jennifer 8. LeeThe opening of a new Whole Foods store on the Upper West Side on Thursday has been interpreted in various ways. Some people in the neighborhood welcome the wide selection of expensive groceries and organic items that the upscale supermarket chain represents. Others bemoan the continuing gentrification of the neighborhood, noting that the new store was inserted into the middle-income Park West Village complex over protests from many residents.
To these various views on the store, add another: About 50 protesters picketed outside the store — at 97th Street and Columbus Avenue — on Thursday, around the start of its 14-hour grand-opening ceremony (which began at 8 a.m. and was scheduled to end at 10 p.m.).
The protesters were outraged by an Aug. 11 opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal, in which John Mackey, the chairman and chief executive of Whole Foods, based in Austin, Tex., criticized President Obama’s health care proposals.
“The last thing our country needs is a massive new health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health care system,” Mr. Mackey wrote.
Matt Starcher, an organizer with Single Payer Action, which organized the Upper West Side protest, said that his group, which advocates universal health insurance access, will also picket the Whole Foods store at Columbus Circle on Friday.
“Our intention is to keep going,” Mr. Starcher said, adding, “We don’t feel that the high-deductible, low-premium plans, they don’t solve the problems of health care.”
Adding to the public relations problem for Whole Foods, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried unsuccessfully to organize workers at the grocery chain, has called for Mr. Mackey’s resignation, as has the Change to Win federation of unions, of which the food workers’ union is a part.
Whole Foods, for its part, has distanced itself somewhat from its chief’s statements. The company issued a statement that said, in part:
While Whole Foods Market has no official companywide position on the health care reform issue, we would not want our very successful and sustainable health care coverage to be jeopardized. Our C.E.O. submitted an opinion piece last week with the intention of expressing his own viewpoints and providing constructive ideas to support reform, as President Obama invited America to do. We have heard from individuals who both agree and disagree with John’s ideas as there are many opinions and emotions surrounding the ongoing health care reform issue, including lots of differing views here inside of Whole Foods Market. We appreciate those diverse perspectives but it is unfortunate there is misinformation and confusion out there to cloud John’s good intentions.
