Comments on: Reason.tv on the Whole Foods Health Plan

By: lee najjar

lee najjar — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 06:55:46 +0000

I agree with JJH2. What else is an employee to say about their employer while at work? Though I believe their statements, as I know a few Whole Foods employees and they love their employer, I think the video makes a weak case. But used as a spotlight on the issue I do think it works well.

By: kt

kt — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:29:57 +0000

Morton Mintz, Neiman Watchdog -The Progressive magazine’s 100th-anniversary issue, published in April, consists mainly of excerpts from issues in each year since 1909. The entry for January 1917 â€“ nearly 93 years ago â€“ expands the much-disputed definition of “American Exceptionalism.” It begins: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance. . . Certain interests which think they would be adversely affected by health insurance have made the specious plea that it is an un-American interference with liberty.”

By: KT

KT — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:41:11 +0000

Dave Kruerger should change his name to suckass corpoorate penis- breath. You and the whole fake libertarian party wouldn
t make a pimple on my ass.

By: MREFJL

MREFJL — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:17:17 +0000

I don’t fully grasp the Libertarian ideal. Is there a website that will explain it to me? It seems to me that without unions we’d all be working 70 hour weeks alongside our minor children like we did in the 19th century. What am I missing? This is not a snide comment. I’d really like to know more.

By: Dave Krueger

Dave Krueger — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:26:02 +0000

I know this is a hard concept to grasp when people are so used to having a god-given right to a job, a living wage, health care, food, an affordable mortgage, free education, smoke free restaurants, handicapped parking, maternity leave, time and a half for over-time, unemployment checks, social security, medicare, sanitized broadcast TV, calorie counts for their junk food, and internet access.

But, the truth of the matter is that, in a free country, a company would get to choose who works for them precisely the way you get to choose who you work for.

By: PogueMahone

PogueMahone — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:24:43 +0000

4) Companies should be free to fire people who try to start a union.

For the sake of argument…
Why would companies want to fire people who try to start a union if 1-3 were applied?

If then, wouldn’t companies just fire people for merely congregating?

Easy on the neg bangs folks… just asking, you understand…

Cheers.

By: Radley Balko

Radley Balko — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:24:30 +0000

I’m fine with unions in principle so long as:

1) The organizing is done voluntarily.

2) No business owner is required to do business with unionized labor as a matter of law.

3) No laborer is forced by law to join a union in order to practice his trade.

4) Companies should be free to fire people who try to start a union.

In other words, unions are fine. It’s when they start using the government to protect and grown themselves that they become a problem.

Like any other organization, unions are subject to public choice problems, or the point at which the union starts to advocate what’s best for the union, and not necessarily what’s best for the workers. See Whole Foods, for example, where workers are treated far better than workers at unionized grocers, but who unions still protest, simply because Whole Foods’ labor isn’t unionized.

By: CrayZ

CrayZ — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:35:17 +0000

What beef do libertarians have with unions? Why can’t individuals join to together to negotiate wages together? By being against unions you are PRO big government. You want government to prevent union from organizing. Unions are a natural part of free markets. Unions are the free will of individuals to joins together and provide there services as a group. Just as a corporation is investors pooling their resources to create a business.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:10:52 +0000

I had to join a union for a 2-month, part-time summer job at a movie theater. They took money out of my paycheck and I didn’t even get a health plan – wasn’t even offered. But I did get minimum wage and all-I-could-eat leftover corn dogs (which also came with a nice little weight gain)! I also worked at Nordstrom that same summer, which wasn’t unionized, and I got more than minimum wage and 40% off clothing. Just ancedotal, but my personal experience tells me unions can suck my left tit.

By: MikeZ

MikeZ — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:07:11 +0000

Jeff,
It sounds like you are ridiculing Whole Foods ‘voting’ without any knowledge of how it works. Your making the assumption that it is exactly the same as your government job. Even if it is the same I don’t think you can assume that private industries have the same level of choice as your government job. I certainly don’t have any choice in health options through my employer, and I work at a white collar job making a decent salary. I worked for a grocery store in my youth and thier benefits really sucked.

So the proper comparison would be Whole Foods vs some Unionized Grocery Store Chain. I don’t know firsthand who’s are better but comparing to a different industry and assuming thier voting is the same as yours seems to be jumping to conclusions.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:41:50 +0000

The employees get to vote on their health plan? What a joke. That is like saying we get to “vote” for president after the candidates have been pre-selected and sorted by those controlling the media and the political process. Most govt employees get to choose from a variety of health plans, but that is far different than voting on the substance of the plan. You are choosing from a pre-selected field of what the employer feels like offering.

By: Reason.tv on the Whole Foods Health Plan « Free Market Mojo

Reason.tv on the Whole Foods Health Plan « Free Market Mojo — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:46:55 +0000

[...] HT: The Agitator [...]

By: perlhaqr

perlhaqr — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:07:56 +0000

Shorter KT: “I couldn’t be arsed to watch the video, but here, let me shill for unions while I have a text box to type into.”

By: Greg C

Greg C — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:10:01 +0000

The union grocery stores in my area ( like Kroger) pay minimum wage. I don’t really understand the point/appeal. Maybe some people are just so beaten down by life they appreciate the “help.”

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:52:21 +0000

Hmm, I was always under the impression that stereotype was trust fund babies were the liberal democrats while its those awful up and comers with thier new money who end up being republicans.

By: Josh K

Josh K — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:28:27 +0000

I was a Local 400 member, for about six months. They didn’t seem to do much other than take a cut of my paycheck. I’m curious why (apart from angering a large swath of voters) the Justice Department doesn’t investigate unions as an illegal trust/monopoly since they are a monopoly on labor in certain industries.

By: Carl Drega

Carl Drega — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:28:26 +0000

Oh, forgot to add KT, Radley is indeed a trust fund baby. That’s one of the reasons why we like him, he’s so down to earth for someone of his standing. That’s the Indiana Balko’s for you.

By: Carl Drega

Carl Drega — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:26:36 +0000

I’m just glad the unions didn’t beat the shit out of the Reason people or the Whole Foods employees who don’t support them. That is their usual fall-back position.

By: Dave Krueger

Dave Krueger — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:35:06 +0000

Well, the union guy did have one thing right when he said their protest wasn’t really about Whole Foods employees. It’s all about the union, which is what all unions are about.

If only they had a gram of ethical integrity, unions would be honest and just come right out and say that their sole reason for existence is to squeeze government, consumers, and employers for every last dime they can get instead of hiding behind some bullshit pretense that they’re righteously protecting employees from evil capitalist exploitation.

Personally, I keep wondering why they don’t all just move to union-friendly Detroit. You’d think it would be a dream come true to live in the economy that unions fought so long and hard to create (especially given the tons of empty housing available there now).

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:16:13 +0000

Omar beat me to it. If only we could bring back the original health care "crisis". You know... the "crisis" that caused government to get involved in health care in the first place. 90 years ago the "crisis" was that medical costs were too low and that health insurance was too accessible. Government had no problem fixing that. 1910 NY Times editorial on the "evil" of cheap health care.