Whole Foods CEO to Give up Title of Chairman

[Neecy]

Source: ABC News

The chief executive of organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market Inc. is giving up his title of chairman, following years of petitioning by an activist shareholder to separate the two roles.

Co-founder and CEO John Mackey is voluntarily giving up his chairmanship, a position he's held since the Austin, Texas, company's inception in 1978, according to a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mackey will remain on the board.

Whole Foods said lead director John Elstrott will become chairman. His current position will be discontinued.

At Whole Foods' annual shareholders meeting in March, CtW Investment Group, a shareholder activist group that works with union pension funds, unsuccessfully proposed that the CEO and chairman roles be separated. The grocer said it has been receiving these proposals for three years.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9423725

[frazzled]

1. Touché

Man, it's been hard boycotting them (and I have to admit to sneaking in before Thanksgiving--but only for essentials, and then I told the checkout guy I was breaking my boycott; he said he thought Mackey was nuts and wrong, too.) I still will shop there only for some meats and the bulk spices and herbs. Nothing else there (vegetables, cheeses, etc.) can't be gotten by me elsewhere. And I'll only shop at the one on the South Side that caters largely to the African-American community. Just so I don't have to feel like I'm in yuppieville.

I kind of decided that if a healthcare bill passed, I could stop boycotting, but this makes it a little easier. The crappy high-deductible insurance he's giving his employees will probably have to be changed under the new law; that's good enough for me.

[onehandle]

2. Good news. Muzzle him and I will return.

And not just for the free samples that I have been stopping by for since the boycott begun.

[Fridays Child]

5. Same here.

[emilyg]

7. Let's muzzle everyone who has a different

opinion.

[devilgrrl]

14. So you favor Mackey opinion on healthcare?

:puke:

[chervilant]

3. hmm...

And, so what?!

I have been avoiding Whole Foods since they eliminated a significant percentage of their bulk items (especially NOW Stevia, which at present I would have to special order for better than $80!). After Mackey publicized his position on health insurance reform, I chose to boycott Whole Foods and get my food from Central Market and HEB.

I am still looking for an organic French Roast that compares, but it's not compelling me to reenter their doors.

Bleh. Poor Mackey isn't even wealthy enough to qualify for the vaunted 'Richistan' crowd. Wonder if he has any 'friends' these days...

[Meldread]

4. I never really understood the whole boycott thing....

...okay, so the guy had a different opinion. He owns and runs a chain of grocery stores. It's not like he ran a health clinic, hospital, or health insurance company. He also doesn't mistreat his workers, at least to the best of my knowledge. The nearest Whole Foods' is an hour away from me, so I don't shop there. Where I live most people get their food from either Wal-Mart or Food Lion. If I could have a Whole Foods' near me, I'd totally shop there.

So to me, the whole boycott thing was almost like when right wingers boycott a book or movie or something when they don't like the political views of the author, director, or lead actors... or think the movie has some hidden message. It's just pointless. If I'm going to boycott something, I'll boycott something worthy of it. Like Fox News, not because they are a conservative news network, but because they lie and manipulate the public.

[emilyg]

6. I did not join the boycott.

[PassingFair]

17. I did, but it was EASY for me...

There are no WholeFoods close to me, and my daughter
is a vegan...I would have to drive about 40 miles to
the closest store, and would keep thermal bags and
a cooler in the car in case my work took me near a
store.

It was very expensive and a pain in the ass if we
ran out of "Veganaise" or something.

When I read that fool's OpEd, I was encouraged to
dig a little deeper locally and I found a healthfood
about 10 miles from my house.

The funny thing is the guy who owns it is a former
WholeFoods employee and he and NOTHING good to say
about the way WholeFoods is run.

That libertarian schmuck can kiss my tofu!

[LeftyMom]

18. I like my local shops much better too.

I actually live pretty close to the local Whole Foods, and have to go out of my way to shop at our local health food place instead, but the prices are better, the employees are union, the money stays local, and as clientele goes I'd rather rub shoulders with the midtown mix of young punks and old hippies (and old punks, when the hell did that happen anyway?) than the aging new money who shop at our local WF.

And I totally agree with your daughter about being out of veganaise being worth a 40 mile drive for a resupply. :D Especially the grapeseed oil kind with the purple lid. I just found a store here that sells the gigantic food service containers of it, I'm seriously considering getting one.

[Clear Blue Sky]

9. Agree

I never understood the boycott either. Great store and products.

[Land Shark]

10. See message reply #8 for a start on Why Boycott: like spending money at the WallSt Journal store? nt

[noamnety]

16. WF health insurance is one of the best around.

The company pays 100% of the premiums (one of only 15 companies of the Forbes 100 best companies to work for).

There is a high deductible mentioned up thread, but what that poster opted not to mention is that there is a separate company account (not funded by the insurance company) to help pay those out of pocket expenses. It's cheaper for WF to handle deductibles that way for employees than pay for an insurance policy with a low deductible, but some people don't or won't read past "there's a high deductible." Others read that, and don't realize that the deductible is less than what many employees elsewhere pay just in premiums.

My daughter works there. My husband works for the federal govt, so we have the same health insurance that congress has, so I'm in a decent position to compare. It would cost me less to have the WF policy than the federal employees one.

An employee might have a thousand dollar deductible - they get no coverage from insurance until they've already paid $1000 for the year. That sounds awful, right?

But Whole Foods also sets up a medical account for them and dumps a thousand into that account, so that money is used to pay the deductible - it's not coming from the employee's pocket. (It's not exactly a thousand for the deductible and account, my numbers are ballpark here but in the right range). Whether or not they use that money, the next year the company dumps another thousand into the account, adding to it.

Incidentally, this is the plan that the employees themselves voted for. 8 out of 10 of the employees voted FOR it.

[Land Shark]

8. The Boycott of Whole Foods continues - Mackey still says health, housing & food not rights of anyone

See
http://wholeboycott.com/ and

"John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, Inc., flat out said that not only do we the people have no right to health care, we’ve no more right to that than we do to “food or shelter.”" See http://coto2.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/universal-health-care-slavery-and-knowing-your-enemy/

On edit: For those who don't understand the boycott of Whole Foods, just imagine spending your grocery money of, say, $100 a week or more with the Republican party - which happens to have at its store some decent selections of some apparently healthy food that you like. (Hey, the rich definitely believe in health for themselves including, for many, eating healthy...)

[angryfirelord]

11. Boycott?

The sheer cost of buying things there was enough to turn me away. Honestly, if you want to eat natural, just go to your local farmer's market. The organic brand is just an excuse for these companies to jack up the price by a factor of 3.

[onehandle]

12. Why in the Hell was this taken out of LBN? Hugo Chavez farts and there it stays.

But this relevant piece of political news is downgraded to the off topic forum.

WTF?

[Neecy]

15. I wonder about that, too

This is pretty big news and broke yesterday.

[Abacus]

13. Every time I hear about this guy, all I can do is think about his yahoo message board antics...

http://www.smartmoney.com/breaking-news/smw/?story=20070712105705