Second Open Letter to Wheatsville Board of Directors

May 18, 2015 Dear Board of Directors, We trust that you have had time to read our first open letter and consider some of our proposals. As we originally stated, we do not expect solutions to occur overnight, but wanted to this campaign to stimulate a discussion about how to improve labor relations at Wheatsville, a process that will take some time. The hundreds of signatures on the Change.org petition clearly signify that many Wheatsville owners would also like to be part of this conversation (see https://www.change.org/p/wheatsville-staff-solidarity-collective-pay-wheatsville-staff-a-living-wage). We hope that our grievances and proposals were clearly expressed. If we have misrepresented any aspect of Wheatsvilles labor policies, we would be happy to make a public clarification. In that spirit, it has been brought to our attention that a comment in our first open letter, regarding health insurance and the ACA, has the potential to be misconstrued. If that has happened then we sincerely apologize for our clumsy expression. To be absolutely clear, we did not mean to imply that Wheatsville only provides the basic level of coverage as required by the ACA. We gratefully acknowledge that Wheatsville offers full-time employees a good health care plan, and has made laudable efforts to keep premiums and deductibles low for employees. It has never been our intention to suggest otherwise. Our remark was born out of frustration with the tendency to use Wheatsvilles insurance benefits as a shield to deflect scrutiny or criticism of other labor issues in the co-op. Many corporations and cooperatives provide benefits to their employees, and this does not mean that they are excused from all other responsibilities. To help illustrate our point, Appendix I provides links to employee benefits across the grocery sector. We have also included a link to the benefits page for REI, a national consumer cooperative that offers benefits for part-time employees as well as FTEs. Other companies offering part-time benefits include Apple, Starbucks and Whole Foods (see here: http://www.nextavenue.org/article/2014-12/5-companies-part-time-jobs-and-benefits-too and here: https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/advisor pro faq.html) Again, our message is not that Wheatsville has failed to provide adequate insurance for employees, but that such provision does not exempt it from criticism. We would also like to make a public acknowledgement that on Friday, May 15, Wheatsville circulated an employee newsletter stating that pay increases would take place immediately for 20 employees on the very bottom of the pay scale, and that the new starting wage for all employees will increase from $9.00 to $9.50. While we do not consider $9.50 to be a living wage, we do consider this a step in the right direction, and hope that a major restructuring of Wheatsvilles wage system can bring a living wage to all employees. The newsletter also mentioned the creation of a staff committee, as suggested in our first open letter, a development that we would welcome. Details on how this will be structured have yet to emerge, but we hope that it wont be another top-down decision. Furthermore, the newsletter revealed that Dan Gillotte will be giving an educational presentation on staff pay and Wheatsvilles finances on May 28. We encourage staff to attend and ask questions. This needs to be more of a dialogue than a one-way presentation.

Now that our frustrations have been made public and our desired conversation is underway, we would like to ask the Board for further cooperation in resolving the issues that have been highlighted. We therefore want to make some suggestions that we believe will bring mutual benefit to the Board, Wheatsville owners and staff. Firstly, it is important for the Board and Wheatsville owners to know that we are not kicking up controversy for our own entertainment. We would like the Board to review certain documentation that we believe will corroborate many of the claims made in the first open letter and the Change.org petition. In doing so, we believe that the Board will uncover a long history of unaddressed problems and unanswered complaints that have necessitated this attempt to go public. We therefore ask the Board to:

Examine the comments on the Change.org petition from current and former employees. We believe that these help to verify a lengthy pattern of employee discontent and unresponsive management at Wheatsville. Appendix II contains excerpts of comments that we find most relevant.

Review the staff turnover rate for the last five years, and anonymized exit interview data from the last two years. We know that a number of employees have given detailed information on their reasons for leaving Wheatsville and outlined many of the labor problems that we have tried to bring to light. The purpose of this review is to establish both what those problems are and that management should have been aware of them.

Review the anonymized comments in the most recent Staff Satisfaction Survey, particularly for employees in Groups A, B and C (see Appendix III for the Wheatsville Position and Wage Map). As noted above, some efforts have been made to address the pay dissatisfaction highlighted in the survey. Most discussions surrounding the survey, however, have been limited to aggregate numerical data and have not addressed any discrepancies in satisfaction when that data is disaggregated by job category, department or store location. Once again, we believe that many comments on the survey will corroborate our original statements, those of commenters on Change.org and the exit interview material.

We would also like the Board to assist us in putting facts before rumor, innuendo and speculation when it comes to some of the more taboo topics at Wheatsville. We respect our coworkers right to privacy and do not ask that the Board publish any salary information that reveals the identities of individual employees. However, in the interests of transparency and putting an end to potentially damaging speculation, we ask the Board to publish the anonymized 2014 compensation packages for the Chief Executive Grocer and employees in Group G. We are asking for the dollar amounts only, not job titles or names. We would like to be informed of the total compensation for each employee, broken into the following categories: Base Salary, Bonus, Vacation Pay, Sick Pay. If you would rather publish an employees aggregate total, please specify that this is what you have done. Please believe us when we say that were not playing a game of Gotcha! - we really think that this information is better out in the open, since it has long been the subject of hushed whispers and rumor.

Finally, we are currently investigating a claim made by Dan Gillotte to the Austin Chronicle in 2013: "We keep track of what is determined to be a living wage for the Austin area," says Gillotte, "and that is our entry-level wage, with frequent raises during the first two years. Full-time employees get medical, dental, life, and vision insurance ... and we don't try to keep people artificially part time, either." Anecdotally we have been informed of an increasing trend toward five or six hour shifts in certain departments, resulting in 25-29 hour work weeks. We are compiling information from our coworkers and will hopefully be able to identify whether this tendency is real or imagined, and if there are notable discrepancies between departments. We are willing to give Dan the benefit of the doubt and we have no hard evidence to suggest that Wheatsville is trying to keep people artificially part time. We do think this issue is worth exploring, though, and would like to determine the percentage of employees in Groups A and B who regularly work between 25 and 29 hours per week, as well as the average shift length per department. If the Board can help us in this exercise then it could prove another important step toward ensuring a fair and sustainable livelihood for Wheatsville employees. Thank you for your cooperation thus far and for taking our concerns seriously. We hope that our efforts have been received in the collaborative spirit that they were intended, and that any intemperate or imprecise language in our first letter has not discredited our cause. We feel confident that our fellow owners and coworkers are equally interested in answering these questions and solving these problems, and will support our proposals for greater transparency and healthier relations between departments. We therefore encourage owners to raise their concerns at the next Board meeting on May 26 at 6pm. Owners can use the Open Time Form to request a chance to speak: http://wheatsville.coop/membership/board-of-directors/board-meeting-open-time-form Please remember who the people that make your sandwiches, wash your vegetables and bag your groceries are. We are interesting, funny, educated, passionate and hard-working, and we want to serve our cooperative to the best of our abilities. Get to know us, and consider whether we're an asset to be maximized or a cost to be minimized. With love and respect, The Wheatsville Staff Solidarity Collective

Appendix I - Links to information on employee benefits

Whole Foods: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/careers/about-our-benefits Central Market: http://www.centralmarket.com/careers.aspx Costco: http://www.costco.com/benefits.html Walmart: http://careers.walmart.com/about-us/working-here/benefits/ Wegmans: http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?categoryId=284278&storeId=10052&langId=-1 Grocery industry general links: http://retailindustry.about.com/od/supermarket-employee-benefits/ REI: http://www.rei.com/stewardship/report/2014/core-practices/workplace.html

Appendix II - Reason for signing comments from Change.org petition I'm signing this petition because I started working at the 'Ville as a Deli Clerk at 9.00/hr. After working really hard and managing to get myself promoted to the Deli Lead position, where I managed five to six employees a shift and daily fielded catering responsibilities and direct customer complaints, I was still only making 12.50/hr.

Many of my fellow employees would have to get second, or even third jobs just to be able to financially support themselves. I used to get really upset when people would up and quit at Wheatsville, but I eventually realized that it was not a sustainable, nor a worker friendly environment for them.

It's unfortunate that the internal problems such as horrible pay and poor management have manifested into such a public platform as a change.org petition, as myself and other employees have tried really hard to work on this internally through employee meetings, lead meetings, and one-on-one meetings (going direct, y'all), but I realize that this is necessary for making a difference

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I am a member-owner of Wheatsville, worked there for nearly six years, and many of my closest friends still do. I'm disappointed but not the least bit surprised that while Wheatsville has expanded into multiple locations, its labor practices have only worsened

I was well paid in my time at Wheatsville, rewarded with good raises in evaluation after evaluation. Over the years, though, it became confusing, embarrassing, and disturbing to see my pay increase while other hourly workers of similar tenures lagged behind. In my last couple evaluations, I went so far as to suggest I would prefer not to receive another raise if it would mean more equitable wage distribution. When I resigned from Wheatsville in the wake of a severe personal tragedy, I wrote at length in my exit paperwork about both Wheatsville's continued failure to pay living wages and a workplace culture that takes a serious emotional toll on staff by demanding outstanding customer service during every minute of every shift, no matter how overworked or underpaid.

I never received a response from upper management about these concerns. My department manager at the time was highly supportive, but, like many, he didn't stick around Wheatsville for very long.

Since then, I've only heard about more of the same

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How can we afford to ignore the truth any longer when we are paddling for our lives financially, worked to the bone, giving all we have, in good faith, yet we are unable to get financially ahead or be rewarded fairly for our services. It's outrageous, and not at all what I signed up for as an opening kitchen staff member before the S.Lamar store was christened. This wage inequity is crippling good people!! The public will have its answer if we're no longer employed there after this petition has been presented. Such is the history of Wheatsville as it stands today. We can improve it if

we can only work together for a better working situation, with fair pay that supports a living wage in today's world.

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Really enjoyed my time at Wheatsville, but I only scraped by for that year (working full-time) because of bill assistance from my dad and living in low-end student housing. There are many brilliant minds and hard-working souls at that establishment, it's time they were paid for their service to the co-op and to the community.

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I'm signing this because I worked at Wheatsville as a Front End Clerk and I was considered to be full-time, and my wages were not enough to support even my basic living expenses suc as food and shelter, and as a result I was forced to move back home to California. I support the change!

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I worked at Wheatsville for 4 years but even after 4 years I wasn't making a living wage. Wheatsville claims to want more "happy employees" but a lot of job satisfaction is derived from being able to support yourself on your pay, and unfortunately, Wheatsville isn't meeting that goal.

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I'm a former Wheatsville employee who has seen first hand how increasingly difficult it is for employees, including long-term ones, to get by on the wages there. A higher starting wage for WV employees would be more in line with co-op values, increase morale, and reduce turnover.

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The cost of living in Austin has become astronomical since I began living there and working at Wheatsville in 2008. It is just a fact that the wages have not kept up with the true living wage increase in that city.

Appendix III - Wheatsville Position and Wage Map