Provenance Please for All Coop Products
Dear Fellow Members:
Can we add country of origin as dedicated information on shelf labels? On housewares, on dry goods—the Coop is about educated choices. I know we make a sign when we’re proud of something, usually involving fair trade, but I would appreciate this information for all items, especially as the tech team programs labels like we now have in produce.
Thank you,
Lisa Guido
Refining Member Use of the Paging System
Dear Fellow Members:
While many of the initiatives to improve the Coop’s sonic experience, from a “Shift DJ” discussion item at a GM a few months ago to a PSFC Spotify channel, are music-oriented, there is one simple thing that every member who is able can do to go easier on the ears of your fellow shoppers and workers.
Our awesome paging system enables anyone using it to be heard using our “inside voices,” but there is an enormous difference between ending a page with a finger and the amplified collision of plastic that blasts everyone at the Coop when a page is ended by hanging up the phone.
For many, this is one more piece of noise pollution, like sirens and hydraulic bus brakes, that we simply tune out. But for others, it is an unnecessary aural assault that can be avoided with a small amount of mindfulness.
Please. If you use the paging system and you are able, use your finger to hang up the quiet way.
Thanks,
Brian Shuman
What’s the Plan for Working Parents?
Dear Editor:
Two years ago, the world—and our member work requirements—asked us to return to a version of the “way it was.” A single mother of two—as hardcore a Food Coop member as you can get—told me she was leaving.
“What am I supposed to do?” she said.
Many families feel abandoned by the new policies of the Coop. With work, school, meals and bedtime, they find it increasingly difficult with the online platform to even schedule a shift, let alone worry about who’ll care for their children while they do it. This leads to an increased work debt many are reminded of every time they need to buy food for their families.
“Why must I ask permission to shop at a store I’ve been a member of for over 10 years for having a lapsing grace period after being suspended for not doing shifts that are impossible to schedule?” is a sentiment I’ve heard more than once.
In the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of my (limited) free time and energy working to bring back childcare, and when we voted as a community, the item overwhelmingly passed. Then we hit a hiccup: our childcare insurance policy is impossible to renew.
So, what now? We’ve already lost many families, and we continue to fail to serve young families who are members, especially those in single parent households. The end of childcare should not mean the end of support for working member families.
As we move into the next 50 years of cooperation, we need to ask ourselves how will equity, in addition to cost efficiency and convenience, shape our idea of membership and work requirements? How can we make it easier for families with young children to complete their required shifts?
Lauren Belski
Human-sized Portions, Please
Dear Gazette:
Buying four bags of smoked paprika, three bags of peppercorns, five bags of parsley and so on, I would suggest a larger serving size in our member packed goods. If we could have a number of larger sizes of bags so I don’t clear out the tamari roasted pepitas and smoked paprika in one run, I’d feel less guilty and I think many members with larger households would be happier, plus fewer wasted bags.
Here’s my Coop spiced pasta recipe for a quick easy meal (feeds four):
Ingredients:
2-3 tbs of parsley
2-3 tbs of oregano
3-4 tbs of garlic
1-2 tsp of Aleppo pepper
Salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste
½ cup of olive oil or whatever else you like
1 lb of pasta (I prefer Molisana brand but whatever works, gluten free can be fine too)
Optional: Fresh grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
Steps:
Boil 7 cups/1.7 liters of water in electric kettle and transfer to pot or boil on stove.
Pour pasta in water and give an initial stir, cover and bring to boil, drop to lowest flame that keeps it boiling, maybe smallest burner. Stir every couple of minutes so it doesn’t get stuck together.
When the pasta reaches correct tenderness (which is usually indicated via the time shown on the pasta package), drain water over another vessel to save some pasta water.
Dump pasta in a big bowl, pour olive oil over it and add in ½-¾ cup of the pasta water.
Pour all the spices in and stir for a bit till everything is coated with oil and spices.
Serve into bowls and add black pepper, salt and/or cheese as needed.
Enjoy,
Mark Paperno
National Grid? Ha! National Greed’s More Like It.
To the Editor:
A Coop member since the 1980s, I raised my family in the neighborhood, and one of the changes I’ve become keenly aware of is the skyrocketing cost of utilities. Their rates are putting New Yorkers in debt; the greed of National Grid hurts us all. It makes exorbitant profits off captive ratepayers while poisoning those who live in their shadow with their product, a potent greenhouse gas.
It’s unconscionable that utilities across the country are building infrastructure we don’t need, don’t want and can’t afford at a time when the city and state of New York are passing legislation that will wean us off this high-emissions fossil fuel completely by 2050, a few decades into the future.
We must do this to have a livable planet. Yet, seeing the end of business as usual, National Grid is milking the system as fast as it can, expanding pipes and infrastructure because that’s where their profits lie. Money pours into the purses of executives and investors while the public struggles to pay bills. And methane, the main component of “natural” gas, is 86 times the heat-trapping gas as carbon dioxide, when measured over a 20-year period. We now experience unhealthy emissions in the air and from our stoves and pay exorbitant fees at the same time—all of which is contrary to the spirit that we stand for.
But we can do something.
While our Coop was established to provide healthy food at affordable prices, it’s up to us to stand up to National Greed and oppose their latest rate hike proposal, which translates to over $30/month more per household or a total of $3.8 billion. To make your voice count, call your legislators and Governor Hochul, and demand they pass the NY HEAT Act, S2016, which would limit utility bills for low- and moderate-income ratepayers to six percent of income.
JK Canepa
A Novel Idea: Boycotts at the Individual Level
Fellow Coop members,
Why spend the time, money, and emotional energy on renting out a large space, hiring security, and debating a contentious issue endlessly when there is another possibility?
The people in favor of boycotting Israel would like to see their beliefs and shopping decisions forced on others. As a democratic institution, why are we looking for imposed mandates as solutions to divisive product issues when we have individual shopper decisions as a freer, more representative alternative?
I propose a novel idea: the individual boycott. What could be more democratic than each shopper making their own purchasing decisions based on their unique backgrounds and political persuasions? Products under minimal turnover thresholds due to these individual boycott decisions could then be removed from shelves.
Let’s allow members to “vote” through their purchases, and we can avoid this whole balagan (commotion). How many of us really want to ruin an evening of our lives debating the conflict in the Middle East? Believe me, faster than you can say gefilte, I’ll be the first to schlep my tuchus to whichever hapless venue the Coop finds to host a vote on the topic. But do I want to do that when I could be sitting on my couch munching on Bamba? Not really.
Do you want to single out the only Jewish state because you believe it to be the world’s greatest evil as it fights a defensive war to return its hostages from a barbaric terrorist organization? Be my guest! YOU do not need to buy products from Israel.
I, for one, will proudly continue to stock my cart with Sabra hummus until the end of my days. Please, let’s stop with this bupkis and focus on what unites our community instead.
Jonathan Aranov
Politics Are Personal
To the Editor,
I am dismayed to learn that the Coop and the Gazette are once again putting politics before the cooperation and respect that the Coop has embraced since its founding.
I have been a member for over 20 years, and it was this feeling of community, combined with the quality of food and respect for farmers and the environment that has made me proud.
I am a Jew who strongly supports the Palestinian cause. I show my support in many ways—personal ways. I don’t need the Coop to tell me what products to buy or what products to boycott. I urge the Coop to permanently table this discussion. Sadly, if this political battle is allowed to rage at meetings and in the Gazette, or worse, if the Coop begins banning products based on political considerations, I will have to resign my membership.
In cooperation,
Helene Davis
BDS and the International Principles of Cooperation
Dear Coop Members,
While I disagree with many points in Joe Holtz’s recent Coordinator’s Corner column, this letter addresses only his unsupported claim that the Coop can best “welcome” members by avoiding a vote on boycotting Israeli products. How can anyone anguished over Israel’s genocide in Gaza (including, by the way, Palestinian members) feel welcomed by Joe’s preferred approach?
Writing “on behalf of the General Coordinators,” Joe insists that a BDS boycott would transgress the International Principles of Cooperation. He paraphrases the first IPC principle as “essentially stat[ing] that coops welcome people” from divergent backgrounds. The actual language is: “Co-operatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.” Joe relies on the slippery word “welcome,” used in the sense of “make comfortable.” But being free from discrimination has nothing to do with being sheltered from controversy. If a boycott is enacted, the Coop will remain just as open to members who dislike that provision as it currently is to BDS advocates. A healthy cooperative must be resilient enough to accommodate serious disagreements, using democratic methods to decide a course of action.
Broadly hinting at the GCs’ distaste for those methods, Joe writes: “Regardless of [a potential] vote’s outcome, thousands of members could feel unsupported by their Coop and may choose to withdraw their membership.” These are scare tactics, given that a tiny, vocal group of people desperate to shield Israel from legitimate criticism appears to constitute the “anti” side of the debate. Joe correctly notes that “The GCs… are obligated to support the Coop’s democratic processes.” I urge them to take their thumbs off the scale as we address this vital matter.
Jan Clausen
Boycotting a Boycott
Dear Editors:
Letters, opinions related to the Hamas war are wholly inappropriate and must be rejected.
Letters, opinions related to Hamas’s terrorism and war are wholly inappropriate and must be rejected.
Boycotts, especially those against those that FIGHT anti-American, anti-Western Jihadi terrorism have NO PLACE in Park Slope.
We’ve had ENOUGH division and polarization in America, in American Politics, in Park Slope, and in the COOP.
THANK YOU FOR REJECTING any such offensive and objectionable initiatives.
J. Anthony Levy
Include Member Input in Letters Policy Changes
To the Editors:
As a group of proud Jews particularly affected by Gazette standards, we feel that your Letters policy changes required input from us. We needed to be consulted on your new standards for Letters to the Editor and Member Contributions so that the new standards would allow all members to see in print that we feel welcome at our own Coop.
You made clear with your suspension of letters that content in letters and contributions are a very real problem to be considered, and we agree one hundred percent. A respectful dialogue between the Gazette editors and our group in the same room would have been productive.
Instead, the Editors took about a week, seemingly without consulting anyone but themselves.
That Israel is criticized is not the issue. Israel is subject to more legitimate criticism by Israelis than anyone else. Yet we read a great deal of illegitimate criticism in the Gazette, and our harsh and deadly history shows us the veiled anti-Semitism underneath. Some of it is not veiled at all, just taking new forms that may be unrecognized for now by others. Our group cannot know what is legitimately offensive to other Jews and other groups of people in general until we are told. And others cannot know what is legitimately offensive to us unless they are told. More dialogue, not less, can bridge this gap in understanding.
The only litmus test in this regard for submissions to the Gazette is whether a Coop member feels unsafe and/or unwelcome in the Coop. This group of proud Jews have collectively felt both since October 7th of 2023.
Jesse Rosenfeld (+150 signatories)
Editor’s response:
The change in policy regarding letters was further amended in early March. Letters and member contributions concerning the ongoing violence in the Middle East and its potential impact on the Coop are no longer restricted.
A Response to Allegations of Overreach
Dear Members,
I would like to respond to Kristian Nammack’s February 28 letter on the subject of the vote to dissolve the Committee Oversight Committee (COC).
Mr. Nammack charges that the vote was based on “untruths.” Having witnessed the formation and actions of the COC as a member of the Agenda Committee until October of 2023, I would like to address the alleged “falsehoods.”
Firstly, he asserts that the COC “never attempted to arbitrate committee disputes—that is the job of the Dispute Resolution Committee.” That is incorrect; the DRC concerns itself with the actions of individuals, not committees. The COC’s own previous description of its mission on the Coop website declared it would serve as “a liaison between committees, members and staff,” suggesting that the COC would indeed try to mediate between various groups.
Secondly, he says that the COC never claimed that it would reduce the staff’s workload. This was a part of the original proposal passed at the January 2022 GM: “Importantly, the proposal is intended to increase the ability of committees to reduce staff work.”
Thirdly, the COC did attempt to take on work credit management. In response to the Structure and Reporting Requirements for New Coop Committees at the April 2022 GM, the COC again declared its mission: “Supervise all committee reports and requirements including scheduling updates and tracking work credits.” Left unaddressed and unresolved was that the Coop already had systems in place for reporting all work credit. Even so, further encroachments upon staff time and member privacy occurred when the COC took it upon itself to try to inspect the past work records of thousands of members, not just those on Initiative committees. The purpose of these investigations was unclear, but the inappropriateness of this endeavor, the lack of any mandate and the enormous demands on the staff were suggested at the GM.
Mr. Nammack ignores why the resolution to disband the COC passed by a near 3 to 1 margin. As staff member Jana Cunningham’s presentation made clear, the COC failed to perform its mission to have committee members of both Essential and Initiative committees report to the Gazette, GM, and website their information and activities. Instead, the COC took upon the task of forming a complaint desk and investigating the decisions made by Essential committees. There was no language anywhere in the final item approved by the GM to authorize these activities. It was only after the October 2023 GM that the COC removed from the Coop website its self-declared mission to “investigate committee activities as requested.” The COC’s staff liaison, Joe Holtz, has never explained why this language appeared on the website in the first place or why it was promptly removed after Ms. Cunningham called our attention to it at the October GM. Notably, he didn’t defend the COC’s activities at either GM where the fate of the committee was being determined.
As was her prerogative, Ms. Cunningham took the feedback she received at the October GM and modified her item to specify for a full dissolution of the Committee Oversight Committee. Surely, the January GM and Mr. Nammack’s letter make clear that, given the COC’s gross overstepping of its stated purpose, she was right to do so. Casting doubts on a longtime and highly respected staff member who went far beyond the call of duty to do what she felt was right for the Coop, Mr. Nammack has provided only further justification for disbanding the Committee Oversight Committee.
In cooperation,
Cynthia Payne