Operation Hey Mackey! - Whole Foods, Oakland from Jamie LeJeune on Vimeo.

The Organic Consumers Association has been pressuring Whole Foods Market and its supplier, wholesale giant United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI), to respect workers rights and put a priority on selling organic, as opposed to so-called "natural foods."

Whole Foods Opposes Workers' Rights

In March 2009, Whole Foods joined with Starbucks and Costco to create the Orwellian "Committee for a Level Playing Field for Union Elections" in opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

Whole Foods Admits to Selling Too Little Organics

In August 2009, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey admitted "We sell a bunch of junk," and the retailer bowed to OCA pressure with a promise to sell significantly more organics in 2010. If Whole Foods and UNFI doubled their sales of organics from 1/3 to 2/3 of total sales within three years, this would boost U.S organic revenues by approximately three billion dollars annually, or 15%.

Whole Foods' CEO Opposes Health Care for All

A few days later in August 2009, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Mackey that rejected the principle of health care for all and spurred enraged health care advocates to call for a boycott of Whole Foods.

Whole Foods Threatens to Sue OCA

Instead of joining the boycott, OCA urged its members to write to Whole Foods to encourage them to keep their promise on organic and find new leadership if they can't improve their position on workers' rights and health care*. (If you wrote to Whole Foods and recieved a reply from them, you might be interested in OCA's response to Whole Foods' letter.) That's why we were surprised when Whole Foods sent a letter dated August 26, 2009, signed by one of its attorneys, threatening to sue OCA under the bizarre pretence that a petition we've been circulating violates Whole Foods' "intellectual property rights." Here's OCA's response to CEO John Mackey:

"Given all the bad publicity that you've gotten lately for admitting that Whole Foods Market (WFM) retail stores are purveyors of 'junk food,' that WFM needs to sell a lot more certified organic products (rather than conventional items greenwashed as 'natural'), that WFM's '365' private label products need to be thoroughly tested for GMO contamination, that you don't think all Americans deserve government subsidized access to health care or need labor unions, perhaps you may want to reconsider suing the largest organic consumer watchdog organization in the United States..."

Read More of OCA Director Ronnie Cummins' Letter to John Mackey.

Please help put the pressure on Whole Foods and UNFI by using the form below to send them a letter.

*Health care wasn't one of the topics we initially raised in our campaign to increase organic sales and improve workers rights in the Whole Foods and UNFI supply chains. Nevertheless, OCA does differ with Mackey on this issue. To learn more about OCA's position on health care reform, read Ronnie Cummin's 2008 article, Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma.