Weaver Street employees ask board to reconsider

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

About two dozen employees and owners of Weaver Street Market showed up at a board of directors meeting Tuesday night to debate a plan to move the cooperative’s food preparation operations to Hillsborough.

Laurel Goldstein presented a petition signed by roughly 100 employees asking that the board call a halt to the plan, saying it would threaten both the quality of the food and the work environment.

The petition reads in part: “Our work is artisan work and it is work that we attempt to do with pride and creativity every day, recognizing that making food for others is an intimate and honorable profession. We care greatly about what we do and we care about this co-op. It is our hands that make the food produced by Weaver Street Market authentic.”

Goldstein said the move, which would consolidate food production at a proposed FoodHouse in Hillsborough, might meet two-thirds of a “triple bottom line” by improving the profitability and, through innovations, the environmental efforts of the co-op, Goldstein said. But “from the standpoint of a lot of workers,” she said, “it does not meet the social bottom line.”

Goldstein and others said they were worried that earlier hours, transportation difficulties faced by some workers and more mechanization will affect quality.

“A lot of us feel replaceable,” Claudia Lopez, a longtime kitchen worker, told the board.

Not all workers attending the meeting in the auditorium of Carrboro Elementary School thought the move was a bad idea.

Several employees at the cooperative’s Southern Village store, which recently expanded, said their success depends on being able to have enough bakery goods on hand to meet rising demand.

Marilyn Butler, a co-founder of the co-op and a manager at Southern Village, said the new facility is needed because some weeks her store only gets 25 percent of the prepared foods it needs to fill demand. The organization, she said, has weathered change before.

“It’s easy to see your time at Weaver Street [Market] as the ‘real’ Weaver Street,” she said. Change at the co-op, she said, has “never been easy, quiet or without disagreement.”

Some of those worried about the move said it brings into question whether the company is staying true to its ideals as a cooperative.

“Is it really a co-op?” asked baker Bruno Sorrentino. He and others asked the board to spell out how large Weaver Street Market intends to get.

General manager Ruffin Slater said plans to expand to a third store in Hillsborough have long been on the books. As far as other expansion, Slater said in an interview Thursday that while something may happen farther down the road, there are no plans for a fourth store.

“There’s nothing currently in the works,” he said.

At the end of the discussion, meeting moderator Andy Sachs of the Dispute Settlement Center asked board members if they had any initial response.

Board secretary James Morgan took Sorrentino’s question head on. The fact that the board was there to listen and help work through the questions in the open, he said, is evidence that Weaver Street is still a co-op. He said the board is trying to increase transparency in the way it operates.

Board member Tam Fetters said the meeting offered an important lesson.

“Our failing, as I’m seeing here,” she said, “is that we did not have this meeting earlier.”

Slater said Wednesday the board will take up the subject again soon.

“The board is going to have a special meeting in the next two weeks to process feedback and figure out how to respond,” he said

Food Production and Office Move

The market plans to move the bread and pastry bakery, the food kitchen, and the offices to Hillsborough. Here is a letter I sent to several local newspapers about the move:

The scheduled move of Weaver St. Market’s “food production facilities” and offices to Hillsborough will result in a loss of around 80 jobs for Carrboro and have a detrimental effect on the town and the environment.
The environmental impacts are the most obvious: 80 workers driving 24 miles each work day equals around 2000 miles a day. That is a lot of carbon emission, and it doesn’t include the added distribution miles of having a non-centrally located “production and office facility”.
The workers will suffer most directly: adding an hour of driving onto their daily work routine; for many, having to buy a car; leaving their work community in vibrant downtown Carrboro; and for the bakers, having to start work at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m., to allow for extra distribution time.
Most of the food kitchen staff is Hispanic, live in Carrboro, and do not drive to work. The impact on the Hispanic community is unclear. Some may move to Hillsborough and some may be forced to quit, weakening the fabric of an important piece of our community.
Carrboro businesses should also not be happy about 80 downtown jobs leaving. That loss translates to a lot of lunches, dinners, drinks, shopping, etc., done elsewhere.
Ruffin Slater lists some benefits of the move in the latest Weaver St. newsletter, but they fail to persuade me that Weaver St. would be following its mission or benefiting the consumer-owners. Additionally, I would miss the fresh-baked bread and pastries, the fresh hot-bar, and my friends whom I would no longer see walking to work or taking a break on the market lawn.