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-staffa-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-jobsand-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/boardmeeting-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=2
84278&storeId=10052&langId=-1
Grocery industry general links: http://retailindustry.about.com/od/supermarketemployee-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
---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
---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.
---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.
---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!
---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.
---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.
---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