Whole Foods: No Preservatives, No Unions, Lots of Dough (9/26/2003) Mackey, you see, has no business training. He's a former student of philosophy and religion who spent six years in the 1970s dropping in and out of two Texas colleges. (He never earned a degree.) He's a wacky combination of Texan don't-tread-on-me libertarianism and hippie social consciousness. In one breath he'll tell you earnestly that he strives to infuse "truth, love, and beauty" into his stores; in the next he'll say, "I believe in free minds and free markets." He's a committed vegetarian, but he sees no problem with peddling meat. He says he believes in empowering his employees, whom he calls "team members," but he actively opposes their unionization. Unions are "highly unethical and self-interested," Mackey says, contending that they would interfere with his company's principles of open communication and trust.
Food Bully:The Bush Administration’s Shock and Awe Campaign Against the European Union (9/9/2003) The decision by the Bush administration to sue the European Union (EU) over its five-year moratorium on genetically modified (GM) foods has all the earmarks of a "shock and awe" campaign targeted at prying open a major potential market. But the suit before the World Trade Organization (WTO) may be aimed less at the EU than at developing nations, which are far more vulnerable to strong-arm tactics.
October
