By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
After hearing from disgruntled workers earlier this month, the board of directors of Weaver Street Market announced this week that they have decided to uphold a decision by the cooperative’s management to move some operations to Hillsborough.
Saying that after a review of workers’ concerns about moving jobs from Carrboro to a centralized food preparation center in Hillsborough and the process by which the decision was made, the board agreed that general manager Ruffin Slater conducted a proper exploration of the options consistent with the cooperative’s mission and philosophy.
A statement released Monday, July 9 by the board states: “The board systematically re-examined the General Manager’s interpretation of policy and relevant data, including a detailed written account of the process in making the decision for the Food House and past monitoring reports. This review confirmed that the General Manager had complied with relevant Board policy and that the Food House had been conceived and developed through much consideration over time to appropriately further the Mission (Ends) of the Cooperative.â€
The board met with employees on July 2 and heard concerns that more mechanization at the new facility might threaten the quality of the baked goods and that many workers will not be able to follow the facility — now based in Carrboro — to Hillsborough.
Laurel Goldstein, who helped lead a petition drive to get the board to call a moratorium on the plan, said in an email to The Citizen that she was disappointed by the decision.
“That employee concerns mean enough to have a meeting is encouraging, however the lack of follow-through, that the workers who are being directly affected by this decision, that nothing any of us said seems to be having any effect on the decision is disheartening,†she wrote. “I guess I just expected more from a co-op; I guess I thought that maybe an ‘alternative business model’ wouldn’t pit the interests of management against those of the workers; I guess I was wrong.â€
The full statement from the cooperative’s board and Goldstein will be available on The Citizen’s website on Thursday, July 12.