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Whole Foods grocery chain bans Canadian employees from wearing poppies
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- icpmacdo 6y agoThey’ve already redacted this policy
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- curmudgeon22 6y agoLink to policy reversal https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/whole-foods-poppies-allowed-1.5793069 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/whole-foods-poppies-al...
- jmarcher 6y agoI was going to say that's it's weird hill to die on.
- onecommentman 6y agoIf this is evidence of how Whole Foods would manage a global enterprise, better that they stay US-centric. This is tone-deaf at a very deep level. No “slippery slope” argument could justify this decision.
- NikolaNovak 6y agoI mean. I see their point. I wear a poppy; I like seeing poppies; I definitely think it's something we should all be darn tootin' grateful for. It's a cultural event in Canada and embraced by virtually the entire population. You can get them everywhere you go and generally you can wear them everywhere you go. You certainly see them everywhere you go :). But - I also have seen tons of businesses squeezed between rock and a hard place and PR and legislation and human rights and lawsuits and boycotts, because you genuinely cannot please everybody, and today it's easier than ever to find X number of people across the continent who are bothered by any given thing and give endless headache to the poor store manager who just wants to run a store. Sometimes it's just easier/safer to force the lowest common denominator and get with your business... except when it's not. Problem is - anybody who starts a sentence with "It just makes sense that..." or "Everybody agrees that..." or "This is different because..." is empathically wrong. There empirically are people who think Poppies are political statement, there empirically are people who think their own statement is just as equal or more, and there are people who will claim, with fair amount of logic, that now we have government sponsoring / legislating one cause while forbidding others. etc etc etc. Reason #138492 I'm not running a public store/business these days.
- criddell 6y agoWhat's the political statement made by wearing a poppy? Did Whole Foods make a political statement when they enacted the poppy ban?
- maxk42 6y agoIt's not political. It's done to remember those who died in combat. Many people have a relative or loved one who died in combat.
- robertfw 6y agoI would argue that focusing solely on the nobility of those who died in combat while ignoring what led to them being forced into combat in the first place, is political. I think the poppy, and Remembrance Day in general, spends far too little time examining _why_ these people were sent to die.
- bigbubba 6y agoSounds like you're saying it's political for being insufficiently political.
- Spivak 6y agoI’m not about to wade into Canadian culture because I know just enough to be very wrong so I hope it’s fine to use a US parallel. If Memorial Day was “celebrate the individual personal lives and accomplishments of all these people who died at war” then it’s apolitical. But that isn’t really how it goes unfortunately — I wish it did. Instead it’s about celebrating and glorifying our troops and our military which is super political.
- goatinaboat 6y agoInstead it’s about celebrating and glorifying our troops and our military which is super political. How is it political - what party do you think it supports?
- redis_mlc 6y agoIn Canada, this is a big deal. You could argue that Canada's participation (and bloody losses) in WW1 and WW2 unified Canada into a nation, beyond the welfare subsidies that made confederation. Britain very heavily relied on its colonies during those wars, even more than is commonly known. Besides personnel, Canada built several airstrips to train pilots from multiple countries.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago...and there goes Whole Foods from my possible destinations.
- mabbo 6y agoReversed in no time at all. This sort of thing often happens when American companies operate outside of America and forget that cultural differences can be pretty significant. The very idea of banning a Canadian from wearing a poppy during November is, to my Canadian-culturally-raised-brain, an insane thought. Doug Ford said he would pass a law that made banning them illegal and honestly I suspect he'd get unanimous support from his legislature, most of whom loathe him. You can't just apply American norms everywhere.
- vermontdevil 6y agoWhole Foods need to learn that the American version of "flair" on uniforms is not the same as wearing a poppy in Canada or UK etc.
- reaperducer 6y agowhen American companies operate outside of America According to the article, it was one Canadian employee told by one Canadian supervisor that this was a no-go. There was no "Poppies is bad!" memo from Austin or Seattle. It was how a single Canadian manager chose to interpret the dress code. In other words, if it wasn't for the internet outrage industry, this would be much ado about nothing. Further along in the article it shows the problem is provincial law, not the policy of an American company: Wearing a poppy could be considered a display of a political belief, according to employment lawyer Alex Lucifero with the firm Samfiru Tumarkin, and thus, would not be protected under the Human Rights Code in Ontario.
- jjeaff 6y agoLucifero: seems a little too on the nose for an attorney's surname. :)
- Hello71 6y ago> According to the article, it was one Canadian employee told by one Canadian supervisor that this was a no-go. There was no "Poppies is bad!" memo from Austin or Seattle. It was how a single Canadian manager chose to interpret the dress code. This is egregious cherry-picking from the article. While one sentence says "An employee of the Whole Foods in Ottawa says", the previous paragraph says "U.S.-based Whole Foods Market says poppies aren't allowed [...] which affects employees at its 14 locations across Canada", and the one before that (the first in the article) says "a national grocery store chain has banned its employees from wearing the symbol of remembrance". Later, the article says "A poppy does not comply with that policy, the company confirmed", referring to Whole Foods, not any specific location. The sentence that you're quoting, read with any context whatsoever, is clearly anecdotal evidence provided to support the claim that Whole Foods both has a policy against wearing poppies, and is enforcing that policy in at least one store. > Further along in the article it shows the problem is provincial law I don't know what the hell you're going on about here. "would not be protected" is vastly different from "is not permitted". This sentence merely clarifies that Whole Foods' action is not explicitly illegal, not that it is required under any law.
- d3ntb3ev1l 6y agoDon Cherry gonna be mental
- trhway 6y agostrategically WH made an amateur error by starting from a most innocent/popular symbol. As we know one should start from the edges - ban symbols "offensive to others" and list as examples and start enforcing from the ones which most people would agree about - swastikas, Mohammed cartoons, ..., and with time work your way toward other more popular symbols until you reach the goal state of totally politically sterile workplace.
- noneeeed 6y agoI think it's the other way round. I think their standard policy is that basically everything is banned that could be seen as a political statement, so no maga hats or pride rainbows. So this was less a case of banning the poppy, as saying that they wouldn't make an exception. I don't know if the poppy is a thing in the US so this might have been a case of US head office not understanding that to the vast majority of people the poppy is not a political statement.
- trhway 6y ago>no maga hats or pride rainbows i think that is our common loss. I mean after probable initial period of discomfort for some, it would be of great benefit to everybody to naturally get used to our differences and to see that say a maga wearer can be a great guy and coworker what you can talk with and not some stupid redneck from backwoods, and pride wearer is also a normal person like you, not just some perverted servant of Satan. It is kind of socialization in puppy training, and it looks like our polarized society is in great need of such socialization.
- bigbubba 6y agoThere is some limited use of poppies in America, but I expect most Americans are unfamiliar with it. It's primarily a Commonwealth thing.
- gnicholas 6y agoI just listened to an interview with WF's CEO on Freakonomics, [1], where the CEO talks about the general policy of not adorning uniforms. Apparently this comes from Amazon. Prior to the acquisition, WF employees were allowed/encouraged to express themselves through their attire. So while this is being pitched as 'WF won't allow employees to do X', it may be more accurate to say 'Amazon won't allow WF employees to do X'. 1: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/john-mackey/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/john-mackey/
- amoorthy 6y ago"15 pieces of flair is the minimum. Are you just going to do the minimum?" - https://vimeo.com/102830089 https://vimeo.com/102830089 Sorry, off topic but when there's a remote chance to slip in an Office Space reference I am obligated to do so.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- walshemj 6y agoThere is a lot of strange stuff around badges in US industrial relations its probably partially an anti union thing. Bet Amazon is hoping that the Daily Mail or a UK MP doesn't pick this up - not going to help with lobbying against the revenue tax that.
- monkeycantype 6y agoThis store policy is jarring because it is responding to a condition we do not usually explicitly recognise. It is a policy to prevent conflict in places with low levels of societal trust and high levels of political polarization, it has spread to a location where social trust is healthier, and in doing so has exposed in a strange symbolic way the consequences of low societal trust. Do I even need to say it? 2020 has laid bare this trust is very uneven in its distribution. I think that different levels of societal trust has had a large impact on the progression of the covid pandemic in different parts of different anglophone countries. I'm singling out anglophone countries, because I believe the levels of individual freedoms we enjoy mean that despite official mandates, our compliance with preventative measures was essentially an individual choice that reflected our faith in our fellow citizens, and the sincerity (though I would not go so far as to say competence) of our governments. In Australia remembrance of past wars has been politicized, but I can still see a person wearing a poppy and see it as a sincere act. It hasn't yet become a symbol of partisan affiliation. We still describe our preference for a political party with a layer of indirection as: I vote for X, rather than I am X I hope this lasts. EDIT: /u/reaperducer reads the article - pops conjecture bubble
- maxerickson 6y agoUS is a high trust society. We seem determined to piss it away, but none the less.
- Kye 6y agoYou and I clearly live in a different US.
- maxerickson 6y agoNo, we just have a different idea of how low trust can go. I spend ~0 time considering the quality or contents of the goods I purchase at my local grocer. There's some produce I avoid, but they aren't hiding the quality of what is sitting out. What do you do if you aren't sure what is in a box? edit: my local grocer is a bad example really. But I spend 0 time worrying about the quality of goods in pretty much any retail store...
- agensaequivocum 6y agoI wish Whole Foods would respect American culture too and reverse their ban on firearm carry.
- api_or_ipa 6y agoOh boy. Someone high up in the WF foodchain didn't do their homework before deciding this policy. Wearing poppies in Canada is a big deal. Fun fact, Canada used to celebrate Thanksgiving the same date as America, but they pulled it 6 weeks forward so it wouldn't crowd the mourning period around Remembrance Day (Nov 11). That's just how serious Canada is about this particular holiday. Although an old hockey commentator got fired last year for ranting about how immigrants don't wear enough poppies, there's widespread support from every section of Canada about wearing poppies and in general paying some respect to the war effort around Remembrance Day. Outside of Don Cherry's rants though, people rarely make a political statement about it. It's just one of those things you do.
- muglug 6y agoThis was a direct result of Whole Foods banning pro-Black Lives Matter pins and buttons. Many of those who are complaining about freedom of speech now were pretty quiet when the policy first rolled out.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]