A Tale of Two Co-ops

Jon Haber
Divest This!
26 August '10
Posted before Shabbat

Below is a piece I've developed for another project (more details as they become available). If anyone is involved with or aware of boycott projects going on at co-ops other than the ones mentioned in this story, please pass this onto them as a resource.

Unlike large commercial retailers, locally owned food cooperatives are highly responsive to local constituencies, notably the membership who are the co-op’s official owners. But the very things that make a membership-owned co-op an important part of a community (an open ear to member concerns, a commitment to political causes of local interest) also make them vulnerable to BDS advocates claiming that co-op principles require them to take part in boycotts of Israeli goods.

Two recent examples illustrate how things can go very right and very wrong when boycott gets on the agenda of a local co-op community.

Early in 2010, members of the Davis Food Co-op in Davis, California presented a petition asking that a boycott of Israeli foods carried by the store be put to a member vote. While the petitioners claimed to have the required number of signatures (5%) needed to institute such a vote, the organization’s by-laws also required that the co-op’s board of directors first approve a vote by determining if the proposed question is legal and serves a “proper purpose.”

Fortunately, community members against the boycott were made aware of what was being proposed and worked tirelessly to ensure that the board was hearing from a variety of voices, not just those advocating for BDS. In addition to taking input from all parties, the board sought outside legal advice as well as researching what other co-ops had done when faced with similar situations.

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BDS Flames Out in Davis

Jon
Divest This!
17 March '10

On Monday evening, the forces of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) were handed a major defeat when the Davis Food Co-op, located in Davis California, turned down demands by BDS activists to put a boycott of Israeli goods to a Co-op wide vote.

While this story may not be big enough to hit the national press, the details surrounding the decision make this as significant an event in the continuing annals of BDS failure as the Presbyterian Church’s 2006 decision to abandon divestment altogether (a decision which changed the threat level of BDS from “potential issue” to “serious loser”).

As backdrop, the Davis Food Co-op is a highly successful, member-owned cooperative with a nearly forty year history and over 9000 member-owners. Given the nature of the organization, the institution takes understandable pride in its progressive values and responsiveness to members needs, connections to the community that have contributed to its decades of success.

Sadly, it was these very qualities that made the organization a target for the local branch of the BDS movement, a movement whose two major tactics involve: (1) dressing up their mission of de-legitimization and demonization in a progressive/human-rights vocabulary; and (2) abusing the openness of organizations like the Co-op for their own narrow, political ends.

(Read full post)
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