Right. No reply to my last e-mail to the Weaver Street Market Co-operative powers, asking for the annual pay raise to be back-dated to the beginning of September, and no response to my suggestions for creating a structure to allow employees regular inclusion in important decision-making, in accordance with WSM Board Policy. So. Formal Complaint, under WSM Employee Policy Section 5.J, with proposals for redress:
"WSM Board Policy – Treatment of Staff states: “The WSM General Manager may not … for [WSM] paid staff, cause or allow a decision-making standard that is not transparent or does not allow for opportunity [for paid WSM employees] to participate in decisions or shape the guidelines for decisions.”
In 2007, a consultation exercise was undertaken which defined those areas where WSM management are duty bound to conduct a process that includes employees in the making of decisions. Those areas are: Personnel Policy, Workplace Environment, Pay and Benefits, and Department Strategy/Focus.
Section 5.J of WSM Employee Policy sets out how any employee can complain that management have made a decision without including them in the decision-making process.
I am making a complaint under that Section, namely that the General Manager is in breach of Board Policy – Treatment of Staff, in that he is allowing decisions to be made that fall within the parameters of the decisions agreed in 2007 without allowing employees the opportunity to participate in those decisions or shape the guidelines for those decisions.
I first raised this issue some 18 months ago. I have written regularly to the General Manager and met with him once. His response was that this Board Policy related only to ‘egregious’ decisions. The world egregious does not appear in the policy wording. The policy relates to all those decisions referred to in the 2007 document.
While it is true that employees have been allowed some undefined feedback on some decisions in the past 18 months, there has been no regularity nor structure, important decisions which fall within the parameters of the 2007 document have been made without the opportunity for employees to participate, and employees have still not been allowed to shape the guidelines for decisions in which they should be allowed to participate.
It is the purpose of this complaint/proposal specifically to seek redress on a couple of issues where employees should have been or should be allowed to participate, and to request that a process be commenced no later than 2015 to allow employees to shape the guidelines for their future participation in decision-making in line with Board Policy and the 2007 document.
The specific issues:
1) In each of the past three years, pay raises for employees were back-dated to the first pay day in September. That has not been the case this year. That decision was made without reference to employees, in breach of co-op policy. I wish that situation to be redressed by having the next available Market Messenger accompanied by a ballot, permitting employees to vote on whether pay should remain back-dated to September 21, or should now be back-dated to the first pay day in September, votes to be collected in an envelope in each unit, to be returned by the unit manager to the Human Resources Manager, the vote to be binding.
2) I engaged in a specific exchange with the General Manager on the issue of allowing employees to participate in the decision to set the size of the annual worker-owner dividend, a matter specifically referred to in the 2007 document. A rather restricted opportunity was offered to employees to provide feedback on the worker-owner dividend for 2014. The reason for the restriction was that the size of the worker-owner dividend is, ultimately, pre-determined by the size of the profit, which, in turn, is pre-determined by all of the decisions taken during the setting of the budget. The only way properly to allow employees to participate in the decision to set the size of the worker-owner dividend, and therefore for the General Manager to be in compliance with Board Policy when setting the budget, is to allow employees the opportunity to participate in the making of the decisions which underpin the setting of the budget. I therefore request that, in order to be in compliance with Board Policy, at the earliest opportunity, the General Manager set out for employees his proposal to allow employees to shape the guidelines for permitting employees to participate in the setting of all budgets going forward.
As for bringing the General Manager into compliance with that part of Board Policy which requires that he allow employees to participate in shaping the guidelines for including employees in decision-making, so that such inclusion is regularized, not haphazard, and is in compliance with Board Policy, I request that the General Manager, before the end of 2015, commence a process to allow employees to shape such guidelines.
I have previously suggested that the latter could be achieved either by engaging in a similar process to the one in 2007, with the consultation exercise this time addressing how rather than what, or by a task force to consider the same, or by some combination of the two.
If the General Manager does not respond in the terms of this complaint/proposal, I will wish the matter to be addressed by the WSM Board of Directors, as is my right under Employee Policy 5.J, and I will wish notice of this, together with the opportunity to address the Board personally.
If the Board do not comply with their own Board Policy, I will address this matter to the NC Secretary of State, and ask the same to review WSM’s accreditation under NC General Statute 54 as a co-operative.
Geoffrey Gilson
November 5, 2014"
Posts
