The upcoming annual election for the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, which operates the Co-op Food Stores, has been surrounded by ongoing controversies over the mission, values and overall direction of the organization.
Members of the Co-op can participate in the election online during the voting period, which started on April 1 and will run until April 30. The election will fill five opening seats on the 12-member board.The election comes in the wake of heated discussion over the past two years about the Co-op’s operations. Last June, the store fired employees Dan King and John Boutin without warning from the Lebanon store. In response to these and other issues, a Facebook group called “Concerned About the Co-op” began working to change the Co-op’s operations and policies.
Co-op members have the option of choosing from ten candidates in the upcoming election. Five are endorsed by the “Concerned About the Co-op” group: Phil Pochoda, Liz Blum, English professor William Craig, Don Kreis and Ann MacDonald. The remaining candidates, who are not endorsed by the group, are Kevin Birdsey, Sean Clauson, Dana Cook Grossman, Edwin Howes and Thayer School of Engineering professor Benoit Roisin.
Several candidates, both in and out of the “Concerned About the Co-op,” have expressed concern about transparency at the Co-op. Kreis, who has previously served on the Co-op board, described the Co-op as a “black box” whose workings and operations are not clear to members.
“I think the Co-op owes it to the members to be very transparent and forthright about how it does business,” he said.
Transparency about the Co-op’s pricing practices could help members understand why prices are set where they are and placate angry consumers who say that competing grocery stores have cheaper prices, Kreis said.
Blum, who used to serve on the board of an unaffiliated co-op in Randolph, Vermont, said that she would like to see more open meetings that allow Co-op members greater participation. Listening to workers’ and to peoples’ concerns is the only way to run the Co-op democratically, she said.
Communications between board members, management and Co-op members are currently limited, Pochoda said. He added that he would like to see more financial information disclosed to both board members and Co-op members.
Not all of the candidates shared the same concerns about transparency. Grossman said that she does not see a problem with the Co-op’s transparency levels, pointing to increased communication between the board and members in recent years. She would not support making full financial reports public, she said.
Because of the razor-thin margins grocery stores operate on, making this information public could hurt the Co-op’s competitiveness, Grossman said.
Howes, a former board member and merchandiser for the Co-op’s grocery department, said that while he agrees that greater transparency is necessary, he thinks that some people have gone too far in their demands.
“This could be because of their lack of experience working in or managing co-ops,” he said.
Roisin, who is a current board member and who previously served from 2003 to 2005, said that he thinks transparency is a generally good thing. However, he does not think some information that the “Concerned About the Co-op” group wants released, such as the salary of the Co-op’s general manager, should be made public. Roisin is currently leading the effort to write a document detailing what information is and is not public, he added.
The Co-op’s labor practices have also been called into question, particularly in light of King and Boutin’s dismissals last summer. Pochoda said that his decision to run was precipitated by the pair’s firing. Under New Hampshire law, employers have the power to fire employees at will, which the Co-op did to King and Boutin. While the Co-op has modified their procedures since firing the two employees, creating a grievance process, Pochoda said he would like the Co-op to eliminate at-will firing entirely.
Blum echoed these calls for a just-cause firing policy. She said she thinks the Co-op’s actions have opened them to a lawsuit and mentioned previously that fired employees were rehired after the “Concerned About the Co-op” group staged a protest on their behalf.
Ending at-will firing is only fair, Kreis said. He believes the practice runs counter to the Co-op’s founding principles.
There has been some contention in this election about the process of nominating candidates. Blum said that prior to her decision to run, she was denied the opportunity to be a member of the nominating board because of her membership with the “Concerned About the Co-op.”
Kay Litten, vice president of the board and head of the nominating committee, denied that any wrongdoing had taken place. Members of the nominating committee were chosen for their commitment to Co-op principles and desire to move the Co-op forward, she said.
Blum also claimed that she was not told why the nominating committee declined to nominate her as a candidate. She said that while the committee only named six candidates, the Co-op’s literature recommends that two more candidates than open positions should be nominated.
The Co-op’s governance policies state that, “To insure a competitive election, the board will strive to recruit a sufficient number of applicants to provide for two more candidates than open Board positions.”
Litten pointed out that the language says that the board should “strive” to reach seven candidates, not that they are “obligated” to. The nominating committee has nothing to apologize for, she said.
Despite their points of disagreement, many candidates spoke of the need for cooperation between board members. Roisin said that he thinks the only way for the Co-op to achieve its goals is for its members to work in alignment. With division, alignment ceases to exist, he said.
Howes said that he appreciates the worries of “Concerned About the Co-op” members, and that their passion needs to be channeled into more productive ways going forward.
Kreis said to move forward, people need to agree to listen to each other and move on after decisions have been made, regardless of whether ideas win or lose. He expressed confidence that next year’s board will be more productive going forward.
Correction Appended (April 7, 2016):
The original version of this article statedthat the elections were taking place this Friday. In fact, the elections will be held online throughout the month of April. The headline has also been updated to reflect this change. The originally version of this article incorrectly identified a paraphrase of a statement of Dana Cook Grossman's on making full financial reports public as a direct quote. This has been corrected. The article also incorrectly said that Sean Clauson was not affiliated with the "Concerned About the Co-op" group. Clauson was not formally endorsed by them, but he is affiliated with the group.
