It’s always refreshing to see a business break the mold of capitalism, especially here in Reno.
Community-driven initiatives, like the Great Basin Community Food Co-op, might just hold the key to a more people-oriented society. But what happens when such worthy initiatives receive complaints of unfair treatment from multiple employees?
With an overall 4.6 star rating on Google, it seems that the co-op has made a great name for itself locally over the years. However, despite its delicious offerings and inspiring mission, the co-op still has room for improvement, according to some members of the Reno community who were previously and are currently employed there.
GBCFC has done great work bringing fresh local goods to the greater community here in Reno. Inside the store you’ll find local produce, a salad bar, and (as of this April) a cafe offering several fresh meals.
Complaints of alleged unfair treatment at Reno’s Great Basin Community Food Co-op were recently brought to the public eye through a Facebook post, spurring other concerned individuals to come forward when they heard we were working on this story.
Adrianne Tobin authored the initial Facebook post on April 22nd. According to Tobin, she had been voicing concerns about internal affairs at the co-op for months, before walking out of the co-op’s building during her shift on February 13th. Tobin alleges that her intention in leaving the building was to remove herself from a situation that she “did not want to escalate.” Tobin says that she had no plans of resigning, but was then told by management not to return.
Following her departure from the co-op, she sat with her thoughts for a couple of months before taking her grievances to social media. In recounting her own experience, Tobin claims that she “had been harassed and spoken poorly” by a few different employees, one of whom she says was a superior. She also says that she and some of her co-workers took their concerns to a kitchen manager. But when the issue was brought up in a group meeting, Tobin alleges, the manager “remained silent.”
Tobin made it clear that although she felt mistreated herself, she still appreciates what the co-op is doing for the community. “I believe that with a few changes internally,” Tobin says, “they can enable themselves to properly care for those who put their hearts and hands into the project.” Tobin encouraged folks to continue patronizing the store. She also expressed both online, and to Our Town Reno, that she did not have “bandwidth for litigation” and doesn’t want to harm the co-op’s financials in any way.
An inside look at the co-op kitchen where, as confirmed by the co-op’s statement, employees work to meet time demands associated with various tasks.
Notably, the co-op’s first of seven principles is “broad access to local and organic food.” However, similar to many health food stores nationwide, prices at the co-op may not quite fit the bill for “broad access.” With high rent prices and other cost of living expenses in Reno, many are likely unable to afford co-op products, like the “three day celery juice reset” which delivers three bottles of celery juice for $26.50.
The numbers on the co-op’s 2023 annual report show a commitment to their cause. According to their report, 62% of their total sales last year were organic and non-GMO foods. They provided almost $60,000 in member-owner discounts, and they also gave $27,965 in round-up funds (“would you like to round up your total today?”) to other local initiatives, like Soulful Seeds and Reno Food Systems.
Many of those who spoke to Our Town Reno expressed sentiments similar to Tobin’s: a great appreciation for the co-op, and a strong belief in the meaningful work it does in Reno. But on top of those sentiments is the hope that an organization with such a strong commitment to the community is able to offer the same kind of support for their workers.
The GBCFC Facebook page responded to Tobin’s online post quickly, and at great lengths. They addressed her claims of wrongful termination by stating that Tobin “walked out on the job in the middle of (her) shift. Per (the co-op’s) employee guidebook, that (she was) paid to read and sign, that action is taken as a resignation.”
One example of a timing sheet used to direct employees on how much time they had to complete a task.
Of course lapses in communication happen in the workplace, but the co-op didn’t seem to have a problem in communicating with Tobin on social media. “Folks did not like working with you and described you as ‘extremely difficult’ to get along with,” the co-op’s official page wrote on Facebook, following with, “it would be interesting to see posts all over the internet from everyone who felt mistreated by you.”
Tobin alleges that, apart from her own experience, she witnessed what she called “dozens of instances of unethical treatment of my fellow employees.” Several of these alleged instances were brought to light in response to Tobin’s initial post, as her message created a channel for previous employees who wanted to share their own stories. One of those previous employees was Hana Fahmi.
Fahmi says that they were excited about the co-op’s mission, and their opportunity to play a part in it. According to Fahmi, things started going south when their schedule would change mid-week. They allege that their manager wouldn’t admit to having changed it. Fahmi says that they resolved to taking screenshots of their schedule each week, in order to prove they weren't lying about it.
According to Fahmi, they were also told that they’d need to work on to two mandatory so-called “wellness shifts” each week. Fahmi describes these shifts as more labor intensive than regular shifts– stocking shelves, for example. By Fahmi’s account, the co-op assured them that “everyone had to do the shifts, to even the load.” But Fahmi alleges that they quickly realized “other employees didn't have any wellness shifts.” Fahmi says that, some weeks, they were scheduled for four or five of these shifts.
Despite all this, Fahmi says they persisted through the first few months of their employment last year, happily “part of something claiming to be ‘better than other grocery stores.’” Fahmi alleges that they were promised a 90 day review, after which they may have been eligible to start receiving benefits, and a raise from training wages. “My 90 days hit, and I was supposed to have a meeting with my department head,” says Fahmi. “Unfortunately this never happened,’ they claim. “Therefore my benefits and pay increase also never happened.”
Fahmi alleges that they were removed entirely from the schedule in October of last year without prior notice, leaving them suddenly without work or income. “I had such great respect for the concept, and the humans that built it,” they say. “It just really hurt knowing that my energy and hard work wasn't valued enough to get basic respect from employer to employee.”
Fahmi wrote a comment on Tobin’s original post, briefly explaining their own issues with the co-op’s handling of employees. The comment was met with another wordy response from “GBCFC HR,” who wrote that Fahmi’s recounting of events was “simply not true and/or taken out of context.”
The co-op’s advice to Fahmi was to “take accountability” instead of “slandering an organization attempting to do some of the trickiest work within modern food systems.” They signed off by asking Fahmi to “hit (them) up via email,” and described the Facebook conversation as “a waste of everyone’s lives.”
Another previous employee wanted to stay anonymous, for fear of reprisals, so we’ll call them Randy. Randy found solidarity in Tobin’s post as well, sharing their own experience at the co-op. Randy felt that they were being treated poorly by a couple of co-workers, and working under management that would “play favorites, hardcore,” in Randy’s words.
Randy says that a meeting was set between them, the two co-workers, and two managers. As Randy tells it, during the meeting they “sat there” while their co-workers told management “that (they) wash dishes too loudly,” and that Randy made them feel “uncomfortable.”
“It felt really weird because (the two managers) didn’t even try to make me feel better, and I clearly wasn’t doing well after the meeting,” Randy recalls. “I was honestly just there to try to do my job.”
Randy also believes that they were eventually wrongfully terminated, in early December of last year. “Right when I thought things were getting better, I got a call to let me know that I wasn’t with them anymore,” they say.
When Randy tried to collect unemployment, the state told them that they were waiting on the co-op to collect “witness signatures” for their company statement. “If all they needed was a couple (signatures), it was probably the people I was having problems with, and…management,” Randy hypothesizes.
Ultimately, Randy was unable to collect unemployment. An email they received from management afterwards told Randy that the co-op “did not deny (them) unemployment, the state did after analyzing the facts…” The email from the co-op closed out with, “truth prevails.”
With the chain reaction it caused, we wanted more insight about what exactly led Tobin to take her concerns to social media. In following up with her about the Facebook saga, she provided more detail, in her own words, about what her experience of working at the co-op entailed.
“There's this one time I cooked some beef more than (the general manager) would have liked me to cook the beef,” Tobin says. “She didn't like that it had little black parts on the brisket.” Tobin alleges that, in response, the co-op management wrote a message in their group chat “about how an animal had to die for my mistakes, and how it's all in vain.”
Tobin recalls being drawn to the strong convictions of the co-op, this idea of fighting food corporations, and supporting local and sustainable food practice. “I'm really susceptible to that stuff, you know,” Tobin says. “I think they hire a lot of people like that… ‘yes men’, people pleasers, similar backgrounds as myself. It seems like they're a welcoming haven…but I really think they're just using that against the people they hire.”
The trade-off that Tobin describes is all too common for conscientious employees. Folks looking to work for a “good cause,” especially at a company with good benefits like those offered at the co-op, are often willing to commit boundless time and energy to work for something “more than a paycheck.” Vera Miller is one of these workers. They have devoted countless hours to community building here in Reno, including organizing protests and gatherings in support of Palestine.
Miller worked at the co-op from the summer of 2020 to the fall of 2022. They say that during their time, they “lived in constant fear and anxiety of losing (their) job and income.” Miller describes one of those anxiety-inducing practices that was implemented during their second year at the co-op: the introduction of “timing sheets” in completing various co-op duties.
“Everything was timed out, including your break,” Miller says. “If you did not meet these times, you were written up.” Miller alleges that the co-op would fire an employee after three write ups. According to the co-op’s statement, which is included below, the timing sheets were introduced when the co-op was faced with a choice: their “options were to either close (their) doors or figure out how to adapt to a very competitive market.”
Miller remembers clocking out for 30 minute breaks. But rather than taking a break, they say that they would get right back to work in order to give themselves an “extra buffer.” Miller recalls, “I always needed that buffer.” Tobin had a similar experience with trying to meet time demands at the co-op, during her 1pm-9pm shift. “I wasn't taking breaks,” she says. “There was just no way for me to get the amount of work done.”
“There was no room for feedback or adjustment for these times, trust us, we tried,” Miller says. For Miller, working through eight hours every day of their schedule and attempting to meet the time demands of their kitchen tasks, “was pretty rough.”
One current employee, also anonymous due to fears of reprisals, says that a common theme in what they’ve seen and experienced is an alleged “lack of leadership within management.” We’ll call this current employee, “Tony.”
“There's a percentage of people who maybe don't show up all the way,” Tony says. From their perspective, though, “the majority put their best foot forward, and want to improve…yet the payoff doesn't really come after that. It feels like you can never reach the standard.”
Tony alleges that they have witnessed multiple instances of employee mistreatment at the co-op, but they fear that their testimony of these events might expose their identity, and put their own employment at risk. So in order to mitigate that risk, Tony encouraged some former co-workers to reach out to us directly.
One of those former co-op employees that Tony connected us with is Abby, using another name to conceal their identity. Abby contacted Our Town Reno with a list of instances that allegedly occurred in their time at the co-op. They allege that they were “written up for not looking someone in the eyes” when greeting them, and that HR told Abby that it was “never their job to look out for (Abby) or (their) feelings.”
Abby was also concerned by the amount of inappropriate and homophobic comments made by customers which, according to them, went largely unchecked by co-op management. “I was so depressed working there,” Abby recalls. “I weighed 90 pounds, was barely sleeping, would wake up and check my schedule in the middle of the night due to paranoia.”
Abby alleges that when they told management about what they were going through, “I was told it was my fault for seeming like I didn't want to be there.” And when they eventually decided to leave the co-op for mental health reasons, they were told that they "f***ed (the co-op) over,” according to Abby’s account.
Tobin's Facebook post resulted in her receiving a slew of messages from both former and current employees, and she encouraged everyone to speak up about their experience. But, in Tobin’s view, a lot of people hesitated to take their statements public “because they're worried about retaliation, or the repercussions… they're just so tied into the (co-op) community.”
The management and the board members at the co-op are largely “all part of the same social scene,” according to Tobin. One of her suggestions is to bring in an external HR department or external management who might help to alleviate some of the concerns being brought up by both former and current employees.
From all of those who did come forward, the majority expressed love and gratitude for what GBCFC is trying to accomplish. Having access, however expensive, to fresh local food is important to many people. The co-op provides a strong community bridge for local farms. On top of that, the co-op’s member-owner model allows for democracy-style business decisions, transparency with finances, and several other benefits.
It’s that very idea of transparency that makes it important to provide a platform for these community members. For any business, “your workers are your community and clientele too,” as Miller says. “Please. Speak out and be in solidarity with your fellow workers. Don’t treat us so badly.”
Our Town Reno conducted multiple phone calls with the co-op’s management in attempts to gather a comment from the company. Ultimately, a statement was crafted by the “GBCFC Leadership Team,” which includes the co-op’s managers and board members. They sent the following statement to Our Town Reno via email:
We cannot comment on the specific actions or accusations of any current or former employees regarding confidential personnel matters, as we have the utmost respect for our employees' privacy. What we can say is that we are 100% confident that we have acted consistent with our obligations under the law and, more importantly, consistent with the core values that we stand for. One of the co-op’s core goals (as summarized in the "Ends Policies" available on our website) is to create a cooperative work environment that is respectful and diverse, providing a livable wage and benefits to a self-directed, effective employee who is a partner in achieving our business goals.
So, we strongly believe in creating a wonderful workplace and a happy workforce, which we all strive to achieve every day. Although we are not perfect in achieving this or any other goal, we are very proud of what we have accomplished and seek to continually improve. This is one of the most accepting, diverse, and satisfied workforces in the city. Our starting rate of pay is $17/hour, which is $5 more than the Nevada Minimum Wage, which will be put into effect on July 1, 2024. We offer incredible benefits, including full-paid medical, dental, vision, and our alternative wellness stipend.
Offering these types of benefits in a food service environment is very rare in our industry, especially for our size. Beginning a decade ago, we adopted industry-driven labor benchmarks to afford great pay and benefits for our team. Frankly put, at the time, we didn't have much choice. Our options were to either close our doors or figure out how to adapt to a very competitive market. We chose the latter and have since created timing standards for all tasks performed at the co-op by taking an average of times from both the fastest and slowest team members for any task. We have spent the last five years finessing these timetables to be inclusive and supportive of as many team members as possible. The first 30 days for new entry-level team members are spent training folks on the best ways to achieve these tasks in the most efficient ways possible.
We make it very clear to all new hires that we utilize a timing system model and that we would no longer be in business without this model. Most folks are excited by the challenge and quickly thrive within our well-structured operational systems. That said, some do not. As a small business, we have a finite amount of resources available for training. We do our best to offer as much support as possible but it's just a business reality that not everyone makes it, which is okay. We are happy to report that over 82% of new employees reach these times within the first 12 -15 days of employment.
Our employees also have the added benefit of working for more than just a paycheck. They have the opportunity to be part of something much larger than themselves because the Co-op is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill business that solely exists to make money. Rather, we exist to make sustainable, healthy, local food available to this community. We exist to keep small family farms in business in a society where seemingly every rule and regulation works against them while serving the interests of a few giant industrial food producers who manufacture unhealthy, addictive products that are destroying the environment. And we exist to create a sense of community and belonging for every staff member and customer who walks through our doors.
While you may be able to find a small number of individuals who are willing to make unfounded and disingenuous accusations about us, we believe they are not representative of the 63 staff members who we are all proud to work with every day or the hundreds of former employees who have worked here since we first started serving this community in 2005.