Documentation — The Problem With Ashland Food COOP

HR Incident Report (Some Names Redacted)

My complaint to HR is specifically regarding my employment being threatened by my supervisors Reagan Roach and Jinelle Wendling as a means of suppressing my speech. Speech that is neither illegal nor prohibited under the Ashland Food COOP guidelines. This was done under the justification that my refuting of white supremacist statements periodically made by Pete Schwartz and my making other coworkers of color or marginalization aware of these statements for their safety, constituted political harassment against Pete Schwartz but, given the blatantly racist statements made during the same conversation as the threat made to my employment, Reagan Roach has given me reason to believe that he is unqualified to judge this matter or indeed is biased in Schwartz’ favor. To be explicit, I want an investigation conducted as promised in our COOP Collective Bargaining Agreement, with appropriate and palpable disciplinary action made. Bare minimum I want it confirmed and made explicit to my supervisors that they have no authority under the COOP guidelines to threaten me with disciplinary action or termination of employment in retaliation for making my coworkers aware of Schwartz dangerous beliefs towards them or for refuting him when he makes white supremacist statements in the workplace.

To be clear: if Schwartz is allowed to express white supremacist ideas in the workplace, I am allowed to tell him that he is racist and refute them AND I am allowed to tell my coworkers what he has said for their safety. I have never gone out of my way to harass this man. Any political exchanges we have had were instigated by him expressing white supremacist ideas or hate speech in the workplace. I have only responded as company guidelines have allowed me to do.

I have written this document to best summarize critical events that occurred before the incident I am reporting now.

Months ago I reported to Sharon, General Manager of HR, my concerns over an incident that occurred in the employee break room during the COOP Diversity classes. Pete Schwartz and [Redacted] were having a conversation in the breakroom as I had finished work and was grabbing something from the room before leaving the COOP. Schwartz was loudly making the case to [Redacted] that America did not have a race problem of any kind (presumably in response to his time in a Diversity class that day). This was at a time that coincided with publicity being placed on the ICE Detention Camps, their illegality, inhumane treatment of children and separation of families notably. For this reason I addressed Schwartz calmly and said simply that I disagreed with him and cited the camps as a prime example. I intended to leave the interaction with that as I had what I needed from the breakroom and was ready to leave. This was when Schwartz’ demeanor turned aggressive towards me. He raised his volume and rose from his chair to follow me around the room as I tried to continue my exit from work as I debated with him. [Redacted] was so uncomfortable, when Schwartz rose from his chair, he quickly exited the room to get away. Schwartz argued in favor of the ICE Detention Camps and the imprisonment of the migrant children without trial. He threw out many nonsensical and often contradictory reasons why including: The false equivalency that we could not fight human trafficking if we released the detainees, The idea that being falsely imprisoned and separated from their families was better than being exploited as low-wage workers, and the argument that he was in foster care so the children imprisoned and dying from lack of medical care in the camps couldn’t possibly have it that bad. None of these were difficult to argue against on my way out the door. The only thing that stopped me was when Schwartz stopped coming up with excuses and simply said to me “We have to take care of our own kind.” A common coded term for the discussion of white supremacy. He saw that I recognized his implication and that I was disgusted. He took offense to this, telling me that I did not have to look at him like that. He continued to follow me until we were both out the door. He said that he did not want to talk with me anymore on the matter. I told him that this was acceptable to me.

The day following I went to HR to relay this incident and to see if anything could be done. Sharon told me simply that she would wait to see how Schwartz did with the Diversity courses. No change came from that.

With not much other recourse for my concerns and given the Rogue Valley is known to foster a white supremacist presence, I made the effort to at least inform the coworkers that I knew to be of potentially threatened minorities, of Schwartz’ beliefs. At no point was I ever conspiring with these people or telling them to address Schwartz’ about it. All it seemed I could do within the limitations of legality and COOP guidelines was make sure that people were informed so that they could make informed decisions for themselves.

A week later Schwartz was having a group conversation in the kitchen wherein he was expressing his belief that Diversity initiatives in the workplace were unnecessary as our workplace and society at large were already diverse. Many coworkers that were potentially unaware of his stance on concentration camps, were involved in this conversation. I entered the conversation and reminded Schwartz’ of his past expressed support for concentration camps and how that would present an issue in diversity (an understatement). Schwartz did not deny my statement and the rest were silent. The conversation was ended.

The months that followed were uneventful between myself and Schwartz as the Prepared Foods Dep. Chef position was taken up by Reagan Roach. Schwartz and I communicated effectively on work related matters and did not speak in a personal capacity. Notably Schwartz maintained a vaguely aggressive physicality with me and made a point to move aside for me as little as could be justified in confined spaces. I did not consider that alone, worthy of reporting so I had no reason at the time to report anything present or past to Reagan as I had also assumed that HR would have informed him of Schwartz’ white supremacist ideology if only to make him aware.

This streak of inactivity was broken during the outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic. This was when the virus’ majority of victims were in China but cases were beginning to be reported across Europe and the US. Schwartz was in the workplace at this time spreading the idea through conversation that there was some unspecified study on COVID19 that had concluded that Eastern Asian people were more susceptible to the virus. My Shift Leader for the day, [Redacted], can corroborate that this conversation took place. I told Schwartz that he was trying to spread completely unfounded xenophobia in the workplace and that time would prove that he was wrong. At that point the interaction between Schwartz and I ceased and he refrained from bringing it up again when I was in the room. I cannot overstress how dangerous it was that Schwartz was floating a justification for ostracizing a minority during a time of crisis. This was hate speech. Hate speech that undermines the COOPs diversity policies. It is also just unconscionable. I should have reported Schwartz to HR for that incident alone but I did not because I refuted him with speech that was not prohibited by COOP policy and I mistakenly thought that this would be enough and that I would not be retaliated against for doing so.

I have many times since then, caught Schwartz glaring at me in the workplace and ignored it.

It was a few weeks ago, clocking in to work, that I witnessed Swartz engaged in an aggressive argument with Justin Stahl. Schwartz was in a similar threatening posture to my experience in the breakroom and Stahl was clearly uncomfortable. I walked into work with Stahl and asked if he was alright. He confirmed that he was and that he had been arguing with Schwartz over something he had said that was incredibly ignorant. I expressed sympathy and related my own experiences.

It was later that day while I was working that I would see Schwartz get into Stahl’s personal space and speak to him in a body language and tone that made me concerned that Stahl was being harassed. I would find out later from Stahl that in fact they were having a tense but work related conversation and that I was, in that instance, mistaken. I acknowledge that error, as I acknowledge that I should have gone straight to a supervisor. Instead I asked Schwartz directly if he was, “Harassing people again.” In reference to his behavior months ago in the breakroom. Schwartz then growled at me to “Stay out of it.” I took that to be threatening and responded from my gut with an expletive directed at Schwartz. I want to make it explicitly clear that this event was an example of my failure to act within guidelines but I would argue that it is relatively minor and not nearly grounds for outright termination. I state this because Roach insists that it potentially is and that this instance be conflated with my previous actions regarding Schwartz that this occurrence is in quality no way distinct from my exercise of within-guideline free speech refuting Schwartz’ racist statements or my exercise related to informing my coworkers of Schwartz’ statements. I am perfectly willing to accept disciplinary action in regards to crude language in the workplace but due to the events within Roach’s office which I am about to relate, I can no longer trust that such disciplinary action is not disproportionate reprisal.

A few days later I was called into the office of Chef Reagan Roach. Jinelle Wendling was present in the room and would sit in the corner watching and listening to the events in silence. Roach did not tell me the reason for my being in the office he instead asked me why I thought I was there. He listed a few names including that of Schwartz and asked me if I could recall having recent issues with any of them. I was disoriented by this but was expecting to hear about my recent incident with Schwartz so I volunteered it and acknowledged that my reaction to events was not the best and that I was all for correcting my work procedure in response to potential harassment or threats. It was then that Roach informed me that I could be fired for this incident. He then leapt into explaining to me that Schwartz had complained about harassment on my part towards him. He cited my previously listed actions as constituting harassment. I explained to him that these were merely measured reactions to Schwartz’ hate speech in the workplace. Roach claimed to be unaware so I informed him of my past interactions with Schwartz and his attempts to disseminate white supremacist ideology in the workplace. Roach insisted that white supremacy was protected under the COOP’s Diversity guidelines and that the matter was entirely political and had to be kept out of the workplace. I told him no, it was a matter of my coworkers safety. Roach then destroyed any trust I might have had in this matter by telling me that not only did white supremacy deserve the same protection as minority employees, but in fact proponents of white supremacy, suffered discrimination on par with black people.

Quote: “We could turn back the clock one-hundred years ago and it would be people in the workplace going up to other employees and saying, ‘Hey, this employee is black.’”

Ignoring the obvious fact that Black People still suffer far worse discrimination and challenges TODAY than a white supremacist (often BECAUSE of white supremacists); I have another quote that relates directly to the state of discrimination against Black People 100 years ago:

Zachariah Walker screamed before the mob threw him into the fire. Walker, a black iron worker from the South, was already bloodied from a recent surgery that removed a bullet from his jaw, and was agonized by the experience of being dragged hundreds of feet from his hospital bed to a field where a fire had been built by a white mob. “For God’s sake, give a man a chance!” Walker yelled. It did not matter. They threw him in.

The lynching of Zachariah Walker happened in the bustling steel town of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, on the night of August 13th, 1911.

Source: https://timeline.com/the-forgotten-lynching-of-zachariah-walker-was-one-of-our-most-shameful-and-it-was-in-the-north-678871b13f2d

You might understand my shock and anger at Roach’s statement and the complete breakdown in my trust that he was capable of being an impartial or fair judge in this matter either from ignorance or prejudice. I pressed him on why he would say such a thing to me and if he understood how wrong it was or how dangerous it was. He insisted on it. I took him through how that lays a false equivalency between a Nazi and an oppressed minority. A group that wants the chance to wipe the other off the face of the earth and another group that was merely born into their life and trying to live with dignity. Roach insisted that what he was saying to me was true and there was no difference between the two. Insisting that it was all trivial political difference that had no place in the workplace. He made multiple implications that if I did not stop telling people what Schwartz was that my employment would be terminated. I put him on the spot and asked him to confirm if this was the case. He said yes. Wendling at no point raised any objections. Given my disorienting circumstances I merely wanted to end the interaction to decide what I was going to do. Roach and Wendling inquired if I understood. I said I did. They asked me if I had any questions. I said no. I exited the office and then decided that I needed to leave work. I spoke with [Redacted] and I agreed to take the point and just go home.

Upon reviewing the COOP Guidelines and Employees Agreement I know now that the actions taken by Roach, Wendling, and Schwartz are not only unethical but in violation of company guidelines. I hope that the Ashland Food COOP will live up to it’s promised commitment to diversity and ethical business practices. Because action and follow-through will be required.

-Reece Bredl *Prepared Foods Department*