Activists Crash PCC Community Markets Grand Opening, Demand Co-op Drop Israeli Products

PCC Community Markets is back downtown as of Tuesday morning, but to celebrate the return of smoked mozzarella pasta salad and vegan brownies to Rainer Square, patrons had to dodge a picket line of activists sporting keffiyehs and signs accusing the co-op of supporting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Last year, the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Seattle and Tacoma chapters launched their “Boycott War Profiteers” (BWP) campaign, and they set their sights on pressuring PCC to drop products from eight brands with ties to Israel. Speakers at the Tuesday morning action conceded that plenty of other, larger grocery chains carry Israeli products. But PCC is “supposed to be different,” BWP organizer Carl Thomas said.

“As a members co-op, PCC is supposed to be responsive to the demands and the positions of their members, members who overwhelmingly support Palestine as the vast majority of people in this city do,” Thomas said.

BWP wants PCC to drop two different wine brands: Israel’s largest winery, Barkan Vineyards, and Golan Heights Winery, located in a settlement widely considered illegal. On top of that, BWP also wants PCC to drop Nestle products, including sparkling beverages by San Pelligrino, bottled water by Essentia, wellness brands Solgar, Vital, and Garden of Life, as well as a vegan pad thai microwave meal under the Sweet Earth brand. Nestle is not an Israeli company, but it owns a controlling stake in Osem, one of the largest food manufacturers in Israel.

BWP organizer and PCC worker Ben Bonyhadi recalled a time when PCC used to care about appearing socially conscious — PCC used to publish the contact information for local representatives to encourage political engagement and observe local and global boycotts explicitly, Bonyhadi said. Most recently, in 2023, PCC pulled products made by Tanoor, a family-owned Lebanese restaurant based in Sammamish and Seattle, after the owner made homophobic comments.

Additionally, picketters also called on PCC to wear clothing to express solidarity with Palestine, something PCC appears to be suppressing. This feels like a change in tack from the co-op. Bonyhadi recalled PCC making “Black Lives Matter” pins for workers to wear in 2020, but “now when a colleague has the audacity to wear a keffiyeh, suggesting that perhaps Palestinian lives matter too,the staffs handbook gets quietly updated to forbid clothing with political meaning or connotation.”

PCC did not respond to my request for comment.

If you want PCC to stop stocking these products and to allow their workers to show their support for Palestine on the clock, you can join almost 3,000 people in signing BWP’s Action Network letter.