More on the Oxfam Dispute

The headlines may be full of Coronavirus news, but that doesn't mean that other problems have gone away.

One of the volunteers who made complaints against the Oxfam management has had a letter from Oxfam management which she has shown me. It tells her that they are "withdrawing Oxfam's invitation to volunteer with us" because there is "a breakdown in our volunteer relationship that is irrevocable". This to a lady who has spent the past fifteen years faithfully fund raising for Oxfam, including helping to organise the table sale in the Buttermarket when the shop was closed last year.

One of the complaints the group of volunteers had was of the feeling of being bullied over the period of the dispute with the management. The Head of Retail states that "Your feeling of being bullied is not upheld."
I'd be interested to know who had looked at the case to assess it objectively.
The Head of Retail says that he is dealing with the complaint in accordance with Oxfam's Dealing With Problems at Work Policy. He also says that the conflict resolution meetings which took place last year "is above and beyond any resolution attempt that Oxfam Trading has previously made." The volunteers - not just the one lady to whom the letter is addressed - maintain that the conflict resolution agreement was not kept by Oxfam management, after all that effort and money that was spent to get to an agreement. This complaint is not addressed by the letter.

The other concern that the volunteers have is the change in the stock carried by the shop - there's much more new stock, and expensive donated goods, with a phasing out of the cheaper end of donated goods (at the moment there's a copy of Planet Hay by Huw Parsons, signed, for £29.99, on display in the window - more than most second hand bookshops would put on it!).
Charity shops traditionally have been very environmentally friendly, since their stock has been donated goods getting a second (or third) chance to be used. It's recycling with the added effect that it raises funds for the charity. This seems to be changing at Oxfam so that new goods are bought in, with all the costs of production and use of plastic containers and other raw materials - the original low carbon footprint suddenly gets much bigger.
Oxfam have carried a range of Fairtrade goods for several years now, and this is part of their primary purpose of helping poor communities around the world, but the new goods that are now being stocked are not part of the Fairtrade range. Some other big charities sell new stock, of course - the Red Cross shop has bags and mugs and similar things, for instance - but bags and mugs are not perishable goods, such as the shampoos that are appearing on Oxfam's shelves.

The actions that the group of volunteers (or ex-volunteers) have taken have not just been for themselves and their grievances against the Oxfam management. Their concern is that, if this is how they have been treated, how many other volunteers have been treated in a similar fashion?