It sounds like a dumb rule. A rule intended to combat retail arbitage. The local Goodwill recently doubled their prices for the same reason: People buying up anything that was even reasonably priced & reselling it elsewhere at a profit at the expense of serving the intended customer base.
Good ol' fashioned greed hurting the less affluent & the poor death battling Squid Game style for crumbs & scraps... What else is new?
At the co-op I run several days per week, if it says Campagnolo it goes in the glass case to be ignored as overpriced by "enthusiasts."
Other parts, if they have even a modest value, go on eBay. The rest is in bins Joe public is free to dig through.
Although part "X" may get you/your bike rolling for another while or two, there is nothing worthwhile anywhere in the shop for a reseller to resell anyway. That's by design.
No one has any money. And all the prices no matter how low are way too high for our customer base. Often time we trade labor hours & the customers time in exchange for parts...If only the labor traders had any life skills to begin with, they wouldn't be trading time behind a broom or on a tire pump for bike parts. Ugh.
The challenge is convincing volunteers it is ok to purge incomplete/broken junk from the collection. A practice I have been practicing & encouraging since my employ...Now that I think about it, in this post, I think a buy it by the pound program might be a good idea & save a bunch of paid labor hours (mine)...Oh, what I wouldn't give for the board to approve a $7-10 (cost) set of NEW cantilever brakes that cost $20-$40 in paid labor hours to piece together from a milk crate of junk for a bike that is to be a free give-away, anyway. We could be money ahead
if I were allowed free reign of the day to day. It is a work in progress, one bin at a time.
I'd love to serve the retail arbitage crowd as well, but the sad truth is they think I'm stupid asking anywhere near 66% fair market value for an item & won't pay a dime if they think it should be free, (& they usually do.)
It's a tough balance. The OP's co-op ought to seperate worthy parts (for sale), working parts (segregated away for shop use), & bargain parts for desperation cases. Then post prices in plain view & charge accordingly. The OP's Co-op's rule exists because it is a mis-managed feeding ground for resellers.