In Support of WalMart Strikers on Black Friday: “The Belly Button Theory of Economics” November 23, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Labor.Tags: Black Friday, employee benefits, employee wages, labor, labour, roger hollander, solidarity, strike, trade unions, unions, walmart, walmart strike, workers rights
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Roger’s note: Several years ago while I was in Los Angeles, workers in three major supermarket chains were on strike because their employers wanted to lower them to WalMart standards of salaries and benefits. I spent some time at one of the picket lines and had the opportunity to speak with several of the shoppers who were crossing the picket line. It was disheartening to hear shoppers, working people themselves, complain that supermarket workers had benefits that they lacked and therefore deserved no sympathy. It reminded me of the world’s oldest political strategy: divide and conquer. Instead of advocating for higher standards for everyone, employer, politicians and the media play on the emotion of envy to promote the notion of lowering standards to the bottom. This experience inspired me to write the following essay, which I re-post here in solidarity with the striking WalMart workers.
The Belly Button Theory of Economics
Roger Hollander
Call it the belly button theory of economics, if you will. Every one knows there are two types of umbilicals: innies and outies. Well, when all is said and done, all complexities aside, doesn’t one’s economy simply break down into what comes IN and what goes OUT?
Let’s talk about the ordinary working person. She earns from her job (IN), and she meets her needs and pleasures by making purchases (OUT). The well-being of her “economy” depends upon there being at least enough IN to take care of all the OUT.
One might be tempted to say that both are equally important, that is income (IN) and the cost of things (OUT). Here is where I would argue that many economists miss the boat. I believe that what one does through her work to acquire the means to live (IN) is fundamental, whereas the cost of things (OUT), while important, is secondary. Think of is this way. If you are unemployed you sure appreciate a good bargain, but what you really need is a good job.
There can also be a “dialectic” between IN and OUT. Take health care. It is something we purchase (an OUT). However, for millions of Americans, their health care comes as a benefit attached to their work (an IN). In other words, health insurance as a benefit is an IN that offsets the cost of health care, an OUT.
That is why I believe it is so important for all working people that in the current labor dispute that grocery giants — Safeway, Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons — do not succeed in their efforts to cut drastically the wages (IN) and health benefits (IN) of their workers. They argue that this is necessary in order to compete with the Wal-Mart super stores, who pay their workers substantially less in wages and benefits. [note: cf. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America] Wal-Mart does this by keeping its prices (OUT) lower than anyone else. Interestingly, and here is that dialectic at work again, Wal-Mart is able to offer such low prices (OUT) by pressuring its suppliers to cut labor costs (their workers’ IN) in order to provide Wal-Mart with its goods at cut-rate prices.
In the end, you see, it always boils down to IN(come). Of course, the worker is also a consumer and naturally loves low prices. We all appreciate a bargain, and who can blame us? But if the price of bargains is that, in the long run, we don’t have a living wage (IN) that meets our needs to provide for our expenses (OUT), then the bargain is, in effect, no bargain. It is a cruel trick disguised as a bonus.
Human beings are by nature, first and foremost, producing animals. We produce the means by which we survive and thrive. Only then are we able to “consume.” I am no great fan of capitalism because it treats human labor as a commodity, just one more expense for the capitalist along with things such as materials, rents and other overhead costs. But as long as capitalism exists, working people have no choice but to demand wages and benefits that meet their fundamental needs. Health care, along with food and shelter, is one of the most basic of human needs. Because the United States government, the only one in the world of industrial nations, has not seen fit to provide universal health coverage for its people, then this need for most of its working people gets fulfilled through employer health care plans. It is not an “extra.”
I have spoken with shoppers crossing the picket lines at the supermarkets, fellow working people, who justify their non-support of the grocery workers on the basis that they too must pay part of their health care costs (“If I can’t have it, you can’t have it either”). This sad lack of worker solidarity is a product of the divide and conquer strategy of the supermarket chains, and it is in contrast to the solidarity the chains themselves have shown by sharing their profits amongst themselves, possibly in violation of anti-trust legislation. How ironic that the supermarket industry is turning around that famous dictum to read: “chains of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your workers!”
Think of this the next time you are tempted to support them by shopping in one of the on-strike or locked out supermarket chains.
Attention WalMart Shoppers: Cynical Hypocrisy In Aisle Two November 20, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Economic Crisis, Labor, Uncategorized.Tags: abby zimet, Black Friday, labor, labour, poverty, roger hollander, shop local, walmart, walmart strike, worker rights
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by Abby Zimet
With more and more WalMart workers joining protests and threatening to join a nationwide walkout on Black Friday, the company has filed a complaint with the National Relations Board arguing that workers seeking a decent wage and reasonable working conditions have “created an uncomfortable environment and undue stress on Walmart’s customers, including families with children.” So if the lousy syntax wasn’t bad enough, the company that by some estimates pays its CEO more in one hour than it pays its retail employees in a year – a wage so low that most of its employees with kids live below the poverty line – is saying they’re worried about families with children? R-i-g-h-t. They also threaten to hold those uppity workers “accountable.” Accountable?! Now there’s an idea. More on why this strike matters. And a reminder: If you’re shopping, go local.
Gov. Brown denies farm workers the tools to protect themselves from heat-related death October 1, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Agriculture, California, Labor.Tags: agribusiness, agriculture, California, farm workers, jerry brown, labor, labour, ufw, workers rights
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On Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown rejected The Humane Treatment for Farm Workers Act – authored by Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) – that would make it a misdemeanor crime, punishable by jail time and fines, to not provide appropriate water or shade to workers laboring under high heat conditions. The governor also vetoed AB 2346 – The Farm Worker Safety Act – by Assemblywoman Betsy Butler (D-Los Angeles). It would have allowed workers to enforce the state’s heat regulations by suing employers who repeatedly violate the law. The United Farm Workers strongly supported both bills. UFW President Arturo Rodriguez issued the following statement:
“The UFW is appalled at the governor’s decision to deny farm workers the basic legal tools to protect themselves from employers who intentionally put their lives at risk by refusing to provide them with adequate water and shade despite the dangerously high temperatures. By vetoing AB 2676, the governor continues the policy of giving animals more protections than those currently offered to farm workers.
Since California issued regulations in 2005 to keep farm workers from dying of extreme heat, preventable farm worker deaths have continued. State regulators are investigating two possible heat-related farm worker deaths that occurred this summer. There are over 81,500 farms and more than 450,000 farm workers working under a corrupt farm labor contractor system. It’s time the government admits that without adequate enforcement, regulations are ineffective. We are weighing our legal and other options to determine how we better provide the protections farm workers deserve as human beings.”
The Worst Teacher in Chicago September 12, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Labor, Education, Chicago.Tags: arne duncan, benno schmidt, charter schools, chicago, chicago strike, edison schools, education, Greg Palast, public educatiion, Rahm Emanuel, roger hollander, standardized tests, teacher's strike, teachers
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Roger’s note: sorry to inundate you with articles on the Chicago Teachers Strike, but here is one more I found interesting and insightful.
Greg Palast is the author of the new Book Billionalres and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps. For two decades, Palast was an investigator for Chicago-area unions, including the Chicago Teachers Union.
They’ve almost stopped pretending, too. Both the Right Wing-nuts and the Obama Administration laud the “progress” of New Orleans’ schools–a deeply sick joke. The poorest students, that struggle most with standardized tests, were drowned or washed away.
One thing Democrat Emanuel and Republican Romney both demand of Chicago teachers is that their pay, their jobs, depend on “standardized tests.” Yes, but whose standard?
But Rahm, after all, is just imposing Bush education law which should be called, No Child’s Behind Left.
Mayor’s Kids Private School is What Public Schools Should Be September 12, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Chicago, Education, Labor.Tags: arne duncan, chicago, chicago strike, ctu, education, karen lewis, labor, labour, mike elk, private schools, public education, Rahm Emanuel, roger hollander, standarized tests, teacher evaluations, teacher's strike, unions
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Director of Private School Where Rahm Sends His Kids Opposes Using Testing for Teacher Evaluations
CTU President Karen Lewis says she would love to use University of Chicago Lab School as model for public schools
Unlike occasional teacher union opponent Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not send his kids to public schools. Instead, Emanuel’s children attend one of the most elite prep schools in Chicago, the University of Chicago Lab School, where the annual tuition is more than $20,000. (Emanuel has repeatedly refused to answer questions about why he eschews public schools for his children, telling reporters that it is a private family decision.)
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel eschews the city’s public schools in favor of the University of Chicago Lab School, who director eschews Emanuel’s idea of “reform.” (Zol87/Flickr/Creative Commons)
The conditions at the University of Chicago Lab Schools are dramatically different than those at Chicago Public Schools, which are currently closed with teachers engaged in a high-profile strike. The Lab School has seven full-time art teachers to serve a student population of 1,700. By contrast, only 25% of Chicago’s “neighborhood elementary schools” have both a full-time art and music instructor. The Lab School has three different libraries, while 160 Chicago public elementary schools do not have a library.
“Physical education, world languages, libraries and the arts are not frills. They are an essential piece of a well-rounded education,” wrote University of Chicago Lab School Director David Magill on the school’s website in February 2009.
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis agrees with Magill, and believes what works for Mayor Emanuel’s kids should be a prescription for the rest of the city.
“I’m actually glad that he did [send his kids to Lab School] because it gave me an opportunity to look at how the Lab school functions,” Lewis told Chicago magazine in November 2011. “I thought he gave us a wonderful pathway to seeing what a good education looks like, and I think he’s absolutely right, and so we love that model. We would love to see that model throughout.”
One of the key sticking points in union negotiations is that Emanuel wants to use standardized tests scores to count for 40 percent of the basis of teacher evaluations. Earlier this year, more than 80 researchers from 16 Chicago-area universities signed an open letter to Emanuel, criticizing the use of standardized test scores for this purpose. “The new evaluation system for teachers and principals centers on misconceptions about student growth, with potentially negative impact on the education of Chicago’s children,” they wrote.
CTU claims that nearly 30% of its members could be dismissed within one to two years if the proposed evaluation process is put into effect and has opposed using tests scores as the basis of evaluation. They’re joined in their opposition to using testing in evaulations by Magill.
Writing on the University of Chicago’s Lab School website two years ago, Magill noted, “Measuring outcomes through standardized testing and referring to those results as the evidence of learning and the bottom line is, in my opinion, misguided and, unfortunately, continues to be advocated under a new name and supported by the current [Obama] administration.”
While Magill could not be reached for direct comment on the specifics of the Chicago Teachers’ strike, his past writings on the school’s site suggest he might be supportive.
“I shudder to think of who would be attracted to teach in our public schools without unions,” Magill wrote on the school’s website in February 2009, adding that, even with unions, many teachers “have had no choice but to take on second jobs to make ends meet.“
But Magill’s writings also note just how fine a line CTU will have to walk to keep public sentiment, which currently supports the strike 47% to 39%, on its side according to one recent poll. Acknowledging the “distressing…generational change in the public’s attitude toward teachers,” Magill writes, “Some would say that teachers are responsible for this change by publicly participating in actions designed to bring attention to sub-standard working conditions and compensation. These actions often cause unintended collateral damage to students. Parents and the public at large have long memories when the education of their children is interrupted. We must find a way to conclude collective bargaining without raising doubts about the professionalism of those whose work should be valued the most.”
Why We’re Striking in Chicago September 10, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Chicago, Education, Labor.Tags: chicago, corporate education, ctu, education, karen lewis, labor, labour, teacher strike
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‘Join Our Fight for Education Justice,’ says CTU President Karen Lewis
Teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians in Chicago have been without a labor agreement since June of this year. Following the inability of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to reach an agreement over benefits, the role of standardized tests in teacher evaluations, and physical improvements to schools that teachers say are harming both teacher and student performance, the CTU has announced that a city-wide stirke will begin today — the first teachers strike in 25 years. Pickets are expected at 675 schools and the Board of Education. The following are remarks from CTU
Negotiations have been intense but productive, however we have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike. This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could avoid. Throughout these negotiations have I remained hopeful but determined. We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.
Talks have been productive in many areas. We have successfully won concessions for nursing mothers and have put more than 500 of our members back to work. We have restored some of the art, music, world language, technology and physical education classes to many of our students. The Board also agreed that we will now have textbooks on the first day of school rather than have our students and teachers wait up to six weeks before receiving instructional materials.
Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation. However, we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.
Another concern is evaluation procedures. After the initial phase-in of the new evaluation system it could result in 6,000 teachers (or nearly 30 percent of our members) being discharged within one or two years. This is unacceptable. We are also concerned that too much of the new evaluations will be based on students’ standardized test scores. This is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator. Further there are too many factors beyond our control which impact how well some students perform on standardized tests such as poverty, exposure to violence, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control.
We want job security. Despite a new curriculum and new, stringent evaluation system, CPS proposes no increase (or even decreases) in teacher training. This is notable because our Union through our Quest Center is at the forefront teacher professional development in Illinois. We have been lauded by the District and our colleagues across the country for our extensive teacher training programs that helped emerging teachers strengthen their craft and increased the number of nationally board certified educators.
We are demanding a reasonable timetable for the installation of air-conditioning in student classrooms–a sweltering, 98-degree classroom is not a productive learning environment for children. This type of environment is unacceptable for our members and all school personnel. A lack of climate control is unacceptable to our parents.
As we continue to bargain in good faith, we stand in solidarity with parents, clergy and community-based organizations who are advocating for smaller class sizes, a better school day and an elected school board. Class size matters. It matters to parents. In the third largest school district in Illinois there are only 350 social workers—putting their caseloads at nearly 1,000 students each. We join them in their call for more social workers, counselors, audio/visual and hearing technicians and school nurses. Our children are exposed to unprecedented levels of neighborhood violence and other social issues, so the fight for wraparound services is critically important to all of us. Our members will continue to support this ground swell of parent activism and grassroots engagement on these issues. And we hope the Board will not shut these voices out.
While new Illinois law prohibits us from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, we do not intend to sign an agreement until these matters are addressed.
Again, we are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines. We will talk to parents. We will talk to clergy. We will talk to the community. We will talk to anyone who will listen—we demand a fair contract today, we demand a fair contract now. And, until there is one in place that our members accept, we will on the line.
We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. We stand with those who have already declared they too are prepared to strike, in the best interests of their students.
This announcement is made now so our parents and community are empowered with this knowledge and will know that schools will not open on tomorrow. Please seek alternative care for your children. And, we ask all of you to join us in our education justice fight—for a fair contract—and call on the mayor and CEO Brizard to settle this matter now. Thank you.
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Obama Admininstration Backs Shell in Supreme Court Case August 25, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Energy, Environment, Human Rights, Labor, Nigeria.Tags: alien torts, atca, Criminal Justice, eric holder, human rights, justice department, nigeria, obama administration, ogoni, puck lo, roger hollander, royal dutch, shell oil, supreme court, torture
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Roger’s note: Vote Obama! “Plus ca change …” you can believe in.
The Obama administration is backing Shell Oil after abruptly changing sides in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that could make it even more difficult for survivors of human rights abuses overseas to sue multinational corporations in federal courts. The case will be heard on October 1.
Lawyers at EarthRights International, a Washington-based human rights law nonprofit, say they suspect that a new legal submission – which was signed only by the U.S. Justice Department – reflects tensions inside the government on how to deal with multinational corporations do business in the U.S. Significantly, neither the State nor the Commerce Department signed on to the brief, despite their key roles in the case.
“It was shocking,” Jonathan Kaufman EarthRights legal policy coordinator commented to Reuters. “The brief was largely unexpected, based on what they had filed previously, and pretty breathtaking.”
At issue is the Alien Torts Claim Act (ATCA) – an 18th century U.S. law originally designed to combat piracy on the high seas – that has been used during the last 30 years as a vehicle to bring international law violations cases to U.S. federal courts.
Lawyers began using ATCA as a tool in human rights litigation in 1979, when the family of 17-year-old Joel Filartiga, who was tortured and killed in Paraguay, sued the Paraguayan police chief responsible. Filartiga v. Peña-Irala set a precedent for U.S. federal courts to punish non-U.S. citizens for acts committed outside the U.S. that violate international law or treaties to which the U.S. is a party. ATCA has brought almost 100 cases of international (often state-sanctioned) torture, rape and murder to U.S. federal courts to date.
In recent years, a number of ATCA lawsuits have also been filed against multinationals which has angered the business lobby. “Expansion of this problem into the international arena via ATCA promises nothing but trouble for U.S. economic and foreign policy interests worldwide,” wrote John Howard, vice president of international policy and programs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “U.S. national interests require that we not allow the continuing misapplication of this 18th century statute to 21st century problems by the latter day pirates of the plaintiffs’ bar.”
No plaintiff against a corporation has won on ATCA grounds, although some have settled or plea bargained. In 1996 Doe v. Unocal, a lawsuit filed by ethnic Karen farmers against Unocal (now owned by Chevron) set a new precedent when a U.S. federal court ruled that corporations and their executive officers could be held legally responsible for crimes against humanity. Unocal contracted with the Burmese military dictatorship to provide security for a natural gas pipeline project on the border of Thailand and Burma. The suit accused Unocal of complicity in murder, rape and forcing locals to work for Unocal for free. Shortly before the jury trial was set to begin in 2005, Unocal settled with the plaintiffs by paying an undisclosed sum, marking the first time a corporation settled in any way a case based on the ATCA.
Another such case was filed against Chiquita, the global banana producer, by surviving victims of brutal massacres waged by right-wing paramilitary squads in Colombia. The paramilitary, who killed thousands of civilians during Colombia’s dirty war of the 1980s and 1990s, were on Chiquita’s payroll in the 1990s. Now-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defended Chiquita in the case and won a plea bargain for them of $25 million and five years of probation.
Holder isn’t the only Justice Department staffer who defended a corporation in an ATCA case. Sri Srinivasan, recently nominated for the second highest position in the Justice Department, represented Exxon Mobil in a case brought against them by Indonesian villagers who survived alleged attacks, torture and murder by Indonesian military units hired by Exxon to provide security. Lower courts disagreed on Exxon’s liability under ATCA, and in 2011 an appeals court sent the case back to trial.
Which brings us to the case currently before the Supreme Court – Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (Shell) – brought by relatives of nine Nigerian Ogoni activists who were executed in 1995 by a military dictatorship allegedly working in collaboration with Shell. For the last ten years, the widow of executed Dr. Barinem Kiobel and other Nigerian refugees have been trying to prove in court that the British-Dutch multinational oil company Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., or Shell Oil, conspired with the Nigerian military to illegally detain, torture and kill critics of Shell’s environmentally destructive practices in the Niger Delta.
In February the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to determine whether or not corporations – as opposed to private parties – could be sued under the ATCA. At that time the Justice Department, submitted a “friend of the court” brief that said they could.
Lawyers say that if the Supreme Court accepts that the case can be heard in U.S. courts, it will mark a significant step forward for human rights activists. It will also send a powerful signal to business that any violations overseas can be prosecuted if they do business in the U.S.
Then in June, the Obama administration, suddenly changed its opinion. The new brief from the Justice Department “read like a roadmap for getting rid of cases Srinivasan and Holder had worked on previously” EarthRights attorney Kaufman told Reuters.
In its submission filed in response to a Supreme Court order to re-argue whether or not ATCA applied to territories outside the U.S., the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the suit against Shell. The brief’s authors stated that the ATCA was not appropriate for Kiobel or other lawsuits involving foreign corporations accused of collaborating in human rights abuses with a foreign government outside U.S. territory.
U.S. courts “should not create a cause of action that challenges the actions of a foreign sovereign in its own territory, where the [sued party] is a foreign corporation of a third country that allegedly aided and abetted the foreign sovereign’s conduct,” the Justice Department wrote.
However, the Justice Department stopped short of categorically barring all similar cases that occur outside the U.S. from ATCA eligibility, and it left ambiguous whether the current recommendation would prevent future ATCA lawsuits against U.S. citizens or corporations, or in cases where abuses take place on the high seas.
EarthRights International filed three Freedom of Information Act requests in July to look for evidence showing whether or not corporate interests and lobbying influenced the government’s decision to back Shell.
“If disclosed, this information will help reveal whether or not the business interests of Attorney General Eric Holder or Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan influenced the government’s position in Kiobel,” said Kaufman.
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Puck Lo is a freelance writer, researcher and multimedia producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. www.pucklo.com
“U.S. courts “should not create a cause of action that challenges the actions of a foreign sovereign in its own territory, where the [sued party] is a foreign corporation of a third country that allegedly aided and abetted the foreign sovereign’s conduct,” the Justice Department wrote.”
Yet we can get involved in regime change in foreign sovereign countries like Libya and Syria?
power of money and provide a safe haven to social predators while promoting the
rape of the planet for profit. The world
has no or few laws and little to no enforcement of justice to limit or abolish
multi National corporate abuse but in fact what laws exist or are enforced
promote abuse and injustice in the name of profit to shareholders. However the shareholders are for the most
part other corporations not people but a few greedy power hungry social predators. It’s time the world limits the criminal abuse
of multinational corporations and the few who control them for gain and or
power.
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BodhiHawk•an hour ago Obama has been shiting on the Mother Earth and marginal populations for years on behalf of his corporate Masters. Just another day of the typical sell out.
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theinitiate•2 hours ago Thank you for this info…. I have been trying to stay in touch with this type of issue…when I first heard about the Nigerian situation, read about the Ken WiWa(sp)…. case…and how the Nigerian Delta is the most polluted place in the world…. I have handed out articles about this to other people…
Three and a half years of unambiguous actions and decisions seem to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that it is unnecessary for corporations to
waste their time and money to “influence” the Obama admin. The Obama team was not only bought, but created by corporate interests such as Shell in order to dominate US govt.If only the problem were as simple as Eric Holder, et al having a personal conflict of interest.
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Art Brennan•2 hours ago Thank you Puck Lo. Obama is not much more than Republican lite and this story is a part of the avalanche of proof that he could care less about the people of this country and the world.
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Zellers employees walk away empty-handed in $1.825-billion deal August 18, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Labor.Tags: Canada, Canada labour, capitalism, francine kopun, labor, labour, retail chains, roger hollander, Stephen Harper, target, ufcw, workers, workers rights, zellers
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Roger’s note: Capitalism 1A. In the capitalist world those who own and control capital (great wealth) have virtually unfettered and tyrannical power over those who produce wealth for them, their workers. We call it a system because the laws of the state affirm and enforce this unequal relationship. Capitalism is in the long run unsustainable because you cannot get blood from a stone. Competition forces capital to continually search for new sources of cheap labor and to downgrade the living standards of existing labor. We see this happening on a world-wide basis, and we see the global economic crisis this has engendered. In the past, due to labor organization and pressures from below, governments have been forced to mitigate the excesses of capital and enact laws to partially protect labor. As monopoly capital gains greater control over governments around the world, we see less and less of this. This is certainly the case in the US and Canada.
fi-target
Colin McConnell/Toronto Star Angela Rankin was laid off from Zellers after 13 years. At age 50 she’s wondering what’s next for her.
Business Reporter
Angela Rankin knows exactly how much Target paid Zellers for the leases to 220 stores across Canada.
It wasn’t a billion. It was $1.8-billion — $1.825-billion to be more precise.
Rankin was let go on July 28 from the Zellers at Dufferin and Dupont in Toronto after 13 years working the cash, the sales floor and as a pharmacy technician, with nothing more than the legally mandated severance pay her employers were required to give.
“It’s selfishness. It’s sad,” says Rankin, 50, a mother of one who helps support cousins in Jamaica.
“I don’t know what they’re thinking. I don’t know where their mind is. It’s greediness.”
Rankin will speak at a demonstration led by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union on Wednesday, Aug. 22, at 11 a.m., in front of Target’s Canadian headquarters in Mississauga.
“Target needs to do the right thing – keep the workers and respect their wages and benefits,” says Kevin Shimmin, national representative of the UFCW Canada,
Target posted earnings Wednesday of $704 million (U.S.), or $1.06 per share, in the period ended July 30. Overall revenue rose 3.5 per cent to $16.45 million in the quarter. Revenue at stores opened at least a year rose 3.1 per cent.
The chain will open its first stores in Canada in 2013.
On the day she spoke to the Star, Rankin was hauling home a fat, round container, almost as tall as she is, for which she paid $70, to send her family in Jamaica dried cod, rice, cooking oil and toothpaste.
Some of what Rankin is sending was purchased at Zellers: A Sunbeam MixMaster, bearing a red wrap with Zellers stamped on it, sits on the floor of her tiny apartment, waiting to be packed.
Rankin worked 28 hours a week at Zellers and when she left she was earning $11.97 an hour. She kept a second job to make ends meet. She worked in security for eight years. She works part-time for the UFCW.
Now, at 50, she’s wondering what’s next. Should she apply for another retail job? Should she go back to school? She knows she loves helping people any way she can.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” says Kendra Coulter, a professor at the Centre for Labour Studies at Brock University. “This is a decision that has been made at the corporate level by Target and Zellers and HBC.”
She blames Stephen Harper’s Conservative government for failing to protect workers.
“If a very profitable foreign company is going to come into our country to rebrand stores, our citizens deserve respect and some criteria have to be met. They’re not building infrastructure from scratch, they’re not creating an enterprise that didn’t exist, they are rebranding stores,” said Coulter.
Walmart did it differently in 1994. When the Arkansas-based chain bought the ailing Woolco stores, it took on all 16,000 employees in 122 locations.
“Even though Woolco had seen better days and was struggling, there was still an enormous amount of talent in that company,” said Andrew Pelletier, vice-president of corporate affairs and sustainability at Walmart Canada.
Mario Pilozzi, a senior vice-president at Woolco at the time of the takeover, went on to become CEO of Walmart Canada.
Woolco sales associates were given extensive retraining. They were given a five per cent raise.
“I think that is one of the reasons Walmart has succeeded in Canada, is because we started with a fantastic team that we re-motivated,” said Pelletier.
Walmart now has more than 300 locations in Canada.
Interestingly, Walmart did not apply the same approach this time around when it picked up 39 former Zellers stores from Target.
“We didn’t automatically hire all of the Zellers employees as we needed to determine the staffing needs for each of these additional stores first, which vary in size and layout. We also needed to determine what merchandise would be carried in each store (food, etc) which varies by store and which affects staffing requirements.
However, we have been reaching out to the Zellers employees all year and have already hired hundreds of the Zellers employees to work in these stores, including pharmacy associates. Since our hiring for these stores is still underway, we expect the number of Zellers hires will continue to grow,” said Pelletier.
Of the 220 Zellers leaseholds originally purchased in 2011, Target kept 189. It transferred 45 of the 189 to other retailers, including 39 to Walmart. In July, HBC announced that it would be closing its remaining 85 stores.
There were 273 Zellers locations in Canada before the deals were made, each location employing between 100 and 150 people. About 15 Zellers stores were unionized.
That means at least 27,300 people across Canada lost their jobs as a result of the transactions.
“The simple fact is that Target did not buy the Zellers business and as such there was no transfer of merchandise, systems or employees,” Target Canada spokesperson Lisa Gibson said.
“Target wants to deliver the best guest service possible. To accomplish that goal, we need the flexibility to interview all interested candidates so we can select the best, guest-service focused team members.
“Target has already hired a number of former Zellers/HBC employees and is guaranteeing an interview to all Zellers employees who apply for a position for the 2013 store opening cycle.”
Elizabeth Foley, 47, worked at Zellers for 14 years, down to the last days.
“They sold everything that wasn’t nailed down and I helped them,” says Foley, a single mother of two teenagers.
This week, Foley received notice that the owners of the house she rents in Windsor want her to leave so they can occupy it themselves.
Her hope is that she will qualify for job retraining under an employment insurance program so she can work in a payroll department somewhere.
Representatives for HBC declined to discuss how the Zellers employees were dealt with.
“Zellers Associates are receiving a greater amount of notice (or pay in lieu) than the provincial employment standards legislation. Zellers is also providing the affected Associates with career training and transition support services to assist them in finding employment opportunities. Zellers is committed to treating our Associates fairly throughout this transition,” HBC spokesperson Tiffany Bourré wrote in response to questions from the Star.
Foley says the only career training and transition support she got from HBC was access to a website focused on how to write a resumé.
“That was their retraining program,” she said.
Foley and Rankin said Zellers employees with 20 years of service and more received an extra 20 per cent in severance and those with 25 years or more received an extra 25 per cent.
Mike Moffat, an assistant professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business, says HBC could have negotiated a better deal for Zellers employees.
“Target’s argument is logically sound. It is, from a legal point of view, absolutely correct. Do they have some additional ethical obligations? I think that there was an opportunity here for Target to go above and beyond their legal responsibility.”
Moffat says corporations act in this fashion because they can.
“At the end of the day most of us do our shopping based on price and convenience. We don’t take the time to think: How does this particular retailer treat employees compared to another retailer? Corporations know that, which gives then a great deal of flexibility to make these moves.”
South Africa in shock after police ‘bloodbath’ of striking miners August 18, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Labor, Race, South Africa.Tags: anc, apartheid, jacob zuma, jon herskovitz, labor, labour, mine slaughter, miners, roger hollander, South Africa, unions
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South Africa miners
SIPHIWE SIBEKO/REUTERS Police shoot at protesting miners outside a South African mine in Rustenburg, 100 km northwest of Johannesburg, on Thursday.
Reuters
Newspaper headlines screamed “Bloodbath,” “Killing Field” and “Mine Slaughter,” with graphic photographs of heavily armed white and black police officers walking casually past the bloodied corpses of black men lying crumpled in the dust.
The images, along with Reuters television footage of a phalanx of officers opening up with automatic weapons on a small group of men in blankets and T-shirts, rekindled uncomfortable memories of South Africa’s racist past.
Police chief Riah Phiyega confirmed 34 dead and 78 injured after officers moved in against 3,000 striking drill operators armed with machetes and sticks and massed on a rocky outcrop at the mine, 100 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg.
Phiyega, a former banking executive who was only appointed to lead the police force in June, said officers had acted in self-defence against charging, armed assailants at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum plant.
“The police members had to employ force to protect themselves from the charging group,” she told a news conference, noting that two policemen had been hacked to death by a mob at the mine on Tuesday.
However, the South African Institute of Race relations likened the incident to the 1960 Sharpeville township massacre near Johannesburg, when apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters, killing more than 50.
“Obviously the issues that have led to this are not the same as the past, but the response and the outcome is very similar,” research manager Lucy Holborn said.
In a front-page editorial, the Sowetan newspaper questioned what had changed since 1994, when Nelson Mandela overturned three centuries of white domination to become South Africa’s first black president.
“It has happened in this country before where the apartheid regime treated black people like objects,” said the paper, named after South Africa’s biggest black township. “It is continuing in a different guise now.”
South African President Jacob Zuma cut short a visit to a regional summit in neighbouring Mozambique to head to the mine. Zuma, who faces an internal leadership election in his ruling African National Congress (ANC) in December, said he was “shocked and dismayed” at the violence, but made no comment on the police behaviour.
“We believe there is enough space in our democratic order for any dispute to be resolved through dialogue without any breaches of the law or violence,” he said in a statement.
Despite promises of a better life for all South Africa’s 50 million people, the ANC has struggled to provide basic services to millions in poor black townships.
Efforts to redress the economic inequalities of apartheid have had mixed results, and the mining sector comes in for particular criticism from radical ANC factions as a bastion of “white monopoly capital.”
As dawn broke, hundreds of police patrolled the dusty plains around the Marikana mine, which was forced to shut down this week because of a rumbling union turf war that has hit the platinum sector this year.
“There were no problems overnight. The problem is the hill over there where the shooting took place. I am not sure what will happen today,” said Patience, a woman who lives in a nearby shanty town. She declined to give her full name.
Crime scene investigators combed the site of the shooting, which was cordoned off with yellow tape, collecting spent cartridges and the slain miners’ bloodstained traditional weapons — machetes and spears.
Six firearms were recovered, including a service revolver from one of the police officers killed earlier in the week.
Prior to Thursday, 10 people had died in nearly a week of conflict between rival unions at what is Lonmin’s flagship plant. The London-headquartered company has been forced to shut down all its South African platinum operations, which account for 12 per cent of global output.
South Africa is home to 80 per cent of the world’s known reserves of platinum, a precious metal used in vehicle catalytic converters. Rising power and labour costs and a steep decline this year in the price have left many mines struggling to stay afloat.
Although the striking Marikana miners were demanding huge pay hikes, the roots of the trouble lie in a challenge by the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) to the 25-year dominance of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a close ANC ally.
“There is clearly an element in this that a key supporter of the ANC — the NUM — has come under threat from these protesting workers,” said Nic Borain, an independent political analyst.
AMCU leaders have been criticized for telling the striking miners — many of whom are barely literate — that they were “prepared to die” rather than move from their protest hill.
Pre-crackdown footage of dancing miners waving machetes and licking the blades of homemade spears raised questions about the habitual use of violence in industrial action 18 years after the end of apartheid.
“This culture of violence and protest, it must somehow be changed,” said John Robbie, a prominent Johannesburg radio host. “You can’t act like a Zulu impi in an industrial dispute in this day and age,” he said, using the Zulu word for armed units.
World platinum prices spiked nearly 3 per cent on Thursday as the full extent of the violence became clear, and rose again on Friday to a five-week high above $1,450 an ounce.
Lonmin shares in London and Johannesburg fell more than 5 per cent to four-year lows at Friday’s market open, although later trimmed their losses. Overall, they have shed nearly 15 per cent since the violence began a week ago.
Walmart Relentless as Thousands Set to Lose Out in New Health Care Policy December 2, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Labor.Tags: health, health care, health insurance, healthcare, labor, labor rights, labor violations, labour, roger hollander, walmart, walmart wdarehouse, worker rights
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Box store implicated in federal wage-theft lawsuit
Walmart will continue to disappoint workers and labor rights activists in the coming months as it continues to ignore the current widespread workers’ strike and protest movement against its labor policies and implements a new health insurance program that will deny healthcare coverage to employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.
Walmart is known for employing many of its workers part time and less than 30 hours per week, meaning a large majority of its employees is set to lose insurance through their employer.
In response to the Huffington Post, Walmart declined to disclose how many of its roughly 1.4 million U.S. workers will lose their insurance under the new policy, which is set to begin in January. Company spokesman David Tovar told Huffington that Walmart had “made a business decision” not to respond to questions from the paper.
“For Walmart employees, the new system raises the risk that they could lose their health coverage in large part because they have little control over their schedules. Walmart uses an advanced scheduling system to constantly alter workers’ shifts according to store traffic and sales figures,” the Huffington Post reports.
The discovery comes shortly after thousands of Walmart workers across the country walked off the job over the course of the week leading up to the national shopping day Black Friday. Workers continue to organize and speak out against the company’s attempts to silence employees’ complaints regarding the “company’s manipulation of hours and benefits, efforts to try to keep people from working full-time and their discrimination against women and people of color.”
In other Walmart labor news, Walmart warehouse workers in Southern California filed a petition in court this week in a bid to sue Walmart in a federal wage-theft lawsuit.
Walmart’s warehouses in California and Illinois have accused their employer of labor violations in the past; however, Friday’s filing was the first time Walmart has been directly implicated in the claims of abuse, rather than the company’s warehouse subcontractors, the Huffington Post reports.
“Walmart’s name does not appear on any of these workers paychecks, and the Walmart logo does not appear on the t-shirts they’re required to wear,” Michael Rubin, the workers’ lawyer, said on Friday. “But it has become increasingly clear that the ultimate liability for these workplace violations rests squarely on the shoulders of Walmart.”
Comments
oldblue63
A) Why does anyone shop at Walmart? We shoppers could bring them around in a few weeks if we all just QUIT shopping there. They need our business …we are in the driver’s seat if we use our power. B) This is a perfect example of why health care should not be provided through employers. Part-time employment is extremely common and it makes the employee constantly up in the air about health care benefits…and many employers do not begin coverage until 3-6 months of employment anyway, so people are going without insurance for long periods. We are all FULL-TIME citizens and that is where we should be getting our health care benefits.
gardenernorcal
We weren’t offered national health care.
Many people are forced to shop Walmart because when they move in many local shops close up. Before Walmart moved into my town we had a Wards, Penneys, KMart and Sears store and assorted small shops like dime stores. Today we have Walmart a couple high end furniture stores, 1$ Store, a Staples and a Home Depot.
BuddhaNature
Your story is very similar to our town with one exception. Our town refused a Wal-Mart, so they built in everytown around us and sucked the business away. We too had a JC Penneys, and Sears. And they try and tell you that capitalism is about competition? I won’t shop in there. They keep their wages down to assure themsleves of a customer base.. Henry Ford paid his workers the then good wage of $5.00 dollars a day so that could afford to buy the car they were producing, Wal- Mart on the otherhand, under pays their workers to assure they can’t afford to shop anyplace else.
natureschild3
yes! he expressed the opinion that assembly line workers should earn enough to buy an auto. also he insisted the employees show up in a christian church…and never, ever drink a beer or any alcohol–even at home.
then one day ford had a great business idea–”I can grow my own tires in honduras!” there, too, henry made sure the brown people of honduras appeared his his church, but adequate pay? “naw. we don’t need a bunch o’ darkies driving cars!” if you can, watch or read transcript here:
“Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City”
http://www.democracynow.org/20…
Amurkan
Henry Ford was obliged to pay his workers $5 hr because they quit in droves when they realized that they would be demeaned by his new assembly line. He didn’t do this from the kindness of his heart. No one seems to know this.
natureschild3
yes! and doesn’t that $5 an hour allowing his faithful to buy a model t speak volumes about the ongoing devaluation of the paper dollar?
“you load 16 tons of #9 coal and what do you get? “anothe day older and deeper in debt. “lord, don’tcha call me ’cause i can’t go…
“i owe my so-o-oul. . . to the company store!”
gardenernorcal
Yeah Ford was not quite the big stalwart supporter of labor as he’s painted today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09…
Yunzer
That’s what you get for living in Kalifornia. Even the pre-Wal-Mart stores you listed are big-box chains! Is there ANY part of you state that isn’t totally dominated by big chain-crap? The Summer of Love ended 43 years ago, and the last Doobie Brothers hit was 35 years ago. You should consider moving back here to the unfashionable mid-atlantic/northeast.
gardenernorcal
But consider this pre Walmart my community of approximately 500,000 supported 4 large chain stores, whose employees were organized and received full benefits including health care and retirement. People had choices. I know I shopped Penneys for clothes, Wards for furniture, Sears for tools and KMart for miscellaneous little stuff. Today I have basically one choice Walmart and they say they can’t pay their employees a living wage or provide them with health care and other benefits. Why is that? They are one of the largest and most profitable US corporations.
And I was born in California. It’s my home. I wouldn’t be moving back to anywhere.
nveric
You being Snobbish? Don’t you know the oceans are rising?
Lorenzo LaRue
….And your only entry here is smart ass? Don’t you know that everyone doesn’t live on the beach?
Yunzer
Fortunately all Wal-Marts are out in the public transit-hostile suburban sprawl-land and require a car, or incredibly crappy bus service to get there. I’ve sworn off all car use except for the occasional long-haul intercity, hiking or hang gliding trip.
The only reason I would set foot in a Wal-Mart of Sam’s Club would be to burn one to the ground. Don’t worry, I’d give plenty of warning to evacuate first.
Dem. Socialism
“Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Share”.
(Wal-Mart’s new slogan.)
N30rebel
Perhaps better?: “Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Shame.”
Matthew Grebenc
Too immortal to care.
gardenernorcal
No actually the responsibility lies with all of us that worry more about the DOW every morning than we do the moral and humane treatment of every worker on this planet. When Reagan fired those air traffic controllers it wasn’t victory for anyone but big finance and Wall St..
I remember a time when the financial news was the last thing reported on and only given a few moments at that. We also didn’t have our TV waves saturated with ads by big pharma or attorneys. And is it just me or am I seeing more and more alcohol ads as well? Weren’t they outlawed? How is it some companies are allowed to campaign but Spuds Mckensey was torpedoed into oblivion.
69Tuscany
The US and New Zealand are the only countries in the world who allow pharmaceutical advertising.
adiantum
I think NZ recently disallowed it.
Dem. Socialism
Also, gardenernorcal, have you noticed the amount of smoking done in movies lately? Rather blatant.
Amurkan
The excuse given for smoking actors is the ‘in character’ thing. It’s baloney. The studios are complicit in the death later by millions of kids who start smoking because their film heroes do it. Disgusting and criminal.
Richard_William_Posner
Let’s not overlook the amount of advertising being done by the military. It’s sickening.
There’s also more than one show that is being used as a propaganda tool to reinforce acceptance of the phony war on terror.
Additionally, the existence of chemtrails is being normalised through increasing visibility in programming and ads. Pay attention to scenes with nice blue skies in them.
gardenernorcal
There’s a lot of infuriating advertising I didn’t mention like BP’s telling how their actions have improved life on the Gulf.
Richard_William_Posner
Not being critical gardener, just reinforcing your observations.
The Bernaysian ministries of propaganda, both commercial and political (is there really any difference?) are manufacturing every aspect of our reality.
gardenernorcal
I didn’t take it as a criticism. I find the additions to my list kind of interesting.
Richard_William_Posner
I’m glad. Wasn’t really sure. And by the way, yes, I find those BP ads really outrageous and infuriating.
Holygeezer
The whole stock market thing is pretty criminal. If one is honest and thinks about it at all, there is no way you can “earn” money by doing nothing, unless you are in effect stealing it from others somehow. The others in this case being workers. Some may say this is too simplistic of a view, but in essence, earning money from investments is glorified stealing.
nveric
The 1970s changed reason into insanity.
Reagan was the tipper, not the gipper.
gardenernorcal
How convenient the US’s largest employer can now foist off their overhead on the US taxpayer while receiving tax breaks and subsidies.
Interesting chart on this site:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
Doug_Terpstra
Yep, this was a predictable outcome of Obamacare, better known as “The Death Panel Profiteers Bailout Act.” WalMart employees (or rather, taxpayers) will now be forced to buy a defective-by-design product from protection racket extortionists that some call insurance companies. The full damage of this monstronsity won’t be understood until well after 2014, when its more onerous dictates are implemented.
Thanks, Obama.
gardenernorcal
Not just that. Taxpayers will be subsidizing Walmart labor by providing them with medicaid, food stamps etc.. With their profits you’d think they could afford to pay their employees a living wage.
Doug_Terpstra
Good point. The next logical step will be to lower corporate taxes even further and then repeal the Emancipation Proclamation.
Mike_Strong
Yup! Repealing the Emancipation Proclamation is definitely on the agenda. Just slightly different job descriptions and this time with a paycheck. Sort of an upgrade on sharecropping.
natureschild3
don’t just thank obama. top honors should go to lloyd blankfein, ceo of goldman sachs. lloyd is the real man behind the curtain pulling all sorts of political strings!
Donna M Crane
Since my 41 year old son is already on ObamaCare for his pre-exisiting condition, I can assure you it is in no way defective, and is affordable. He is able to pay his monthly fee of $188 and co-pays even though he is only working about 30 hours a week currently. The excellent RX Plan that is included (unlike Medicare) allows him to get his medications at an affordable price that keeps him out of the hospital and able to work. In fact, as far as I can see, it works just like, and just as well as, my Medicare which I love. And in point of fact, we are already paying for all Walmart’s employees, even the full time ones who still qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Most WalMart employees already don’t have health insurance thru the company. In fact pretty much only the top levels have it. ObamaCares is already benefiting many people like my son and here in AZ we are using the Federal Government Set Up Exchange, since AZ isn’t going to set up its own Exchange…I consider this a benefit for us as I’m sure AZ wouldn’t do as well. Before you start kicking around ObamaCare, you should talk to some people who are on it.
Inspector47
Thank you! As far as Walmart being thieves they are the free market, capitalism at it’s best! The republicans are crying about the four people who were killed overseas, four thousand Americans die monthly due to the lack of health care. My daughter wreaked on her bike, she is a college student, at 23, she was able to be on our health ins for her injuries thanks to Obama care.
Doug_Terpstra
Thanks. I’m glad it’s working for you, at least for now. Most of the perceived good provisions of the 2,000-page bill were implemented upfront, pre-election, by design. 2014 is when the kickers come, too late, by design.
[Adding: Walmart is the post-election coalmine canary. Dropping employeer-provided healthcare will become a corporate rush by 2014. Obamacare did nothing to cap runaway drug and sickcare costs. Enjoy the good times.]
Inspector47
Like the 80/20 law that forces insurance companies to spend 80 percent of premimuns on the policy holder or return it?
Doug_Terpstra
Not quite. The rebate does not apply to individual policy holders as you imply, but to collective policy holders within a state. IOW, you don’t get a refund as an individual customer if you’re healthy and the company spends little or no money on you. This is why Obama’s Death-Panel Profiteers Bailout Act is more than 2,000 pages of lobbyese. It’s designed to confuse most people while enriching the investor class that Obama really works for.
The theoretical rebate would be a share of whatever amount your insurer spends on health care that is less than 80% of aggregate premiums paid in by all of its customers in that state, and you can imagine how corporate attorneys will game that one).
So, if your employer (like Walmart) drops you—as many or most will do in the next year or two—forcing you (or taxpayers for you) to pay thousands in out-of-pocket in premiums (no choice under the mandate), you might get a $158 rebate at the end of the year like the lucky lottery winners of North Carolina ($7 in Utah). Partly, this depends on how successful the death-panel gatekeepers are at rationing care or denying claims in a particular state.
http://www.examiner.com/articl…
See also: Welcome to the Future of Your Health Insurance. It Sucks.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com…
Inspector47
Death panels in the affordable care act, Sarah Palin won lie of the year with that one.
Doug_Terpstra
Thank you. Apparently, my use of the term for private versus public was unclear. Palin’s use of the term for her GOP handlers referred to government “death panels”, to scare people away from universal coverage by single-payer (for the same people waving signs reading “keep your government hands off my Medicare”). My use of the term refers to the private profiteers (insurance racketeers), whose gatekeepers are a far worse form of “death panel” — denying claims and rationing care for profit only.
The denial of coverage by for-profit gatekeepers is routine and far worse here than what occurs in civilized countries with single-payer universal coverage like Sweden, Canada and the UK. And Obamacare rejected single-payer and any public option thus institutionalizing profiteering by private racketeers with a captive market — with almost no limits on escalating costs, including prescription drugs that are explicitly protected from market competition (free trade is remarkably selective). It is the worst form of crony capitalism endorsed by the conservative Supine Court.
wildcarrots
Well said.
wildcarrots
I’m really glad it is working for your son, no doubt it will work better than standard insurance for some groups. Just remember that the system you are comparing it with really sucks. If you really think it is good try comparing it to one of the other systems in the world that deliver better care at half the cost.
Kenneth C. Fingeret
Hello gardenernorcal,
Walfart has been doing this for decades. As I understand it part of the paperwork when you are hired is getting government assistance due to your lack of a living wage salary that does not include much if anything in the way of benefits. This makes you eligible for different programs such as Medicade, AFDC, etc. A special Walfart tax of 500% of all government payments that are made to Walfart employees due to lack of salary and benefits given to their employees. should be the minimum required for Walfart to pay. I call them Walfart because they leave a bad odor wherever they are located!
nveric
Blood sucking death mongers run Walmart, their oozing puss filled sores covering their faces, acidic drool plops from their crusted puffy lips burning holes to the center of the Earth, necks as short as their ‘other’ parts and as wide as their hips, and below are stubby trunk-like legs incapable of independent motion.
You see, there’s no body and no heart for these Borg-like little people spawned from Sam Walton and an unknown surrogate, most likely an alien life-form kept in an undisclosed location in Nevada.
wildcarrots
The U.S. is going to be a very unhealthy place to live and shop when you consider the number of people that do not have access to healthcare. Disease does not respect ideological boundaries. .
Gubdeb
Look around. It already is.
Poet
I don’t know who designed the portable lit sign, but it gives the graffiti of protest an entirely new frontier (drive through territory after or just before dark) and flexibility (how difficult would it be to change the message to “Tax the Wealthy for a Change”, or “Shrink the Pentagon Not Social Security”?).
It can be easily moved and, depending on the time, and location reach many people with a simple message they cannot avoid. Flash mobs just got an entirely new twist unique to the US motoring culture!
69Tuscany
Great idea.
d9rich
It’s been done with hand-made signs for over a decade or more.
Poet
If by “hand made signs” you mean electrically lit like the one in the picture, then great–I have never seen any such example before the above photo.
What I meant to convey was that most “hand made signs” are invisible after dark to all but the cars slowing to a stop at a traffic light.
That one in the picture cannot be missed by passing motorists on their way to nowhere and as such expands both the potential audience and time of exposure to whatever message an activist wishes to present.
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A) Why does anyone shop at Walmart? We shoppers could bring them around in a few weeks if we all just QUIT shopping there. They need our business …we are in the driver’s seat if we use our power. B) This is a perfect example of why health care should not be provided through employers. Part-time employment is extremely common and it makes the employee constantly up in the air about health care benefits…and many employers do not begin coverage until 3-6 months of employment anyway, so people are going without insurance for long periods. We are all FULL-TIME citizens and that is where we should be getting our health care benefits.
We weren’t offered national health care.
Many people are forced to shop Walmart because when they move in many local shops close up. Before Walmart moved into my town we had a Wards, Penneys, KMart and Sears store and assorted small shops like dime stores. Today we have Walmart a couple high end furniture stores, 1$ Store, a Staples and a Home Depot.
Your story is very similar to our town with one exception. Our town refused a Wal-Mart, so they built in everytown around us and sucked the business away. We too had a JC Penneys, and Sears. And they try and tell you that capitalism is about competition? I won’t shop in there. They keep their wages down to assure themsleves of a customer base.. Henry Ford paid his workers the then good wage of $5.00 dollars a day so that could afford to buy the car they were producing, Wal- Mart on the otherhand, under pays their workers to assure they can’t afford to shop anyplace else.
yes! he expressed the opinion that assembly line workers should earn enough to buy an auto. also he insisted the employees show up in a christian church…and never, ever drink a beer or any alcohol–even at home.
then one day ford had a great business idea–”I can grow my own tires in honduras!” there, too, henry made sure the brown people of honduras appeared his his church, but adequate pay? “naw. we don’t need a bunch o’ darkies driving cars!” if you can, watch or read transcript here:
“Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City”
http://www.democracynow.org/20…
Henry Ford was obliged to pay his workers $5 hr because they quit in droves when they realized that they would be demeaned by his new assembly line. He didn’t do this from the kindness of his heart. No one seems to know this.
yes! and doesn’t that $5 an hour allowing his faithful to buy a model t speak volumes about the ongoing devaluation of the paper dollar?
“you load 16 tons of #9 coal and what do you get? “anothe day older and deeper in debt. “lord, don’tcha call me ’cause i can’t go…
“i owe my so-o-oul. . . to the company store!”
Yeah Ford was not quite the big stalwart supporter of labor as he’s painted today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09…
That’s what you get for living in Kalifornia. Even the pre-Wal-Mart stores you listed are big-box chains! Is there ANY part of you state that isn’t totally dominated by big chain-crap? The Summer of Love ended 43 years ago, and the last Doobie Brothers hit was 35 years ago. You should consider moving back here to the unfashionable mid-atlantic/northeast.
But consider this pre Walmart my community of approximately 500,000 supported 4 large chain stores, whose employees were organized and received full benefits including health care and retirement. People had choices. I know I shopped Penneys for clothes, Wards for furniture, Sears for tools and KMart for miscellaneous little stuff. Today I have basically one choice Walmart and they say they can’t pay their employees a living wage or provide them with health care and other benefits. Why is that? They are one of the largest and most profitable US corporations.
And I was born in California. It’s my home. I wouldn’t be moving back to anywhere.
You being Snobbish? Don’t you know the oceans are rising?
….And your only entry here is smart ass? Don’t you know that everyone doesn’t live on the beach?
Fortunately all Wal-Marts are out in the public transit-hostile suburban sprawl-land and require a car, or incredibly crappy bus service to get there. I’ve sworn off all car use except for the occasional long-haul intercity, hiking or hang gliding trip.
The only reason I would set foot in a Wal-Mart of Sam’s Club would be to burn one to the ground. Don’t worry, I’d give plenty of warning to evacuate first.
“Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Share”.
(Wal-Mart’s new slogan.)
Perhaps better?: “Too Big To Care”…”Too Immoral To Shame.”
Too immortal to care.
No actually the responsibility lies with all of us that worry more about the DOW every morning than we do the moral and humane treatment of every worker on this planet. When Reagan fired those air traffic controllers it wasn’t victory for anyone but big finance and Wall St..
I remember a time when the financial news was the last thing reported on and only given a few moments at that. We also didn’t have our TV waves saturated with ads by big pharma or attorneys. And is it just me or am I seeing more and more alcohol ads as well? Weren’t they outlawed? How is it some companies are allowed to campaign but Spuds Mckensey was torpedoed into oblivion.
The US and New Zealand are the only countries in the world who allow pharmaceutical advertising.
I think NZ recently disallowed it.
Also, gardenernorcal, have you noticed the amount of smoking done in movies lately? Rather blatant.
The excuse given for smoking actors is the ‘in character’ thing. It’s baloney. The studios are complicit in the death later by millions of kids who start smoking because their film heroes do it. Disgusting and criminal.
Let’s not overlook the amount of advertising being done by the military. It’s sickening.
There’s also more than one show that is being used as a propaganda tool to reinforce acceptance of the phony war on terror.
Additionally, the existence of chemtrails is being normalised through increasing visibility in programming and ads. Pay attention to scenes with nice blue skies in them.
There’s a lot of infuriating advertising I didn’t mention like BP’s telling how their actions have improved life on the Gulf.
Not being critical gardener, just reinforcing your observations.
The Bernaysian ministries of propaganda, both commercial and political (is there really any difference?) are manufacturing every aspect of our reality.
I didn’t take it as a criticism. I find the additions to my list kind of interesting.
I’m glad. Wasn’t really sure. And by the way, yes, I find those BP ads really outrageous and infuriating.
The whole stock market thing is pretty criminal. If one is honest and thinks about it at all, there is no way you can “earn” money by doing nothing, unless you are in effect stealing it from others somehow. The others in this case being workers. Some may say this is too simplistic of a view, but in essence, earning money from investments is glorified stealing.
The 1970s changed reason into insanity.
Reagan was the tipper, not the gipper.
How convenient the US’s largest employer can now foist off their overhead on the US taxpayer while receiving tax breaks and subsidies.
Interesting chart on this site:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
Yep, this was a predictable outcome of Obamacare, better known as “The Death Panel Profiteers Bailout Act.” WalMart employees (or rather, taxpayers) will now be forced to buy a defective-by-design product from protection racket extortionists that some call insurance companies. The full damage of this monstronsity won’t be understood until well after 2014, when its more onerous dictates are implemented.
Thanks, Obama.
Not just that. Taxpayers will be subsidizing Walmart labor by providing them with medicaid, food stamps etc.. With their profits you’d think they could afford to pay their employees a living wage.
Good point. The next logical step will be to lower corporate taxes even further and then repeal the Emancipation Proclamation.
Yup! Repealing the Emancipation Proclamation is definitely on the agenda. Just slightly different job descriptions and this time with a paycheck. Sort of an upgrade on sharecropping.
don’t just thank obama. top honors should go to lloyd blankfein, ceo of goldman sachs. lloyd is the real man behind the curtain pulling all sorts of political strings!
Since my 41 year old son is already on ObamaCare for his pre-exisiting condition, I can assure you it is in no way defective, and is affordable. He is able to pay his monthly fee of $188 and co-pays even though he is only working about 30 hours a week currently. The excellent RX Plan that is included (unlike Medicare) allows him to get his medications at an affordable price that keeps him out of the hospital and able to work. In fact, as far as I can see, it works just like, and just as well as, my Medicare which I love. And in point of fact, we are already paying for all Walmart’s employees, even the full time ones who still qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Most WalMart employees already don’t have health insurance thru the company. In fact pretty much only the top levels have it. ObamaCares is already benefiting many people like my son and here in AZ we are using the Federal Government Set Up Exchange, since AZ isn’t going to set up its own Exchange…I consider this a benefit for us as I’m sure AZ wouldn’t do as well. Before you start kicking around ObamaCare, you should talk to some people who are on it.
Thank you! As far as Walmart being thieves they are the free market, capitalism at it’s best! The republicans are crying about the four people who were killed overseas, four thousand Americans die monthly due to the lack of health care. My daughter wreaked on her bike, she is a college student, at 23, she was able to be on our health ins for her injuries thanks to Obama care.
Thanks. I’m glad it’s working for you, at least for now. Most of the perceived good provisions of the 2,000-page bill were implemented upfront, pre-election, by design. 2014 is when the kickers come, too late, by design.
[Adding: Walmart is the post-election coalmine canary. Dropping employeer-provided healthcare will become a corporate rush by 2014. Obamacare did nothing to cap runaway drug and sickcare costs. Enjoy the good times.]
Like the 80/20 law that forces insurance companies to spend 80 percent of premimuns on the policy holder or return it?
Not quite. The rebate does not apply to individual policy holders as you imply, but to collective policy holders within a state. IOW, you don’t get a refund as an individual customer if you’re healthy and the company spends little or no money on you. This is why Obama’s Death-Panel Profiteers Bailout Act is more than 2,000 pages of lobbyese. It’s designed to confuse most people while enriching the investor class that Obama really works for.
The theoretical rebate would be a share of whatever amount your insurer spends on health care that is less than 80% of aggregate premiums paid in by all of its customers in that state, and you can imagine how corporate attorneys will game that one).
So, if your employer (like Walmart) drops you—as many or most will do in the next year or two—forcing you (or taxpayers for you) to pay thousands in out-of-pocket in premiums (no choice under the mandate), you might get a $158 rebate at the end of the year like the lucky lottery winners of North Carolina ($7 in Utah). Partly, this depends on how successful the death-panel gatekeepers are at rationing care or denying claims in a particular state.
http://www.examiner.com/articl…
See also: Welcome to the Future of Your Health Insurance. It Sucks.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com…
Death panels in the affordable care act, Sarah Palin won lie of the year with that one.
Thank you. Apparently, my use of the term for private versus public was unclear. Palin’s use of the term for her GOP handlers referred to government “death panels”, to scare people away from universal coverage by single-payer (for the same people waving signs reading “keep your government hands off my Medicare”). My use of the term refers to the private profiteers (insurance racketeers), whose gatekeepers are a far worse form of “death panel” — denying claims and rationing care for profit only.
The denial of coverage by for-profit gatekeepers is routine and far worse here than what occurs in civilized countries with single-payer universal coverage like Sweden, Canada and the UK. And Obamacare rejected single-payer and any public option thus institutionalizing profiteering by private racketeers with a captive market — with almost no limits on escalating costs, including prescription drugs that are explicitly protected from market competition (free trade is remarkably selective). It is the worst form of crony capitalism endorsed by the conservative Supine Court.
Well said.
I’m really glad it is working for your son, no doubt it will work better than standard insurance for some groups. Just remember that the system you are comparing it with really sucks. If you really think it is good try comparing it to one of the other systems in the world that deliver better care at half the cost.
Hello gardenernorcal,
Walfart has been doing this for decades. As I understand it part of the paperwork when you are hired is getting government assistance due to your lack of a living wage salary that does not include much if anything in the way of benefits. This makes you eligible for different programs such as Medicade, AFDC, etc. A special Walfart tax of 500% of all government payments that are made to Walfart employees due to lack of salary and benefits given to their employees. should be the minimum required for Walfart to pay. I call them Walfart because they leave a bad odor wherever they are located!
Blood sucking death mongers run Walmart, their oozing puss filled sores covering their faces, acidic drool plops from their crusted puffy lips burning holes to the center of the Earth, necks as short as their ‘other’ parts and as wide as their hips, and below are stubby trunk-like legs incapable of independent motion.
You see, there’s no body and no heart for these Borg-like little people spawned from Sam Walton and an unknown surrogate, most likely an alien life-form kept in an undisclosed location in Nevada.
The U.S. is going to be a very unhealthy place to live and shop when you consider the number of people that do not have access to healthcare. Disease does not respect ideological boundaries. .
Look around. It already is.
I don’t know who designed the portable lit sign, but it gives the graffiti of protest an entirely new frontier (drive through territory after or just before dark) and flexibility (how difficult would it be to change the message to “Tax the Wealthy for a Change”, or “Shrink the Pentagon Not Social Security”?).
It can be easily moved and, depending on the time, and location reach many people with a simple message they cannot avoid. Flash mobs just got an entirely new twist unique to the US motoring culture!
Great idea.
It’s been done with hand-made signs for over a decade or more.
If by “hand made signs” you mean electrically lit like the one in the picture, then great–I have never seen any such example before the above photo.
What I meant to convey was that most “hand made signs” are invisible after dark to all but the cars slowing to a stop at a traffic light.
That one in the picture cannot be missed by passing motorists on their way to nowhere and as such expands both the potential audience and time of exposure to whatever message an activist wishes to present.
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