Page 1 of 1 pages
Since he is an early Rabbit the post is re-done with the electrons in line this time.
<blockquote>A book-length report on U.S. labor practices released by Human Rights Watch in 2000 found that
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 7, 2005 at 2:54 AM
I was in a situation nearly identical to Josh Noble’s. I was trying to organize fellow employees at a non union Pulitzer newspaper. Of the 16 employees in our unit, 14 signed cards that requested a vote on unionization. 12 commited firmly to vote yes. 10 remained firm during the lengthy campaign. On election day, I lost 14-2.
What happened? One employee had his personnel record cleared of a serious reprimand. One recieve a performance raise that just three months earlier he had been refused. The rest weren’t talking, but each and everyone of these “bribes” were illegal under NLRB laws. But the process to prove the charges would have been arduous and lengthy.
Six months later I was laid off.
Posted by AshC on Nov 7, 2005 at 8:53 AM
Rabbit had some experiences with Big-W here, the same thing, probably the same corporation for all I know. These experiences were in 1979, I was a casual and fifteen. There and then Rabbit resigned, and vowed never to have more to do with corporate employers, and I have watched them grow and spread like a terrible cancer since. Back then nobody else would dare treat their employees so bad, now this is the norm. The big corporations set the standard, such that they inevitably bring down standards for everyone. They get away with it for long enough until it just becomes the way things are done, and with their lobbying of government they finally get the law to be brought into line with their idea of what’s good for them. Thus the whole workforce is affected eventually.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 7, 2005 at 5:05 PM
Wal-Mart
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 8, 2005 at 10:53 AM
One thing which is strongly in Wal-Mart
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 8, 2005 at 12:08 PM
And as obvious as this trend toward killing off what’s left of the middle class in this country is, you would think alarm bells would be sounding in the halls of government. Instead they suggest ending the home mortgage deductions and counting employee health benefits as taxable income, cutting medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs, while giving the top 3% another 70 billion in tax cuts. And Bush has now borrowed from foreign banks, more money than ALL PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS COMBINED, funneling it to his cronys in the form of tax cuts and no bid contracts. This is a criminal enterprise, not a government.
Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Nov 9, 2005 at 12:55 AM
Kenneth,
It is next to impossible to
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 9, 2005 at 7:03 AM
I hesitate to discuss anything involving German society on this forum for fear that JC the CJ might chime in with some more idiotic Lederhosen-Romantik comments on (virtually) non-existent autumn harvest festivals or our lack of ability to queue up at bus stops to prove how familiar he is with the country…
... but the article mentioned Walmart in Germany and I felt I had to comment. Walmart has had a very tough stand here - and there are justified hopes they will close down and go away. There have been many articles in the business press about how German consumers are uncomfortable with (at best - many reject Walmart totally) the whole philosophy of the company. They just don’t feel comfortable being in their stores. I myself have never been in a Walmart - I only know of the existence of two of them here in the former East Germany - so I can’t comment in more detail.
As far as their labour policies are concerned, the company simply has no choice when it comes to basic worker rights. In principle, the American company bosses must absolutely hate Germany. I assume they’re here just on principle, since it is a big, important economy. The law dictates that their regularly employed staff must have legally-binding employment contracts - and these include things like six-weeks of paid holiday a year, protection from being fired, the employer paying half of the retirement tax and mandatory comprehensive health insurance, etc. And an important right is the right to have a works committee - a body consisting of employees that is voted into office by the employees (once every four years). It sits in on management decisions on all aspects of company policy - and has 50 per cent of the say. In addition, the works committee meets regularly (once a week is the norm) to deal with work-related issues, workers’ complaints, problems, etc. They try to resolve these issues - when they can’t, they then take them to management. The size of the works committee depends on the number of employees. A company the size of Walmart will have to allow for some full-time representatives on the committee. Full-time members are freed from all their regular duties - and spend 100 per cent of their time as representatives of the interests of the staff.
All members of the works council have a right to be sent to courses at certain intervals (at the expense of the company) in all sorts of areas involving employment law, psychology, public-speaking training, etc.
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Nov 9, 2005 at 2:10 PM
I myself was on a works committee for four years.
As far as trade unions are concerned, there is no such thing as a “closed shop” here. Membership is entirely voluntary. And it is a guaranteed right of every worker. I have been a member of a union all my working life (actually, of many different unions due to career changes) - in the days of East Germany, membership was obligatory, but unions had a different function in the state socialist system. Under capitalism, I consider membership simply a moral obligation, since it is the unions who do the bargaining and arrive at the collective agreements for entire industries.
This was the “normal citizen” in me speaking - who has to provide for a family, etc. The anarchist in me works and longs for a truly just and free society - without hierarchy, without the management-employee dichotomy…
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Nov 9, 2005 at 2:24 PM
A short aside to whattheheck:
I was not 15 in 1979 but 25 - so I remember all your examples except for Berlin 1949 and Hungary 1956, albeit from the perspective of “the other side”...
Far be it from me to deny that the Soviets were a threat - it is a threat I lived under. But let’s not forget things like the American-British coup overthrowing a democratically elected Persian leader to install the Shah in 1954 (?), the Bay of Pigs, the attack on and occupation of South Vietnam, US support for the murderous Somoza regime in Nicaragua, the overthrow of Allende, Iran-Contra, the mining of Nicaraguan harbours (for which the US was convicted by the world court), etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,...
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Nov 9, 2005 at 2:54 PM
My Thanks to all the above writers. I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to read and participate in intelligent conversations, without the inane comments and personal attacks from the right that have come to be a frequent feature of these forums.
Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Nov 10, 2005 at 12:21 AM
Anarcho-Sozi,
My comment to Rabbit was in response to his having said in effect,
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 10, 2005 at 11:20 AM
Seemingly incongruous decisions? Sorry, whattheheck, but the long-term pattern is totally clear in the case of the USA - from the Spanish-American war and the initial occupation of the Phillipines onward: making the world safe for American business. In another word: empire.
This is not what this topic is about, but I will submit the following overall judgement and then remain silent on this:
Of the two “partners” (enemies) in the Cold War, the US was the more consistent and aggressive (particularly wherever “democracy raised its ugly head” (in places like pre-Shah Iran and pre-Pinochet Chile, for example) to quote Chomsky.)
Now that the Cold War is over and the “excuse” it provided for US aggression, we see the ugly naked face of US foreign policy.
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Nov 10, 2005 at 1:51 PM
Anarco-Sozi,
Trade (business) has been the backbone of social interchange since the caveman swapped a deer for a bunch of arrowheads.
Empire? The Spanish American War was the last time the U.S. exercised any empirical tendencies. All of those territories are now either independent or, In the case of Puerto Rico have had access to mainland U.S. (There are more Puerto Ricans in New York than the home country.)
Last I knew Japan, Italy and Germany were all free, independent and democratic countries. South Korea
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 11, 2005 at 2:53 PM
Americans knowingly and unknowingly support crummy sweatshop life
in China. Who comes out ahead? The Chinese government and Wall Street, not middleclass american workers or consumers.
This could be the situation if middleclass americans on all sides of the aisle if more is not demanded of our respective politicians. Before 1980 when it came to american jobs both sides tried to keep jobs in america. Then this global economy nonsense was introduced big time and middleclass america
was tricked into believing that this was a great thing. Next thing we know politicians had crafted tax laws making it attractive for USA industry to move abroad and pay people 17 cents an hour to produce goods with a USA name on it. The only part that remained in america was a home office. General Motors makes most of it’s parts in China and is preparing to shut down more plants and taking more manufacturing to China. Wal-Mart is the largest exporter in China…yep they export 11% of chinese manufactured goods to all of their stores here and abroad.
Both parties more or less subcribe to Fair Trade approach. It has not been working towards creating well paid jobs for the american middleclass. Credit card debt is one obvious indicator.
Fair trade: Creating jobs at home means opening markets abroad. The Democratic Party supports fair trade agreements that raise standards for workers abroad while making American business more competitive. We will also fight for stronger enforcement of our existing trade agreements.
This is simply not working. It’s not working for slave labor abroad either.
Does anyone ever wonder why a pair of slick looking basketball shoes manufactured at 17 cents an hour retails for $150.00…think about it.
How about creating tax incentives to bring jobs back home and creating new green jobs through alternative energy? It seems like all we get is rhetoric.
So why are members of both parties so complacent on this matter? Campaign funds. The Reagan,Bush and Bush people have screwed up jobs for americans. Democrats on the other hand seem to have gone along with it because it appeared Reagan was a popular president. Should lousy legislation pass simply because a president is popular? No way jose.
The bottom line is we need to demand more of our politicans… not having them tell us what we need. Middleclass americans and consumers need to step up and decide who our candidates will be and set the agenda as well.
The first items on the list should be:
1. Jobs back to America…provides more revenue for our government instead of the Chinese government.
2.Healthcare for Americans after all we provide healthcare for millions of city,state and federal employees with middleclass tax dollars. Everybody deserves medical care.
3. We need/want the best public education. No Child Left Behind needs to be gone. It is an expensive mandate that is not conducive to learning.
4. Clean air and water must be priority in America…bring it all back.
5. Restore relationships with the rest of the world. The longer we stay in Iraq the more difficult this project will be.
6. Bring on alternative forms of energy. This will not only reduce our need for oil it will create thousands of new jobs for skilled labor.
7. Bring the war for oil to an end.
8. Let’s do business with the rest of the world but not at the expense of middleclass america.
The neocons must go. We need some new democrats as well as moderate republicans. Green Party thinkers where we can get them.
Posted by merrill on Nov 17, 2005 at 7:52 AM
Blah blah blah…boycott Wal Mart
Blah blah.
I’ve been boycotting them for about a year, since they closed the store in Quebec that tried to organize. I don’t think they miss my money much.
I’ve noticed how we’ve turned underdeveloped countries into our sweat shops, and turned our own country into a management and service industry, headed by a group of people who inherited wealth, and were crass enough to exploit that advanatge even further….sociopathy is so much more than convenience store bandits and serial killers, don’t you think?
I wonder about the system that props up this ‘bull in the china shop’ corporation.
Wal Mart is as easy to push over as the disabled greeter they got rid of once ‘dead peasant insurance’ became unpopular…the younger, healthier specimens they require now for their drudgery factory will thrive and kick our asses ...if they don’t move on to a more hospitable work environment through their native intelligence.
In the mean time, until there are better options for all of us, I’ll support the anti Wal Mart folk, and continue my boycott…but it’s getting harder and harder to buy food and clothing made locally…and I’m a wage pig myself, and have
little time to make my own.
Maybe if our schools spent more than a week or two on ‘Economics’ we’d have the necessary skills and insight to make wise, or at least wiser, decisions.
Posted by minerva on Nov 17, 2005 at 2:00 PM
The following is a comment I sent in response to an editorial which was very pro Wal-Mart. It is from my own experience with a client whose packaging I designed in the mid 1980s.
It actually took about a decade and the screws were made in several countries over that time
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 18, 2005 at 10:32 AM
Whattheheck:
Sorry to have kept you waiting for a response. I
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Nov 23, 2005 at 3:15 PM
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Since he is an early Rabbit the post is re-done with the electrons in line this time.
<blockquote>A book-length report on U.S. labor practices released by Human Rights Watch in 2000 found that
I was in a situation nearly identical to Josh Noble’s. I was trying to organize fellow employees at a non union Pulitzer newspaper. Of the 16 employees in our unit, 14 signed cards that requested a vote on unionization. 12 commited firmly to vote yes. 10 remained firm during the lengthy campaign. On election day, I lost 14-2.
What happened? One employee had his personnel record cleared of a serious reprimand. One recieve a performance raise that just three months earlier he had been refused. The rest weren’t talking, but each and everyone of these “bribes” were illegal under NLRB laws. But the process to prove the charges would have been arduous and lengthy.
Six months later I was laid off.
Rabbit had some experiences with Big-W here, the same thing, probably the same corporation for all I know. These experiences were in 1979, I was a casual and fifteen. There and then Rabbit resigned, and vowed never to have more to do with corporate employers, and I have watched them grow and spread like a terrible cancer since. Back then nobody else would dare treat their employees so bad, now this is the norm. The big corporations set the standard, such that they inevitably bring down standards for everyone. They get away with it for long enough until it just becomes the way things are done, and with their lobbying of government they finally get the law to be brought into line with their idea of what’s good for them. Thus the whole workforce is affected eventually.
Wal-Mart
One thing which is strongly in Wal-Mart
And as obvious as this trend toward killing off what’s left of the middle class in this country is, you would think alarm bells would be sounding in the halls of government. Instead they suggest ending the home mortgage deductions and counting employee health benefits as taxable income, cutting medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs, while giving the top 3% another 70 billion in tax cuts. And Bush has now borrowed from foreign banks, more money than ALL PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS COMBINED, funneling it to his cronys in the form of tax cuts and no bid contracts. This is a criminal enterprise, not a government.
Kenneth,
It is next to impossible to
I hesitate to discuss anything involving German society on this forum for fear that JC the CJ might chime in with some more idiotic Lederhosen-Romantik comments on (virtually) non-existent autumn harvest festivals or our lack of ability to queue up at bus stops to prove how familiar he is with the country…
... but the article mentioned Walmart in Germany and I felt I had to comment. Walmart has had a very tough stand here - and there are justified hopes they will close down and go away. There have been many articles in the business press about how German consumers are uncomfortable with (at best - many reject Walmart totally) the whole philosophy of the company. They just don’t feel comfortable being in their stores. I myself have never been in a Walmart - I only know of the existence of two of them here in the former East Germany - so I can’t comment in more detail.
As far as their labour policies are concerned, the company simply has no choice when it comes to basic worker rights. In principle, the American company bosses must absolutely hate Germany. I assume they’re here just on principle, since it is a big, important economy. The law dictates that their regularly employed staff must have legally-binding employment contracts - and these include things like six-weeks of paid holiday a year, protection from being fired, the employer paying half of the retirement tax and mandatory comprehensive health insurance, etc. And an important right is the right to have a works committee - a body consisting of employees that is voted into office by the employees (once every four years). It sits in on management decisions on all aspects of company policy - and has 50 per cent of the say. In addition, the works committee meets regularly (once a week is the norm) to deal with work-related issues, workers’ complaints, problems, etc. They try to resolve these issues - when they can’t, they then take them to management. The size of the works committee depends on the number of employees. A company the size of Walmart will have to allow for some full-time representatives on the committee. Full-time members are freed from all their regular duties - and spend 100 per cent of their time as representatives of the interests of the staff.
All members of the works council have a right to be sent to courses at certain intervals (at the expense of the company) in all sorts of areas involving employment law, psychology, public-speaking training, etc.
I myself was on a works committee for four years.
As far as trade unions are concerned, there is no such thing as a “closed shop” here. Membership is entirely voluntary. And it is a guaranteed right of every worker. I have been a member of a union all my working life (actually, of many different unions due to career changes) - in the days of East Germany, membership was obligatory, but unions had a different function in the state socialist system. Under capitalism, I consider membership simply a moral obligation, since it is the unions who do the bargaining and arrive at the collective agreements for entire industries.
This was the “normal citizen” in me speaking - who has to provide for a family, etc. The anarchist in me works and longs for a truly just and free society - without hierarchy, without the management-employee dichotomy…
A short aside to whattheheck:
I was not 15 in 1979 but 25 - so I remember all your examples except for Berlin 1949 and Hungary 1956, albeit from the perspective of “the other side”...
Far be it from me to deny that the Soviets were a threat - it is a threat I lived under. But let’s not forget things like the American-British coup overthrowing a democratically elected Persian leader to install the Shah in 1954 (?), the Bay of Pigs, the attack on and occupation of South Vietnam, US support for the murderous Somoza regime in Nicaragua, the overthrow of Allende, Iran-Contra, the mining of Nicaraguan harbours (for which the US was convicted by the world court), etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,...
My Thanks to all the above writers. I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to read and participate in intelligent conversations, without the inane comments and personal attacks from the right that have come to be a frequent feature of these forums.
Anarcho-Sozi,
My comment to Rabbit was in response to his having said in effect,
Seemingly incongruous decisions? Sorry, whattheheck, but the long-term pattern is totally clear in the case of the USA - from the Spanish-American war and the initial occupation of the Phillipines onward: making the world safe for American business. In another word: empire.
This is not what this topic is about, but I will submit the following overall judgement and then remain silent on this:
Of the two “partners” (enemies) in the Cold War, the US was the more consistent and aggressive (particularly wherever “democracy raised its ugly head” (in places like pre-Shah Iran and pre-Pinochet Chile, for example) to quote Chomsky.)
Now that the Cold War is over and the “excuse” it provided for US aggression, we see the ugly naked face of US foreign policy.
Anarco-Sozi,
Trade (business) has been the backbone of social interchange since the caveman swapped a deer for a bunch of arrowheads.
Empire? The Spanish American War was the last time the U.S. exercised any empirical tendencies. All of those territories are now either independent or, In the case of Puerto Rico have had access to mainland U.S. (There are more Puerto Ricans in New York than the home country.)
Last I knew Japan, Italy and Germany were all free, independent and democratic countries. South Korea
Americans knowingly and unknowingly support crummy sweatshop life
in China. Who comes out ahead? The Chinese government and Wall Street, not middleclass american workers or consumers.
This could be the situation if middleclass americans on all sides of the aisle if more is not demanded of our respective politicians. Before 1980 when it came to american jobs both sides tried to keep jobs in america. Then this global economy nonsense was introduced big time and middleclass america
was tricked into believing that this was a great thing. Next thing we know politicians had crafted tax laws making it attractive for USA industry to move abroad and pay people 17 cents an hour to produce goods with a USA name on it. The only part that remained in america was a home office. General Motors makes most of it’s parts in China and is preparing to shut down more plants and taking more manufacturing to China. Wal-Mart is the largest exporter in China…yep they export 11% of chinese manufactured goods to all of their stores here and abroad.
Both parties more or less subcribe to Fair Trade approach. It has not been working towards creating well paid jobs for the american middleclass. Credit card debt is one obvious indicator.
Fair trade: Creating jobs at home means opening markets abroad. The Democratic Party supports fair trade agreements that raise standards for workers abroad while making American business more competitive. We will also fight for stronger enforcement of our existing trade agreements.
This is simply not working. It’s not working for slave labor abroad either.
Does anyone ever wonder why a pair of slick looking basketball shoes manufactured at 17 cents an hour retails for $150.00…think about it.
How about creating tax incentives to bring jobs back home and creating new green jobs through alternative energy? It seems like all we get is rhetoric.
So why are members of both parties so complacent on this matter? Campaign funds. The Reagan,Bush and Bush people have screwed up jobs for americans. Democrats on the other hand seem to have gone along with it because it appeared Reagan was a popular president. Should lousy legislation pass simply because a president is popular? No way jose.
The bottom line is we need to demand more of our politicans… not having them tell us what we need. Middleclass americans and consumers need to step up and decide who our candidates will be and set the agenda as well.
The first items on the list should be:
1. Jobs back to America…provides more revenue for our government instead of the Chinese government.
2.Healthcare for Americans after all we provide healthcare for millions of city,state and federal employees with middleclass tax dollars. Everybody deserves medical care.
3. We need/want the best public education. No Child Left Behind needs to be gone. It is an expensive mandate that is not conducive to learning.
4. Clean air and water must be priority in America…bring it all back.
5. Restore relationships with the rest of the world. The longer we stay in Iraq the more difficult this project will be.
6. Bring on alternative forms of energy. This will not only reduce our need for oil it will create thousands of new jobs for skilled labor.
7. Bring the war for oil to an end.
8. Let’s do business with the rest of the world but not at the expense of middleclass america.
The neocons must go. We need some new democrats as well as moderate republicans. Green Party thinkers where we can get them.
Blah blah blah…boycott Wal Mart
Blah blah.
I’ve been boycotting them for about a year, since they closed the store in Quebec that tried to organize. I don’t think they miss my money much.
I’ve noticed how we’ve turned underdeveloped countries into our sweat shops, and turned our own country into a management and service industry, headed by a group of people who inherited wealth, and were crass enough to exploit that advanatge even further….sociopathy is so much more than convenience store bandits and serial killers, don’t you think?
I wonder about the system that props up this ‘bull in the china shop’ corporation.
Wal Mart is as easy to push over as the disabled greeter they got rid of once ‘dead peasant insurance’ became unpopular…the younger, healthier specimens they require now for their drudgery factory will thrive and kick our asses ...if they don’t move on to a more hospitable work environment through their native intelligence.
In the mean time, until there are better options for all of us, I’ll support the anti Wal Mart folk, and continue my boycott…but it’s getting harder and harder to buy food and clothing made locally…and I’m a wage pig myself, and have
little time to make my own.
Maybe if our schools spent more than a week or two on ‘Economics’ we’d have the necessary skills and insight to make wise, or at least wiser, decisions.
The following is a comment I sent in response to an editorial which was very pro Wal-Mart. It is from my own experience with a client whose packaging I designed in the mid 1980s.
It actually took about a decade and the screws were made in several countries over that time
Whattheheck:
Sorry to have kept you waiting for a response. I
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