Working In These Times

Adding Insult to Injury: After Deep Union Concessions, Mercury Marine Execs Snag Bonuses

Roger Bybee — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:01:34 +0000

A few years ago, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) explained the supposed realities of globalization to workers: "We have to be honest with people, delivering a kind of cold wake-up call about the need for change in a fast-shifting economy."

Translation: It is no longer realistic to believe that corporations can afford to reward loyalty and hard work. The burden of change is on you. You are on your own.

This wake-up message was delivered this week to Fond du Lac, Wis. members of the International Association of Machinist Lodge 1947, who produce outboard motors at Mercury Marine. They learned that the Mercury Marine/Brunswick Corp. is granting bonuses to white-collar workers and executives in the wake of enormous pay cuts imposed on production workers last year.

E-ZPass Workers Face Stiff Resistance to Unionizing

Akito Yoshikane — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:14:50 +0000

Fourteen employees at a New York City customer service center for E-ZPass, the electronic toll system, were fired last week after trying to get their employer to acknowledge their recent unionization.

The firings were the latest by an employer that has so far demonstrated its unwillingness to deal with a unionized workforce. The conflict has been already been precluded by wage disputes and grievances filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

The trouble started last May, when the roughly 300 workers at the E-ZPass call center in Staten Island voted to unionize. Within hours of the vote, the company announced their pay was changing to piecemeal work based on the number of calls they take instead of an hourly wage.

Injustice by the Pound: Farm Activists Work to ‘Bust Up Big Ag’

Michelle Chen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:06:01 +0000

Something is astir in America's heartland. A grassroots coalition of independent farmers, consumer groups, and labor advocates is coming together to challenge the corporations at the top of the country's food chain and reclaim control over the food supply.

A series of public hearings on the agriculture oligopoly led by the Justice Department's antitrust division, has opened the door to a serious national dialogue on food policy reform. On Thursday, food and farm justice advocates gathered at a townhall meeting in Ankeny, Iowa amid chants of “bust up Big Ag” to drum up momentum for today's antitrust meeting, focused on the seed business and the biotech Goliath Monsanto.

In the midst of the healthcare and economic crises, food politics have intensified, with many communities demanding an end to perverse farm subsidies and more equitable nutritional programs. Aside from the more obvious impacts on small farmers and consumers, the food infrastructure's dysfunction is very much embedded in the workforce that sustains the country from the field to the table.