| Workers Stand Up to Walmart | |
| by Mark Vorpahl Email: portland (nospam) workerscompass.org (verified) | 18 Oct 2012 |
| When a torrent hits an obstacle that refuses to give, it either flows around or over the obstruction. When workers’ needs for a living wage, fair treatment, and a voice are damned up by an oppressive employer, it is only a matter of time before they find a way of asserting their strength. | |
| Testament to this truth are the strikes at Walmart, the first such actions against the retail behemoth in its 50 year history. The movement began in June when guest workers went on strike to expose forced labor at Walmart’s supplier C.J.’s Seafood in Louisiana. Walmart was fined $250,000 and compelled to suspend its contract with the company. This was followed in September by a strike at a similar warehouse in Inland Empire, California. On this actions’ heels came a three week strike at a warehouse in Elwood, Illinois that receives 70 percent of the chains’ imports. Thirty-eight workers walked out over the retaliatory firing of their co-workers for organizing activity as well as concerns over safety. Standing strong together got results. All workers were reinstated with three weeks back pay and safety concerns finally began to be acted on. Encouraged by this unprecedented victory, the chink in Walmart’s armor began to rapidly expand. At several stores in Pica Rivera, California, workers walked out over management’s attempts to silence them with retaliatory actions against those who spoke up for better conditions. This quickly spread to 28 stores across 12 states. Walmart’s public reaction to these developments has been to dismiss them as “publicity stunts.” However, an October 8th internal memo, intended only for salaried employees, reveals a very different attitude. It advises management on how to discourage workers from taking collective action while also telling them to avoid disciplinary action against employees who engage in walkouts, sit-ins, or sick-outs because of its legal consequences. Since Walmart employees have filed 20 unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) within the last 8 weeks because of retaliatory practices, and that striking against such retaliation is legally protected, it is clear that the company’s tops are attempting to adjust their anti-worker tactics. They are, for the moment, feeling compelled to advocate a more cautious approach to recent developments rather than encourage the arrogant manner of dealing with workers that Walmart management is known for. The strikes against Walmart’s treatment of workers have been a long time coming. Because pay and hours are so bad, employees rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $240,000 per store. Eighty percent of Walmart store workers are using food stamps. They are subject to unpredictable schedules and having their hours cut in order to avoid being paid benefits. In addition, employees have numerous safety concerns and are frequently treated disrespectfully by management higher ups. So resolute is the company’s hatred of Labor that when a store’s employees in Quebec Canada voted to join a union, Walmart closed it down. The main issue for these workers was not wages and benefits, but only to have regular predictable work schedules. While the majority of Walmart’s employees live in poverty, six members of Sam Walton’s (the founder of Walmart) family are worth more financially than the bottom 30 percent of the U.S. population. Sam Walton alone makes more than all Walmart’s wage employees combined and Walmart is the nation’s biggest employer. It was this kind of inequality and conditions faced by workers that spurred the creation of the union movement. However, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and others have so far been unable to organize Walmart’s workforce. Initial attempts went by the letter of the law. Once a majority of the employees signed cards to join a union, the NLRB would take six weeks to set up elections so that the workers would be forced to vote again for joining a union. This six week period allowed management to go on an anti-union offensive, holding captive meetings and finding other ways to intimidate the workforce. Consequently, playing by the rules of this game rigged in favor of the employers has failed repeatedly. In addition, organizing on a one-store-at-a-time basis was a shaky strategy because Walmart has already demonstrated that it would rather shut a store down than have it go union. The company is large enough to afford such a sacrifice. The UFCW went on a campaign with other community groups in an attempt to block the building of Walmart stores in various cities. The hope was that by making such trouble for the corporation, its owners would rather allow unionization than deal with the UFCW as an opponent to its expansion efforts. While there was some limited success, this strategy left Walmart’s workers powerless and did not amount to much more than a nuisance in the face of the corporation’s massive funds. It became clear that a new approach was necessary to take on a giant like Walmart. Consequently, the UFCW helped to found “Organization United for Respect at Walmart” (OUR Walmart) and the United Electrical Workers formed “Warehouse Workers for Justice” (WWJ). The unions provide advice and material support for these loose networks composed both of current Walmart workers and their supporters. However, it is up to the membership to determine their own activity. Unlike unions, they do not have the right to bargain with the employers on the employees’ behalf. On the other hand, they are not subject to the NLRB’s election laws that favor corporations. A minority at a workforce can take concerted collective action as long as this action is over an unfair labor practice such as retaliation by the employer. There are great limits to what this form of organization can accomplish on its own. Taking action over wages and benefits, for instance, is off limits. Even more important, it becomes more difficult to take strike action that shuts off the spigot of profits for an employer since that requires shutting down operations by the involvement of the entire workforce, and organizing community supporters in massive picket lines. Without this option for workers, employers are less likely to give in. But the example of strong wins by organizations such as OUR Walmart and WWJ help to pave the way towards wider unity among the workforce and unionization. They help to chip away at the fear workers have in standing united against an employer like Walmart. For instance, WWJ organizer Leah Fried reported that after receiving back pay for their strike in Elwood, Illinois an envious co-worker who had not gone out said he now wished he had done so. Because OUR Walmart and WWJ are organized on a national basis, they can also open up the road for a union drive on a national scale. Walmart has shown that it is willing to close a store rather than have it go union. However, it cannot afford to do this if a majority of workers from dozens of its stores are signing up. The conditions and wages that Walmart workers currently are subjected to have created a downward pressure for retail employees and the entire working class. The recent actions of these workers in defense of their own interests, on the other hand, can reverse this pressure and lift the living standard up for all. _____________________________________________________ To see how you can contribute to this development visit: OUR Walmart at http://forrespect.org/ and Warehouse Workers for Justice at http://www.warehouseworker.org/ and be prepared to take action on Black Friday, November 23, 2012. | |
Showing posts with label organize wal-mart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organize wal-mart. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2012
Workers Stand Up to Walmart
Sunday, May 06, 2012
BOYCOTT WAL-MART-Unionize Wal-Mart-Organize The Unorganized- Defend Our Unions-Public And Private
Markin comment:
SUPPORT THE BOYCOTT- ORGANIZE WAL-MART
This writer several years ago received news that the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers (MFT) has voted to support the Wal-Mart boycott. Thus, the MFT joins a growing number of other unions nationally and internationally in support of such a measure. Every militant is obliged to and must support this boycott as a first step in the struggle against this greedy mega-corporation. To list the egregious labor practices of this corporation is like reading pages from the history relating the sweatshop conditions of the American labor movement at the turn of the 19th century. Whatever piddling savings one might receive by shopping at Wal-Mart is negated by the degradation of its labor force. It is high time to move on this outfit and move hard.
Whatever the practical effect of the boycott may be it can only be seen as a first step in the ultimate union organization of Wal-Mart. A boycott is not enough! A consumer boycott, as has been shown repeatedly by past practices, is only as effective as the diffuse shopping public is aware of it. In general effect, little or not at all. The leadership of the American labor movement (now centered in the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Coalition) has chiefly used to the tactic of boycotts to avoid the hard struggle to unionize the workforce. In the final analysis only organization in the field will bring unionization.
To organize Wal-Mart means to have the will to organize Wal-Mart. It is necessary to go all out to win once the decision has been made to organize this monster along industrial lines, like the automobile and steel industries in the 1930’s. Previous local efforts (such as in Quebec and Texas) to organize particular stores have shown that this strategy (or lack of strategy) has been a failure. Wal-Mart is just too big and powerful to be taken on piecemeal. This writer has seen estimates that the number of field organizers necessary to effectively organize Wal-Mart is at least 3000. Call on the rest of the organized labor movement to fund and sent out that number en masse. The time is now.
Those even slightly familiar with the Wal-Mart operation know that the corporation has a fleet of at least 7000 trucks to transport and deliver goods to its various locations. This should make every militant salivate at the prospect of organizing that fleet. Militants must support the call for the Teamsters International Union to organize the fleet. Know this, if the trucks, the key to the distribution process are organized that is a very powerful argument in the workers favor if a showdown with other parts of the Wal-Mart workforce is necessary. This writer suggests that labor militants read Teamster Rebellion and Teamster Power by Farrell Dobbs; a central organizer of the successful Teamster union drives in Minneapolis and later over the road drivers in the 1930’s. (These books have been reviewed elsewhere in this blog.) One thing is clear from those books, if it took practically a civil war then to bring the relatively loosely organized trucking company bosses to their knees in the 1930’s it will be 1000 times harder to do so against this monolithic giant. But the victory will be sweeter.
Mentioned above was the need to fund field organizers and other support staff. And plenty of them. Unlike the 1930’s the organized labor movement has no lack of funds for such an operation today. However what is necessary is the political will to organize. Instead of using funds to support bourgeois candidates, mainly Democratic Party so-called ‘friends of labor’, through COPE and other PAC’s for minimal or no returns use the funds to organize Wal-Mart (and the South while we are at it). That is the real way to use union money. SUPPORT THE CALL TO ORGANIZE WAL-MART NOW! NO MONEY FOR POLITICANS-FUND THE ORGANIZING DRIVE AT WAL-MART! BRING MOTIONS TO YOUR UNION CALLING FOR SUPPORT OF THE WAL-MART BOYCOTT! BRING MOTIONS TO SUPPORT AN ORGANIZING DRIVE OF WAL-MART!
SUPPORT THE BOYCOTT- ORGANIZE WAL-MART
This writer several years ago received news that the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers (MFT) has voted to support the Wal-Mart boycott. Thus, the MFT joins a growing number of other unions nationally and internationally in support of such a measure. Every militant is obliged to and must support this boycott as a first step in the struggle against this greedy mega-corporation. To list the egregious labor practices of this corporation is like reading pages from the history relating the sweatshop conditions of the American labor movement at the turn of the 19th century. Whatever piddling savings one might receive by shopping at Wal-Mart is negated by the degradation of its labor force. It is high time to move on this outfit and move hard.
Whatever the practical effect of the boycott may be it can only be seen as a first step in the ultimate union organization of Wal-Mart. A boycott is not enough! A consumer boycott, as has been shown repeatedly by past practices, is only as effective as the diffuse shopping public is aware of it. In general effect, little or not at all. The leadership of the American labor movement (now centered in the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Coalition) has chiefly used to the tactic of boycotts to avoid the hard struggle to unionize the workforce. In the final analysis only organization in the field will bring unionization.
To organize Wal-Mart means to have the will to organize Wal-Mart. It is necessary to go all out to win once the decision has been made to organize this monster along industrial lines, like the automobile and steel industries in the 1930’s. Previous local efforts (such as in Quebec and Texas) to organize particular stores have shown that this strategy (or lack of strategy) has been a failure. Wal-Mart is just too big and powerful to be taken on piecemeal. This writer has seen estimates that the number of field organizers necessary to effectively organize Wal-Mart is at least 3000. Call on the rest of the organized labor movement to fund and sent out that number en masse. The time is now.
Those even slightly familiar with the Wal-Mart operation know that the corporation has a fleet of at least 7000 trucks to transport and deliver goods to its various locations. This should make every militant salivate at the prospect of organizing that fleet. Militants must support the call for the Teamsters International Union to organize the fleet. Know this, if the trucks, the key to the distribution process are organized that is a very powerful argument in the workers favor if a showdown with other parts of the Wal-Mart workforce is necessary. This writer suggests that labor militants read Teamster Rebellion and Teamster Power by Farrell Dobbs; a central organizer of the successful Teamster union drives in Minneapolis and later over the road drivers in the 1930’s. (These books have been reviewed elsewhere in this blog.) One thing is clear from those books, if it took practically a civil war then to bring the relatively loosely organized trucking company bosses to their knees in the 1930’s it will be 1000 times harder to do so against this monolithic giant. But the victory will be sweeter.
Mentioned above was the need to fund field organizers and other support staff. And plenty of them. Unlike the 1930’s the organized labor movement has no lack of funds for such an operation today. However what is necessary is the political will to organize. Instead of using funds to support bourgeois candidates, mainly Democratic Party so-called ‘friends of labor’, through COPE and other PAC’s for minimal or no returns use the funds to organize Wal-Mart (and the South while we are at it). That is the real way to use union money. SUPPORT THE CALL TO ORGANIZE WAL-MART NOW! NO MONEY FOR POLITICANS-FUND THE ORGANIZING DRIVE AT WAL-MART! BRING MOTIONS TO YOUR UNION CALLING FOR SUPPORT OF THE WAL-MART BOYCOTT! BRING MOTIONS TO SUPPORT AN ORGANIZING DRIVE OF WAL-MART!
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Via "Boston IndyMedia"- Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1%
Markin comment:
Some good point here, although short on program to fight the labor bureaucracy. Damn, I wish we had more leftists inside the unions to lead that fight.
Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1%
by Richard Mellor
Email: we_know_whats_up (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) 06 Oct 2011
The Labor hierarchy is concerned about the influence the Occupy movement might have on the Unions' rank and file and will enter the Occupy movement in order to temper it, derail it and send it in to the Democratic Party as they did with the Madison events. The Occupy movement should beware the hierarchy and Labor's "official" representatives and welcome the rank and file worker.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading and already showing results in that it is pushing Obama and the Democrats to make more public statements about increasing taxes on the rich. As we said, the OWS movement will have an effect on the 2012 elections here in the US.
We have also argued on this bloghttp://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/ that given the stifling bureaucratic grip the Labor hierarchy has on the trade Union apparatus, it would be most likely that resistance to the capitalist offensive from workers and youth would arise outside of these structures and this is what we are witnessing.
The fact that Unions like Local 100 in New York City are openly supporting the movement is extremely positive. In response to the OWS movement Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO said that the Union movement “will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.”
The Labor hierarchy is extremely concerned about these developments. Steven Greenhouse and Cara Buckley writing in today’s New York Times reveal the level of concern atop organized Labor. They describe how Stuart Applebaum, the president of the retail and department store arm of the UFCW has cut off a visit to Tunisia after receiving a “flurry” of e mails and phone calls about the spreading occupation movement. Applebaum was in Tunisia according to the NYT, “advising the fledgling labor movement there.”
Considering the dismal failure of the Union hierarchy’s policies here at home one would have to question what advice a person like Stuart Applebaum could give to Tunisians about Labor struggles. For those of us with some history of struggle in these organizations the answer is pretty clear; he is there to ensure that Tunisian Unions develop along AFL-CIO lines; bureaucratic business-friendly organization with pro market policies. He is there representing the interests of US capitalism.
According to the Times Applebaum recalls asking one of the callers from back home about the movement here. Who is behind the movement? Is it “hippies” “troublemakers” and whether it will “quickly fade”
Some of the young people involved in the Occupy movement may not remember the shutting down of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. This took the US capitalist class and the Labor hierarchy completely by surprise. The Unions had a strong presence there and a section of Labor’s rank and file were influenced by the militancy and courage of the youth as opposed to the prayer and candlelight vigils that are the official strategy of the bureaucracy. This influence on their members’ worried the Labor hierarchy and in movement that followed the aftermath of the Seattle events, they sent in to that movement its full time staff in order to temper the movement it and direct it in to the Democratic party where it would be rendered harmless.
Trade Union leaders have complained that the OWS movement gets lots of press yet they turn out many more people like the 100,000 in the rally in Washington. But the 1% that the OWS movement talks about are confident that the trade Union leaders will not threaten their privileges, that Labor’s ranks will remain firmly under their control and any movement from below that threatens their policies and wants to democratize the movement will be suppressed. Both the Labor leaders and the Democratic Party fear this movement will get out of hand and will seek to control it.
The rank and file of organized Labor has been betrayed time and time again through the policies of leaders like Applebaum and Trumka. Applebaum says that the OWS movement is “Reaching a lot of people and exciting a lot of people that the labor movement has been struggling to reach for years.”
It is not accurate to say that the Labor movement has been “trying”. The hierarchy doesn’t even try to reach their own members never mind the millions of workers outside the ranks of organized Labor. (Look under “Labor” or “Public Sector” on this blog to read examples of this). When rank and file Union members have attempted to resist the bosses’ offensive, the heads of organized Labor, from the UAW to the public sector Unions and folks like Trumka have moved against them, have suppressed any movement from below that threatens their relationship with the employers that is based on cooperation and Labor peace. Many a rank and file Union activist like this author can relate to the local leader who said that if her international fought the bosses as hard as they fought upstart locals or militancy within their ranks she’d be in good shape.
If we buy in to Applebaum’s argument that the hierarchy has been “trying” to reach people then we can only come to the conclusion that the rank and file in the Unions and the millions outside of organized Labor are to blame. The AFL-CIO leadership has been carrying out campaigns that have been a disastrous failure. They had 100,000 workers on the streets in Madison and what did they do with them? Hey sent them home and told them to get involved in an electoral campaign to elect candidates from the other Wall Street party. In that struggle, the entire AFL-CIO leadership supported concessions.
So while it is very positive the Unions are becoming involved we need to be clear that there is a significant difference between the rank and file of organized Labor and its leadership who will try to control and disarm the OWS movement. Who should be welcomed in to the movement as representatives of organized Labor is not the lawyers, full time staffers and paid professional and other hangers on who help the present Union hierarchy maintain control of the movement and continue their business as usual polices but the rank and file member, the worker, the dues payer of the Labor organization. When “official” representatives of organized Labor become more involved as they will, the General Assemblies should ask if they are rank and file dues paying members and if they were elected by their co-workers or from their local Union halls.
All unemployed workers, shift workers those who have time and resources should, as those resources allow, join the Wall Street Occupy movement and help it grow stronger. It has a great slogan that hits the nail right on the head: We are the 99%------they are the 1%. The movement demands that the banks and the rich pay, all workers can support this. Those of us that support this blog offer for discussion to all workers in the movement some demands that we think would appeal to the vast majority of working class people.
We are against the dictatorship of the profit addicted corporations over American society.
We are for at least a $15.00 minimum wage or a $5.00 wage increase for all whichever is the greater.
We are for equal pay for equal work.
We are for jobs for all
We are for free education and free healthcare for all.
We are against racism and for working class unity.
We are for the building of a working peoples' party to end the monopoly of American politics by the bosses' parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.
See also:
http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
Some good point here, although short on program to fight the labor bureaucracy. Damn, I wish we had more leftists inside the unions to lead that fight.
Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1%
by Richard Mellor
Email: we_know_whats_up (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) 06 Oct 2011
The Labor hierarchy is concerned about the influence the Occupy movement might have on the Unions' rank and file and will enter the Occupy movement in order to temper it, derail it and send it in to the Democratic Party as they did with the Madison events. The Occupy movement should beware the hierarchy and Labor's "official" representatives and welcome the rank and file worker.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading and already showing results in that it is pushing Obama and the Democrats to make more public statements about increasing taxes on the rich. As we said, the OWS movement will have an effect on the 2012 elections here in the US.
We have also argued on this bloghttp://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/ that given the stifling bureaucratic grip the Labor hierarchy has on the trade Union apparatus, it would be most likely that resistance to the capitalist offensive from workers and youth would arise outside of these structures and this is what we are witnessing.
The fact that Unions like Local 100 in New York City are openly supporting the movement is extremely positive. In response to the OWS movement Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO said that the Union movement “will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.”
The Labor hierarchy is extremely concerned about these developments. Steven Greenhouse and Cara Buckley writing in today’s New York Times reveal the level of concern atop organized Labor. They describe how Stuart Applebaum, the president of the retail and department store arm of the UFCW has cut off a visit to Tunisia after receiving a “flurry” of e mails and phone calls about the spreading occupation movement. Applebaum was in Tunisia according to the NYT, “advising the fledgling labor movement there.”
Considering the dismal failure of the Union hierarchy’s policies here at home one would have to question what advice a person like Stuart Applebaum could give to Tunisians about Labor struggles. For those of us with some history of struggle in these organizations the answer is pretty clear; he is there to ensure that Tunisian Unions develop along AFL-CIO lines; bureaucratic business-friendly organization with pro market policies. He is there representing the interests of US capitalism.
According to the Times Applebaum recalls asking one of the callers from back home about the movement here. Who is behind the movement? Is it “hippies” “troublemakers” and whether it will “quickly fade”
Some of the young people involved in the Occupy movement may not remember the shutting down of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. This took the US capitalist class and the Labor hierarchy completely by surprise. The Unions had a strong presence there and a section of Labor’s rank and file were influenced by the militancy and courage of the youth as opposed to the prayer and candlelight vigils that are the official strategy of the bureaucracy. This influence on their members’ worried the Labor hierarchy and in movement that followed the aftermath of the Seattle events, they sent in to that movement its full time staff in order to temper the movement it and direct it in to the Democratic party where it would be rendered harmless.
Trade Union leaders have complained that the OWS movement gets lots of press yet they turn out many more people like the 100,000 in the rally in Washington. But the 1% that the OWS movement talks about are confident that the trade Union leaders will not threaten their privileges, that Labor’s ranks will remain firmly under their control and any movement from below that threatens their policies and wants to democratize the movement will be suppressed. Both the Labor leaders and the Democratic Party fear this movement will get out of hand and will seek to control it.
The rank and file of organized Labor has been betrayed time and time again through the policies of leaders like Applebaum and Trumka. Applebaum says that the OWS movement is “Reaching a lot of people and exciting a lot of people that the labor movement has been struggling to reach for years.”
It is not accurate to say that the Labor movement has been “trying”. The hierarchy doesn’t even try to reach their own members never mind the millions of workers outside the ranks of organized Labor. (Look under “Labor” or “Public Sector” on this blog to read examples of this). When rank and file Union members have attempted to resist the bosses’ offensive, the heads of organized Labor, from the UAW to the public sector Unions and folks like Trumka have moved against them, have suppressed any movement from below that threatens their relationship with the employers that is based on cooperation and Labor peace. Many a rank and file Union activist like this author can relate to the local leader who said that if her international fought the bosses as hard as they fought upstart locals or militancy within their ranks she’d be in good shape.
If we buy in to Applebaum’s argument that the hierarchy has been “trying” to reach people then we can only come to the conclusion that the rank and file in the Unions and the millions outside of organized Labor are to blame. The AFL-CIO leadership has been carrying out campaigns that have been a disastrous failure. They had 100,000 workers on the streets in Madison and what did they do with them? Hey sent them home and told them to get involved in an electoral campaign to elect candidates from the other Wall Street party. In that struggle, the entire AFL-CIO leadership supported concessions.
So while it is very positive the Unions are becoming involved we need to be clear that there is a significant difference between the rank and file of organized Labor and its leadership who will try to control and disarm the OWS movement. Who should be welcomed in to the movement as representatives of organized Labor is not the lawyers, full time staffers and paid professional and other hangers on who help the present Union hierarchy maintain control of the movement and continue their business as usual polices but the rank and file member, the worker, the dues payer of the Labor organization. When “official” representatives of organized Labor become more involved as they will, the General Assemblies should ask if they are rank and file dues paying members and if they were elected by their co-workers or from their local Union halls.
All unemployed workers, shift workers those who have time and resources should, as those resources allow, join the Wall Street Occupy movement and help it grow stronger. It has a great slogan that hits the nail right on the head: We are the 99%------they are the 1%. The movement demands that the banks and the rich pay, all workers can support this. Those of us that support this blog offer for discussion to all workers in the movement some demands that we think would appeal to the vast majority of working class people.
We are against the dictatorship of the profit addicted corporations over American society.
We are for at least a $15.00 minimum wage or a $5.00 wage increase for all whichever is the greater.
We are for equal pay for equal work.
We are for jobs for all
We are for free education and free healthcare for all.
We are against racism and for working class unity.
We are for the building of a working peoples' party to end the monopoly of American politics by the bosses' parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.
See also:
http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
Friday, June 03, 2011
From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-"New York City-Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!"-And Teamsters Organize Those Trucks
Markin comment:
Labor militants-Forget about funding Democratic party campaigns! Forget about pats on the back (really stabs in the back)from Obama! Organize Wal-Mart and raise plenty of dough to do it. And for starters, Teamsters organize those several thousand Wal-Mart trucks that almost endlessly clog up the highways with goods. If you need instruction just go back to your roots in the 1930s when the Trostkyists and other militants organized the over-the-road drivers.
********
Workers Vanguard No. 981
27 May 2011
NYC
Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!
Anti-union colossus Wal-Mart wants to boldly go where it has never gone before: New York City. In response, a coalition led by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and including small business owners, bourgeois politicians, community groups and churches is beseeching the Democrat-led City Council to stop the “invasion” with zoning law changes and other legal obstacles. The interests of the working class and poor are not served by agitating over which capitalist retail chain distributes wares in what market. Instead, labor needs to seize the opportunity of the corporate behemoth’s arrival in one of the most heavily unionized cities in the U.S. and finally begin an aggressive campaign to organize Wal-Mart!
Everyone has heard horror stories about this giant retailer, which, originating in Arkansas, brought the racist, anti-union “open shop” of the Southern bourgeoisie with it as it moved into the rest of the country and a large chunk of the world. (It is currently making a bid to buy South African retailer Massmart.) Off-the-clock overtime, employees locked in overnight, violation of child labor laws, flagrant discrimination against women, racist hiring practices—the list of Wal-Mart crimes grows by the day.
These iniquities, however, do not particularly distinguish Wal-Mart from Home Depot, Target, the German grocer Aldi or, for that matter, small independent grocers. Whatever the difference in scale, each is a capitalist enterprise whose profit is based on the exploitation of labor. Squeezing workers dry is what they do.
The average wage for a full-time Wal-Mart worker in the U.S. in 2008 was $10.86 per hour. Many of the workers who might be able to afford the company’s lousy health plan leave Wal-Mart, which is notorious for its high turnover rate, before they are eligible for the program. Wal-Mart’s poverty-level wages have the effect of driving down wages and working conditions for all workers.
Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, is angling for a space in the Gateway II shopping center in Brooklyn’s East New York ghetto as its entry point into the New York market. Following a well-tested playbook, the company is counting on being positively received by residents, whose access to a variety of goods and lower prices—much less a decent supermarket—is very limited. Unemployment is 13.9 percent in East New York, almost 5 percent higher than the city average, and Wal-Mart is promising jobs to area residents. At the same time, it is appealing to the beleaguered NYC construction trade unions by pledging to build its stores with union labor—before slamming the door on unions once they open.
In the few instances in which local workers have succeeded in organizing a Wal-Mart department or an entire store, the company has picked up its marbles and gone elsewhere. When meat cutters in the Supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas, won union representation, Wal-Mart disbanded its butcher shops nationwide and switched to pre-packaged meats. When workers at the store in Jonquière, Quebec, voted to join the UFCW, the first such success in North America, Wal-Mart closed the store.
In China, a deformed workers state, workers at all Wal-Mart stores are organized by the Stalinist bureaucracy’s trade-union federation. This is doubly ironic. The pro-capitalist labor tops at unions like the UFCW and its Retail, Wholesale and Department store affiliate, who are heading up the “Walmart Free NYC” coalition, have barely lifted a finger to organize the retailer in the U.S. But they sure do blow hard with anti-Communist China-bashing and “America first” protectionist poison (see “Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!” WV No. 851, 8 July 2005).
By focusing on blocking new Wal-Mart stores, in more than one city the labor bureaucracy has found itself opposed by sections of the black and minority population looking for cheaper commodities. But there is a way for the unions to fight for their own interests as well as those of the ghetto and barrio poor: undertaking a massive and combative union organizing drive. Unionizing Wal-Mart will require the kind of hard class struggle that built the country’s CIO unions in the 1930s—mass pickets, occupations and strike action. This militant perspective is utterly counterposed to the “corporate” and “community” campaigns the current labor leadership favors.
What better place to kick off such a drive than New York City, historically a labor stronghold in a state with the highest union membership rate in the country at over 24 percent. Today NYC labor is under attack by a capitalist class that is chalking up one victory after another in its relentless drive to cripple the unions if not destroy them outright. Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council to which “Walmart Free NYC” appeals are busy bashing the teachers and other city workers. A bare-knuckles campaign to organize Wal-Mart combined with vigorous defense of the public employee and construction workers unions now under attack would go a long way to turn this around. Success in the UFCW’s current drive to organize Target stores in the NYC area would be a good start.
Our goal is not just to see WalWal-Mart should be harnessed by a centrally planned economy under workers rule. To this end, there must be a struggle to break the multiracial working class from the capitalist Democratic Party and to build a workers party that fights for a workers government!
Labor militants-Forget about funding Democratic party campaigns! Forget about pats on the back (really stabs in the back)from Obama! Organize Wal-Mart and raise plenty of dough to do it. And for starters, Teamsters organize those several thousand Wal-Mart trucks that almost endlessly clog up the highways with goods. If you need instruction just go back to your roots in the 1930s when the Trostkyists and other militants organized the over-the-road drivers.
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Workers Vanguard No. 981
27 May 2011
NYC
Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!
Anti-union colossus Wal-Mart wants to boldly go where it has never gone before: New York City. In response, a coalition led by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and including small business owners, bourgeois politicians, community groups and churches is beseeching the Democrat-led City Council to stop the “invasion” with zoning law changes and other legal obstacles. The interests of the working class and poor are not served by agitating over which capitalist retail chain distributes wares in what market. Instead, labor needs to seize the opportunity of the corporate behemoth’s arrival in one of the most heavily unionized cities in the U.S. and finally begin an aggressive campaign to organize Wal-Mart!
Everyone has heard horror stories about this giant retailer, which, originating in Arkansas, brought the racist, anti-union “open shop” of the Southern bourgeoisie with it as it moved into the rest of the country and a large chunk of the world. (It is currently making a bid to buy South African retailer Massmart.) Off-the-clock overtime, employees locked in overnight, violation of child labor laws, flagrant discrimination against women, racist hiring practices—the list of Wal-Mart crimes grows by the day.
These iniquities, however, do not particularly distinguish Wal-Mart from Home Depot, Target, the German grocer Aldi or, for that matter, small independent grocers. Whatever the difference in scale, each is a capitalist enterprise whose profit is based on the exploitation of labor. Squeezing workers dry is what they do.
The average wage for a full-time Wal-Mart worker in the U.S. in 2008 was $10.86 per hour. Many of the workers who might be able to afford the company’s lousy health plan leave Wal-Mart, which is notorious for its high turnover rate, before they are eligible for the program. Wal-Mart’s poverty-level wages have the effect of driving down wages and working conditions for all workers.
Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, is angling for a space in the Gateway II shopping center in Brooklyn’s East New York ghetto as its entry point into the New York market. Following a well-tested playbook, the company is counting on being positively received by residents, whose access to a variety of goods and lower prices—much less a decent supermarket—is very limited. Unemployment is 13.9 percent in East New York, almost 5 percent higher than the city average, and Wal-Mart is promising jobs to area residents. At the same time, it is appealing to the beleaguered NYC construction trade unions by pledging to build its stores with union labor—before slamming the door on unions once they open.
In the few instances in which local workers have succeeded in organizing a Wal-Mart department or an entire store, the company has picked up its marbles and gone elsewhere. When meat cutters in the Supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas, won union representation, Wal-Mart disbanded its butcher shops nationwide and switched to pre-packaged meats. When workers at the store in Jonquière, Quebec, voted to join the UFCW, the first such success in North America, Wal-Mart closed the store.
In China, a deformed workers state, workers at all Wal-Mart stores are organized by the Stalinist bureaucracy’s trade-union federation. This is doubly ironic. The pro-capitalist labor tops at unions like the UFCW and its Retail, Wholesale and Department store affiliate, who are heading up the “Walmart Free NYC” coalition, have barely lifted a finger to organize the retailer in the U.S. But they sure do blow hard with anti-Communist China-bashing and “America first” protectionist poison (see “Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!” WV No. 851, 8 July 2005).
By focusing on blocking new Wal-Mart stores, in more than one city the labor bureaucracy has found itself opposed by sections of the black and minority population looking for cheaper commodities. But there is a way for the unions to fight for their own interests as well as those of the ghetto and barrio poor: undertaking a massive and combative union organizing drive. Unionizing Wal-Mart will require the kind of hard class struggle that built the country’s CIO unions in the 1930s—mass pickets, occupations and strike action. This militant perspective is utterly counterposed to the “corporate” and “community” campaigns the current labor leadership favors.
What better place to kick off such a drive than New York City, historically a labor stronghold in a state with the highest union membership rate in the country at over 24 percent. Today NYC labor is under attack by a capitalist class that is chalking up one victory after another in its relentless drive to cripple the unions if not destroy them outright. Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council to which “Walmart Free NYC” appeals are busy bashing the teachers and other city workers. A bare-knuckles campaign to organize Wal-Mart combined with vigorous defense of the public employee and construction workers unions now under attack would go a long way to turn this around. Success in the UFCW’s current drive to organize Target stores in the NYC area would be a good start.
Our goal is not just to see WalWal-Mart should be harnessed by a centrally planned economy under workers rule. To this end, there must be a struggle to break the multiracial working class from the capitalist Democratic Party and to build a workers party that fights for a workers government!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The Latest From The “Jobs For Justice ” Website-Tell Walmart: Intervene Before Labor Activists Are Sentenced to Death
Click on the headline to link to the Jobs For Justice website.
Tell Walmart: Intervene Before Labor Activists Are Sentenced to Death
By jwjnational, on May 18th, 2011
In Bangladesh, the minimum wage for a garment worker is a mere $43 per month. This equals 20 cents an hour– the lowest wage, by far, of any major garment producing country. Walmart is the leading exporter of these garments.
When Bangladeshi workers staged protests demanding a livable wage, factory owners responded with fabricated criminal charges against three labor leaders from the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity: Kalpona Akter, Babul Akhter, and Aminul Islam. These three organizers spent 30 days in jail, where they were threatened and tortured. They are now free on bail; however, the falsified charges against them remain. If convicted, they face possible life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
ACT NOW!
As the largest buyer of Bangladeshi-made clothing, Walmart has the power to ensure that Bangladeshi garment workers who face poverty wages and abusive conditions can stand up for their rights without risking harassment, imprisonment and torture.
Ask Walmart to tell its suppliers that have instigated false charges against labor leaders that those charges must be dropped; that the officers responsible for torturing these individuals must be held accountable; and that labor rights defenders like the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity must be allowed to operate freely.
Some cases are scheduled to be decided in a 60-day tribunal, which could start any day. Please take action by May 31st!
Tell Walmart: Intervene Before Labor Activists Are Sentenced to Death
By jwjnational, on May 18th, 2011
In Bangladesh, the minimum wage for a garment worker is a mere $43 per month. This equals 20 cents an hour– the lowest wage, by far, of any major garment producing country. Walmart is the leading exporter of these garments.
When Bangladeshi workers staged protests demanding a livable wage, factory owners responded with fabricated criminal charges against three labor leaders from the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity: Kalpona Akter, Babul Akhter, and Aminul Islam. These three organizers spent 30 days in jail, where they were threatened and tortured. They are now free on bail; however, the falsified charges against them remain. If convicted, they face possible life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
ACT NOW!
As the largest buyer of Bangladeshi-made clothing, Walmart has the power to ensure that Bangladeshi garment workers who face poverty wages and abusive conditions can stand up for their rights without risking harassment, imprisonment and torture.
Ask Walmart to tell its suppliers that have instigated false charges against labor leaders that those charges must be dropped; that the officers responsible for torturing these individuals must be held accountable; and that labor rights defenders like the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity must be allowed to operate freely.
Some cases are scheduled to be decided in a 60-day tribunal, which could start any day. Please take action by May 31st!
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Photos/Video-April 4 Labor Rally,Boston, On Anniv. Of Martin Luther King's Assassination
Click on the headline to link to Photos/Video-April 4 Labor Rally,Boston, On Anniv. Of Martin Luther King's Assassination by Michael Borkson
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