Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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August 15, 2008 2:44 PM
Workers Unionize Wal-Mart
Good news from Quebec:
GATINEAU, Quebec -- A handful of workers in the automotive department of a Wal-Mart Canada store have become the only North American employees of the giant retailer to be covered by a union contract.
The fight ain't over yet, though. Read the whole story here.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
While attending school in Los Angeles, I got lucky and had a part-time job working 36 hours a week, doing twelve hour shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, 12pm-12am. Even though the job was part of a management training program; learning the job from the ground up; the union (AFL/Sheet Metal Workers) required that when working in union positions, that we become union members. Okay, and since the job paid $15 an hour, and this was in 1960.
Not only were we required to be union members, but the company involved had been forced to hire "management trainees", at the top of the union scale, in order to increase production which was lagging since the union refused to allow an expansion of the regular workforce without re-negotiation of the AFL controlled contract process.
Four of us worked this weekend shift and the management supervisor, only present during a part of our shift on Fridays, but not at all on Saturdays or Sundays, highlighted the need for parts and gave us copies of the companies increased production incentives. After that first Friday, we rately saw the company manager, since the production warehouse was seperate from the offices.
The first night was orientation and showing how the equipment was used, and paperwork along with plenty of bs time.
On the first real workday, the union foreman again showed the operation of one of the machines, and then gave us a quota parts to produce in the next four hours. Working carefully and with unfamiliar equipment, the quota was filled in a little over two hours. Then, after the four hours (and the two hours of bs time from the first job) we were switched to another machine and given another quota for four hours, and so forth. All of the assignments were easily accomplished in about 2/3 of the time given.
The next week, the quota was again given by the union supervisor and was slightly more, but still easily accomplished in from half to two-thirds of the time given. It would be the quota from then on out.
Well, I took the opportunity to get in about 1/3 more than quota on each of the four parts/machines I was assigned. I was proud of myself and the good job I was doing for the company; along with the extra cash I was racking-up. Nothing was said for two weeks - until payday.
At that time, the union foreman counseled me, when he handed out the checks and said, "Good job, but this shows up the union and makes contract negotiations difficult. So difficult, that if you continue to put out more than the quota I give you, some friends of the union will see that you won't put out any more parts ... period."
I gave the company my two weeks notice and reasons, worked my ass off for that time and more than doubled my pay. When the foreman gave me my final check, I told him that if his "union friends" were waiting, they'd better bring guns. No one bothered me when I left work on that final night.
As supercilious as Canada has acted towards the USA in most things cultural and political, I can't find enough anger to wish union terrorism on them, and which is inevitable from this form of socialism.
After I graduated college, I got a job in the records department of a insurance company. My job was making copies of records stored on microfiche. It was a mindless, repetitive job, but I was young and wanted to prove myself to my bosses. I quickly became far more efficient than the other workers, some who had done this job for 20 years.
My point? When you first start out on that kind of work, it is very easy to outperform the people who have been doing it for 20 years. Why? Because they've been doing mindless, boring work for 20 years! They're burned out, have little motivation, and little chance of success elsewhere. If you stayed there yourself, you would be exactly the same way given enough time.
So, then you get into a groove after a few years. The company is happy at your production. You don't feel like you're grinding yourself down. In fact, you can halfway live with the mindless work. Then, a fresh, young worker comes in thinking they're hot stuff because they can work faster than everyone else. Your thought? They're fast now, but let's see them in 5 years - they won't be so fast then.
"When you first start out on that kind of work, it is very easy to outperform the people who have been doing it for 20 years."
The union wanted the company to hire a certain level of workforce and ignored the program, available to all production workers, which provided extra pay for extra production over union standards.
The union enforced their production schedule, denying the ability for any production worker to make extra money, and thereby denying increased profit to the company during a time when the entire produced could be sold. All that political progressiveness conducted by terrorism, and in order to deny increased profits to both company and workers.
I've had other union positions where the same efforts are made to thwart company profits and to demand benefits even before inflation increases the bottom line; even if it isn't an adjusted increase in profits.
They don't need to break but a few arms and, or legs, and it isn't *ever* done in front of cameras ... besides the mainstream media is in their (union) pocket and systematically fail to report union 'excesses'.
Sorry tadowe, you really went off the deep end on that last post. To say the mainstream media is in the pocket of the unions is plainly a bunch of nonsense considering the media are huge corporations owned and operated by wealthy Republicans.
As for the rest of your post, companies have a greater history of breaking arms and legs of workers, shooting workers, killing workers, locking workers in shops, making workers work 7 days a week for 12 hour days at slave wages, making children work, and worse.
Wal-Mart is one of the corporations involved in attempting to discredit unions. That's because if unions formed in their stores they would -gasp- have to pay more for wages. Since they would still have to compete on price, Wal-Mart would be unable to pay for these wage increases by increasing the prices that customers pay. The way that Wal-Mart would have to pay for these wage increases for workers would be by decreasing the million-dollar salaries and perks for executives. And of course, executives don't want that happening.
So, these executives fund lawyers and other shills to discredit union involvement. In fact, your posts read like the typical nonsense of these anti-union trolls.
Who's writing your paycheck? Wal-Mart?
we need an internatioanle socialist revolution
dont worry about tadowe, he is a corporate puppet. he plays the typical halftruth republican card of saying unions are bad and out of touch. well, while that may be true of today's unions, that does not mean that UNIONISM itslef is bad
Chris shows the typical leftist sympathy, "Sorry tadowe, you really went off the deep end on that last post. To say the mainstream media is in the pocket of the unions is plainly a bunch of nonsense considering the media are huge corporations owned and operated by wealthy Republicans."
And, don't want their "arm" broken by the unions in whatever locality might take exception to their tactics. However, this is a partisan effort to support a large voting constituency and fueled by the bias of "news personnel" who have been shown in studies to be in the vast majority Democrats, or professed liberals ... aka progressives.
For example, if Obama was a Republican, you wouldn't be able to stop the media from blasting his roots, knowledge and poor record of experience. Like they did with Romney, in concert with the Democrat propagandists, Obama's religious affiliations would get scrutiny from the mainstream, instead of just rightwing radio!
"... companies have a greater history of breaking arms and legs of workers, shooting workers, killing workers, locking workers in shops, making workers work 7 days a week for 12 hour days at slave wages, making children work, and worse."
BS! Prepare to have the arm broken of anyone blocking my doorway! A union blocking a production plant isn't some legal entity, and since it is a mob denying the rights of corporations and, or other non-union workers! They are the proximate cause of the start of any such "terrorism" and should be arrested and fined for their assault(s) in doing so.
"Wal-Mart is one of the corporations involved in attempting to discredit unions."
So? They don't want the future of the mercantile industry to be entirely Chinese, as the Democrats support in forcing industry after industry out of business for unionization. "Outsourcing" in the auto industry is a de facto result of union parasitism. Only drastic re-adjustments in union contracts has kept them afloat until now, and still stifle them to near bankruptcy. Unions want to do the same to ALL capitalistic efforts, and which cause will be to effect the mass exodus of all industry from the newborn socialist/progressive nation this country will have become.
Walmart, though, is far more than that -- it is a business that provides relatively inexpensive goods to the nation via capitalism, free-enterprise and is a business that outperforms the government in its various services to the public; notwithstanding inexpensive goods. That success of capitalism frightens the socialists and turns a successful US business into a target for destruction by negative propaganda (see above or any 'progressive' site ... all mention evil Walmart) and a target for unionization as the long-term solution (perhaps changing it into an American GUM with only 11 wide shoes for the ration card).
"That's because if unions formed in their stores they would -gasp- have to pay more for wages."
They know not of what they speak.
That goes for all you leftist haters of the success of a US business ... probably all ubuntu fanatics, too ...
tadowe's remarks show how far people in this couontry are willing to go to screw themselves over.
when he says walmart does not want the whole industry to go chinese, he means he wants americans to accept the same low standards the chinese do. effectiveley ,then, if we accept their standards, and the industry comes back to america (w/o unions), then we ARE like chinese anyway
and when he shits all that crap about dems forcing business out ofo america, that is code speak for "hey all you stupid little americans: accept bad standards in the workplace or tough!" typical rightist blackmail
the truth is that it is the greed and drive for super profits that took the business from america; watch moore's roger & me
and unlike some of the leftist cowards here, i am not afraid to admit to being a redistributionist communist
oh well, i am so far to the left (i am a trotskyist and believer in permanent revolution) that i would rather debate within the leftist movement rather than debate a brainless rightist
i want small profits and BIGTIME redistribution to the lazy, smelly, trashy, working masses!!
VIVA TROTSKY and LENIN and MARX and DEBS and GOLDMAN and MIKE MOORE!!!!!
redistribute, cha CHA! redistribute CHA!
LONG LIVE COMMUNISM (in its genuine form, not in the corrupted korean and stalinist form)!!!!
I said: "when he says walmart does not want the whole industry to go chinese, he means he wants americans to accept the same low standards the chinese do. effectiveley ,then, if we accept their standards, and the industry comes back to america (w/o unions), then we ARE like chinese anyway"
add: and if the business came back to america on tadowe's terms, then there would be no point to it being american anyway
what people at sirotablog don't get is that we have to go beyond just keeping industry in america. we also have to change to world - we have to socialize the means of production and institute a dictatorshiop of the proletariat
talk to me for more info
"...(saying)... walmart does not want the whole industry to go chinese, he means he wants americans to accept the same low standards the chinese do."
Thanks for your effort to misdirect my comment and turn it into your strawman. I meant that if Walmart unionized, that they would become another American enterprise which became too expensive, due to forced wages and benefits, and extorted out of business, or marginalized as the union has done to every single American industry/enterprise it has strongarmed.
" ... then, if we accept their standards, and the industry comes back to america (w/o unions), then we ARE like chinese anyway."
Unreal twist on reality, and since the Chinese ARE a nation where all industry/enterprise is forcibly unionized, and with the union chain of command ending at the premier of the People's Republic of China. They are so unionized by government decree, that Walmart will HAVE to accept Chinese unions if they want to do business there! (Not that they can really compete except by selling American goods and services ...
...meanwhile the American left militate to force all the nation into Chinese-like unionization, while they lie through their teeth about it ...
Workplace standards and regulations aren't any part of unionization, except that that form of government control can be used to hinder a business that the government takes a "dislike" for. Now, of course, the union supporting Democrat party is intent on defaming Walmart, harming their reputation, so that when the government assists unionization, and the stock loses value, the Chinese can buy the company; making unions overjoyed at the march to communism they have socialistically assisted.
"... the truth is that it is the greed and drive for super profits that took the business from america; watch moore's roger & me"
That's funny, that a film producer and director is taken as some sort of expert on American industry/enterprise, and who completely ignores the "why" greater profits are available by moving production overseas, while he sows class hatred for the "evil rich". Of course, that includes millions of American stockholders, retirement funds including the union's funds and many other businesses who invest as part of their practices (banks, credit unions, mortgage brokers, etc.). So Americans hate other Americans for investing in American business - that's American socialism: sowing class hatred for fellow Americans while they drive capitalism into the 3d World, where it can be easily defeated.
"... unlike some of the leftist cowards here, i am not afraid to admit to being a redistributionist communist."
Being outfront about your ideology doesn't justify it. That takes reasonable argument supported by facts and experience; however circumstantial. Unfortunately, socialism (or its ideal of communism) has always failed as a governing ideal when practiced past the social level of "cult".
For that matter, only the US form of democracy has lasted as long as it has in history, and because pure democracy becomes, for a very short time, communism. When that communism is democratically ruled, it is destroyed economically by the democracy voting itself more and more benefits until it is broken. When that communism is ruled despotically, and by either a tyrant or committee, it becomes a Stalinist USSR or People's Republic of China ...
That's what "honest" socialism wants: democratic mob rule, or tyranny. The dream of a perfectly happy and contented world ignores reality, because it won't happen ... ever!
"oh well, i am so far to the left (i am a trotskyist and believer in permanent revolution)"
Trotsky stood in the way to the perfection of socialism/communism in the USSR, and so he was murdered in exile by socialist. Now, socialists are trying to bury a pickaxe into the head of another American business ... to advance the cause of American socialization in unionization.
Meanwhile, that effort of unions and Democrats continues to force business out of the USA as they ignore reality for the hope of some gemlike, fantasy future where there is a chicken-in-every-hospital-bed ...
"Unreal twist on reality, and since the Chinese ARE a nation where all industry/enterprise is forcibly unionized, and with the union chain of command ending at the premier of the People's Republic of China. They are so unionized by government decree, that Walmart will HAVE to accept Chinese unions if they want to do business there! (Not that they can really compete except by selling American goods and services ..."
bullshit. you know as well as I that china is pseudocommunist, that it is powered by market forces, and that its unions are a joke
"Being outfront about your ideology doesn't justify it. That takes reasonable argument supported by facts and experience; however circumstantial. Unfortunately, socialism (or its ideal of communism) has always failed as a governing ideal when practiced past the social level of "cult"."
i am WAY past trying to argue reasonably with people like yourself
"Trotsky stood in the way to the perfection of socialism/communism in the USSR, and so he was murdered in exile by socialist. Now, socialists are trying to bury a pickaxe into the head of another American business ... to advance the cause of American socialization in unionization."
so now you are trying to make trotsky into one of your rightwing folk heros and victims of socialist violence; funny considering he was a strong bolshevik-leninist himself and would never align with the likes of you or rightism; regardless of what you think of trotsky, he was a socialist hero of the highest order; and despite your trying to label trostsky a VICTIM of socialism, the truth is quite 180 from what you say; the truth is that he was murdered by FAKEsocialists PRECISELY BECAUSE he represented TRUE socialism: international permanent revolutionary socialism
trotsky was a pusher of socialism, not a victim of it
and yes i believe in working towards the communist ideal, because it is the only way we can achieve equality for the human race, and the only way to force concessions from the elite
trotsky was not murdered by socialists, he was murdered because he WAS a true socialist
you see, the stalinists and hujintaoists of the world, despite communist rhetoric, are just like the bloody capitalist cia
okay, maybe i am spending too much time arguing rationally with you and your heritage foundation crap. i said i was past such argument with rightwingers, but i guess i am a liar and hypocrite. god, it's like i know i can't argue rationallly with you, but i do it anyway!! i gotta stop~!!!!!!!!!!!
workers of the world unite
"bullshit. you know as well as I that china is pseudocommunist, that it is powered by market forces, and that its unions are a joke"
Oh? Of course, that has been the status, however frighteningly terroristic, of every "communism" since time immemorial, or recorded history at any case. "Pseudocommunism" is exactly correct, because true communism is an idealistic, utopian state which is unattainable in reality. As already mentioned, there has been *NO* socialistic success in history, because it fails in the face of capitalistic comptetition and, or attempts some sort of RobinHood kind of economics which fails as it drives investment out of that nation.
"i am WAY past trying to argue reasonably with people like yourself"
I mention the fact that no successful socialism or communism has existed in history past the level of social organization labeled, Cult, and this socialist refuses to defend his ideology ... typical anti-intellectualism employed as they revile "intellectuals" and the "rich".
"so now you are trying to make trotsky into one of your rightwing folk heros and victims of socialist violence ..."
Not at all, Mr. Misdirection, I stated plainly and outfront that Trotsky was murdered by socialists because he stood in the way of "communism". That highlights the fact that socialists are ends-justify-the-means amoralists and sociopaths who care nothing for their fellow human beings lives if it stands in the way of their communistic ideology.
That's what I said and inferred.
"trotsky was a pusher of socialism, not a victim of it"
Liar, liar, pants on fire ...
"... yes i believe in working towards the communist ideal, because it is the only way we can achieve equality for the human race, and the only way to force concessions from the elite"
The *ONLY* way that communism will ever succeed is if mankind invents matter duplication ... enough said ... ufta ...
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