The local school district called parents this weekend to remind them that today is a regular school day. Parents of school-aged children, teachers and support staff can forget about a long weekend. A local editorial here (BCS Eagle) claims "Today, and every day, we salute America's workers." But that salute does not include an extra day off.
Last year, the same paper ran a special opinion piece (BCS Eagle2) by Mark Mix, of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Mix believes that union membership has ruined American productivity. He works tirelessly to suppress labor unions throughout the country while claiming to be protecting people's right to work.
Today's New York Times tells the story of a Brooklyn company, Agriprocessors. The company claims that their workers cannot join a union because they are illegal immigrants. Of course, the company does not mind if the workers want to join the labor union that it endorses. Agriprocessors also wants the U.S. Supreme Court to change its own 1984 decision that illegal immigrants could join unions. The short version: Agriprocessors wants to have its cake and eat it too.
Agriprocessors is the world's largest kosher meatpacking company. It market share is so great that shutting down its Iowa plant caused shortages of kosher meats all over the country. Workers complain that it does not pay overtime, sells jobs, and disregards their safety. Animal-rights advocates have forced it to change the way it slaughters cattle. Immigration officials have raided it and found underage workers and illegal immigrants working there, and Conservative Jewish organizations have called on it to address these problems without any success. The company can certainly treat its workers humanely and maintain profits, but it chooses not to. Is it any wonder that employees want to join a union?
This company's union-busting tactics are as transparent as they are unconscionable, but a larger problem looms. Agriprocessors' dealings with labor illustrate six of Laurence Britt's fourteen points of fascism (14 points). Fascist societies suppress labor and protect corporate power. They ignore human rights and blame their troubles on scapegoats. Corruption and cronyism run riot in fascist societies. Fascist elections are a joke.
Agriprocessors hires illegal immigrants, denies them labor protections, and then claims that they had no idea the workers were illegal. Illegal immigrants are our national scapegoats. For Agriprocessors, they are the best possible workers from the employer standpoint. These people are unlikely to make waves, have little power, and everyone hates them. If Agriprocessors gets the Supreme Court to disenfranchise these workers further, they push them into de facto serfdom. Agriprocessors can ignore their human rights to reasonable pay or a safe working environment. They can suppress any move toward unionization, and fulfill another fascist tenet-protecting corporate power.
The Brooklyn workers voted to join a union, but the company claims that the election is invalid because of the illegal status of the workers. It sounds like the election is invalid because the company does not like the outcome. The workers complained that managers sold jobs, an example of cronyism and corruption if ever I saw one.
Twenty-two states in this country have right-to-work laws. These laws make it difficult, if not impossible, for workers to unionize. Rather than protecting workers, they protect employers by making union-busting acceptable.
Employers who wish to avoid having union shops can do so by treating their employees fairly and well. A two-call survey of the companies (Donnelley and Agriprocessors) revealed something interesting: R.R. Donnelley employees have the day off. Agriprocessors' meat cutters are at work today.
R.R. Donnelley & Son, the world's largest printer manages a worldwide workforce of 60,000 employees without labor unions. Their secret? It is such a great place to work that no one needs a union. Now why didn't Agriprocessors think of that?
<b><i>The Handbasket Chronicles,</i> a weekly column by Ann Weaver Hart, appears on Monday evenings, and consists of commentary on political and social issues.</b>
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Comments: 21
It saddens me that there are people who don't get holidays off. I feel there are certain American holidays everyone should get paid for and get to enjoy with family or friends.
People don't give a damn about workers in this country. They want the grocery open on Thanksgiving and the mall open on the 4th of July.
It is not really that hard to understand. The wingnuts have always been fond of naming a program the exact opposite of what it really does.
Need examples? OK:
The Clear Skies Act increased the amount of pollution allowed by large industry.
The Patriot Act effectively shredded the Constitution.
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Everyone who has a job now is earning less and working harder. Our GM pension is in danger and benefits are reduced each year. I guess Right to Fire and Rip Off Employees is a better name than Right to Work.
Your article is Featured in the Triple Name Club.
Personally, I don't celebrate labor day by going away, we are always too busy getting ready for school and college. It is nice to drink in a sunny day, though.
By calling a pig in a poke a jewel does not make it so...but then listen to what has come out of the White House for the last eight years...we didn't have Global Warming, we had Climate Change as well as so many other words that have less of an alarm to them when they are said. They used words with less stress to them words that don't make you sit up and say what is going on here...well, for most they don't say that they just let them do and say what they will...
I don't have a lot of time left on this planet but what little time I do have left I would like to be able to not have to worry that next month if something happens I may have to go without eating because I can't afford anything more than what I get on a fixed income. And they want to privatize that as well...give Social Security to the private sector meaning make another rich cat richer and not give those who have paid into S.S. their whole life enough to live on...
They sit in their insulated offices and I don't mean just from the heat and cold but from seeing and feeling what is happening to their fellow country men/women. They don't care as long as they make more money...more than enough money to live on for centuries not just for their life times...greed!!!
I'm going to eat breakfast and go to try to sleep for a while...if I can calm down now...
:O\
- a 9% pay raise (currently being offered a 3.4% raise -- I'm guessing we'll meet somewhere in the middle)
- 3 weeks paid paternity leave (currently mothers get 12 weeks paid maternity leave, but fathers only get 2 weeks unpaid leave unless they're the primary care-giver)
- time-and-a-half on Saturdays and double-time on Sundays for all staff (currently most staff get these pay bonuses if they work weekends, but not all)
- better access to on-site child care for all staff who need it
We're never going to get these benefits if we don't ask for them. We may not get all of them anyway, and there may be very valid reasons for that, but I think it's worth putting them on the negotiating table, listening to those reasons, and then working to come to an agreement that all parties can live with. So that's one of the reasons I support my union.Thanks for the fascinating read.