[lit-ideas] Re: 500,000

  • From: Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:01:41 -0800

Paul wrote:
"...why hasn't anyone successfully organized a union at
Wal-mart?"

ck: I don't want to trim your post of its outrage. Let it stand and holler. 
I'm with you here. So are some union-organizing people I know in Los 
Angeles, btw. Elsewhere, too, I'm sure. You (and the film, from what I've 
heard of it) make one excellent point: workers at Wal-Mart, earning so 
little already, have very little to lose by trying to unionize--again and 
again until they succeed. (This wasn't the case with higher-paid aircraft 
workers at United Airlines, for example, who got downsized out of decent 
salaries. See last Sunday's NYT feature.) Yeahbut...

You and I may think they have nothing much to lose, but in towns where 
Wal-Mart has a real stronghold--those smaller cities--there's hardly another 
place to work in retail. And then there's the reality of blacklisting. 
What's really scary, at least to me, is that trying to unionize workers is 
and has been a firing offense at major US newspapers for at least 20 years 
now. Think about that for a second. Then ask yourself how the union movement 
can possibly succeed at a time when the media outlets are patently 
anti-union.

Carol





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Stone" <pas@xxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 6:59 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: 500,000


>
>>US: There is something so dangerously wrong in your country.  And the 
>>whirlwind you are allowing to be sown might blow us all away.
>
> Last week, I watched a movie called "the Weather Underground" about a 
> group of sixties radicals called 'the weathermen' (they didn't need to be 
> told or tell people which way the wind blows -- from Dylan). Without 
> getting into the details of the various battles they waged, or indeed, the 
> possibly nefarious ways [depending on your political beliefs] in which 
> they waged them, I have to say that the thought that recurred to me over 
> and over was "it's EVEN WORSE now" and "there's certainly no movement to 
> 'overthrow the US government' " at a time (now) when surely it needs 
> overthrowing. Where are the balls of the American people? Aren't there ANY 
> radicals out there? Why not? As Carol asked, why can't they march in 
> groups of 500,000 for something other than the immigration rights? How 
> about standing up for themselves?
>
> But, in a nation as apparently 'mad' as it is, where are the Fred 
> Hamptons, the David Gilberts, the Billy Ayers, the Naomi Jaffes, the 
> Bernardine Dohrns?
>
> I watched another documentary called "Walmart: The High Cost of Low 
> Prices" and was astounded at the reports of the anti-union process that 
> [allegedly] goes on in these stores. Numerous people mentioned being fired 
> for talking to too many other employees when the management feared an 
> orgainizing faction being set in motion. Do people have no imagination? In 
> a time of unprecedented technical advances that allow almost completely 
> covert action by ordinary citizens, why hasn't anyone successfully 
> organized a union at Wal-mart? WHY is it [the kind of behaviour that is 
> widely reported in Walmart management] allowed to continue?
>
> When are "the people" going to really take it back to the streets? In some 
> ways, this thirty years later bodes even worse for Americans. I think the 
> difference between the 60s and now is that the FUNDAMENTAL sea-change that 
> happened back then is that enough of WHITE America stood up and protested 
> even though they weren't getting screwed by the system. Now... even white 
> America IS getting screwed by the system, but it's almost as if there is a 
> willing suspension of disbelief by the middle class, as they slip farther 
> and farther into debt and miss more and more pay increases, that they ARE 
> getting screwed. When will they wake up and smell the mochachino non-fat 
> latte?*
>
> Paul
>
> *paraphrased (i.e.stolen) from Denis Leary
>
> ##########
> Paul Stone
> pas@xxxxxxxx
> Kingsville, ON, Canada
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