nlrb at Brave New Films

Fed Up With Fed Ex Union Busting!

2008-10-21T09:30:23Z

Ok, I had a long post on this last week, that magically got zapped by the computer genie (or NSA). As it has taken me this long to get back to it, let me just give the key details.

American Rights at Work and the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights recently released a joint report pulling together FedEx's long anti-union history, as well as new civil rights violations from a variety of court cases.

During the holiday season they're targeting FedEx Ground's unionbusting campaign. What this means, practically, is that they have asked online activists to pledge not to ship their holiday gifts with FedEx, and instead ship with union workers like UPS or USPS. You can find out more about this campaign here.

One more thing, they also have a new site, Eye On The NLRB, or National Labor Relations Board. The government agency that is supposed to protect workers, and yet, under GOP stewards, has rolled back decades of union progress.

Watch the video and check out the sites!

Watch the video

Wal-Mart Breaks The Law, Gets Punished, Wins Anyway

2008-03-22T21:54:33Z

Yes, our favorite slave-labor corporate bathhouse achieves ignominy once again (Note: The video is from the show Walmartopia, which happens to be both excellent and right on the money--see it if you're in New York)!

Here is how Wal-Mart, at a cost of a couple of thousand dollars, illegally beat back an attempt to unionize its stores in Nevada:
Seven years ago, as Wal-Mart corporate executives proclaimed Nevada ground zero in a n attempt to battle unionizing the giant retailer, three workers at Wal-Mart stores in Southern Nevada took the first steps toward organizing. Avis Hammond, Norine Sorensen and Diana Griego talked to fellow employees about the union and passed out fliers in front of stores, activities clearly allowed under federal labor laws.
Management stepped in. The three employees were told to stop. They were questioned, threatened and insulted, according to later findings by the government. Wal-Mart stripped one worker of his union fliers and denied another a promotion.
The union seeking to represent workers asked for help from the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with enforcing labor law. The workers wanted Wal-Mart to act within the law so they could continue to try to organize.
That was in 2000.
Last month - seven years, two months and seven days after the first charge was filed - the NLRB issued its ruling: Wal-Mart acted illegally.
The punishment: The retailer must pay lost wages to one of the employees, which apparently comes to a few thousand dollars. It also must post notices in its three stores disclosing its federal labor law violations.
The outcome: The union has long since given up trying to organize from within the stores. The three workers quit the company.

Welcome to Republican economics 101: How to see if we can reach back far enough so that our worker standards are roughly equal to those in Angola. Can't the damn government move faster than it takes Larry Craig to use a public restroom? Unfreakinbelievable.

So what happens next, when nothing is done about the Wal-Marts of the world? Well, the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow. We become two different societies. And the one at the bottom eventually engages in coordinated acts of violence, also known as revolution, against the elites in control. It has only happened like 16,457 times in the history of the world. So, yeah, Condi might consider this a "historical document," but others might see some value in analyzing it.

For even if these corporate jackwads are so greedy as to wish to deny the most basic rights to their workers, don't you think they might be smart enough to realize this?

Don't bother answering.

We all can hear the response in Rush's Oxycontined-intonation if we use just an ounce of imagination.

Wal-Mart Breaks The Law, Gets Punished, Wins Anyway

2008-11-11T13:47:08Z

Here is how Wal-Mart, at a cost of a couple of thousand dollars, illegally beat back an attempt to unionize its stores in Nevada:
Seven years ago, as Wal-Mart corporate executives proclaimed Nevada ground zero in a n attempt to battle unionizing the giant retailer, three workers at Wal-Mart stores in Southern Nevada took the first steps toward organizing. Avis Hammond, Norine Sorensen and Diana Griego talked to fellow employees about the union and passed out fliers in front of stores, activities clearly allowed under federal labor laws.
Management stepped in. The three employees were told to stop. They were questioned, threatened and insulted, according to later findings by the government. Wal-Mart stripped one worker of his union fliers and denied another a promotion.
The union seeking to represent workers asked for help from the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with enforcing labor law. The workers wanted Wal-Mart to act within the law so they could continue to try to organize.
That was in 2000.
Last month - seven years, two months and seven days after the first charge was filed - the NLRB issued its ruling: Wal-Mart acted illegally.
The punishment: The retailer must pay lost wages to one of the employees, which apparently comes to a few thousand dollars. It also must post notices in its three stores disclosing its federal labor law violations.
The outcome: The union has long since given up trying to organize from within the stores. The three workers quit the company.

For even if these corporate jackwads are so greedy as to wish to deny the most basic rights to their workers, don't you think they might be smart enough to realize this?

Don't bother answering.

We all can hear the response in Rush's Oxycontined-intonation if we use just an ounce of imagination.

Watch the video

Busting A Union Buster

2008-10-20T09:30:07Z

Watch the video