2 pickets face charges in attack

[demdave]

CHULA VISTA – Two locked-out supermarket union members are facing charges in the beating of a replacement worker with a baseball bat last week.
Simon Jose Thompson, 33, and Charles Matthew Olvera, 27, both of Chula Vista, remained in jail yesterday on suspicion of assault and conspiracy, California Highway Patrol spokesman Mark Gregg said.

One of the men then struck the replacement worker in the face and chest with a baseball bat. The other man punched the replacement worker, Gregg said. The two men also knocked out the back windows of the replacement worker's car


http://signonsandiego.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&expire=&urlID=8017787&fb=Y&partnerID=621

[Mountainman]

1. That doesn't say goods things for the union, They will lose sympathy

[Must_B_Free]

2. Just shows how hard people are willing to fight

for healthcare

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. Not very hard apperently

Two against one. With a weapon. Their parents must be proud.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Violence against scabs is not uncommon...

or unexpected in a strike. It's unfortunate, but the idea of a strike is to make it damn near impossible for a company to do business as per normal.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. But that violence is not justified

What would the reactuon of DUers be if the management had done this to one of the strikers?

[bluestateguy]

4. Had these workers respected the pickett line, this would not have happened

I do not condone violence, and I think these attackers should be punished, but sometimes people bring unfortunate actions on themselves.

[no one in particular]

6. Disgusting.

"Had these workers respected the pickett line, this would not have happened."

There is no law saying anyone has to "respect" a picket line.

The union may have legitimate gripes with the stores, but anyone who would do this is just a common thug. The person they beat up was just trying to earn a living, like the rest of us.

These morans should be beat with a baseball bat by the victim as punishment.

[jiacinto]

7. I don't approve of union violence

Sorry, I have no sympathy for those who attacked the replacement worker. I don't. I understand the issues at stake, but there is no excuse for violence at all. That person didn't deserve it.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. If management had been accused of the same thing

I'm sure that everyone here at DU would be ging them the benefit of the doubt, right?

[GregW]

5. One of the reasons I detest unions

Sorry to be of the extreme minority here, but what right do these supermarket workers have to impair MY ability to buy groceries, or dictate who can or cannot do the work they chose not to because they want to strike.

One of the reasons I left Australia is because the freaking POWER workers went on strike and our state had widespread blackouts. My company (retailer) ended up getting screwed because we couldn't open our stores. We tried to bring generators in but the truck drivers honored the pickets and wouldn't cross the border with the generators. A whole state got fucked because some coal loaders had a beef with management. I thought things would be different in America.

Now ... some grocery workers have a beef (and it's probably legitimate) and they decide the way to enforce it is to beat up some poor guy trying to make a living just like them.

:eyes:

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. i Just hadda jump in here - main problems are MANAGEMENT

. . Hamilton, Ontario has two major steel companies, Stelco, and Dofasco - Stelco is Unionized, Dofasco is NOT, and they are but city blocks apart

Stelco gets strikes on a regular basis, and when they settle, Dofasco gives THEIR workers increased benefits on the basis of Stelco's strike , sometimes way before the strike happens when they hear the "beefs".

Not only that, Dofasco continually LISENS to it's employees, - and reacts responsibly. They have a very active and well managed "Employee Organization", with full access to the "guys at the top" (as it SHOULD be !!)

If one feels one's rights are infringed upon, there are legal avenues available

Violence is NOT one of them , well - 'cept for Junior and his thugs

Guess Junior IS leading by example,

seems some people if they don't get their way, then violence is OK -

I say NOT !!

[NNN0LHI]

12. These guys were not on strike. They were locked out

And so far you have heard only one side of this story. Lets hear all sides before you decide they are guilty and send them off to prison. Even though you detest unions you would want the same for yourself I am sure.

Don

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20031022-1602-strikearraign.html

Striker accused of attacking replacement worker pleads innocent

<snip>Deputy District Attorney Claudine Ruiz told Judge Esteban Hernandez that the victim was harassed by picketers and got into a verbal encounter with some of them as he left the store.

She said the defendants got into a car and followed the victim's vehicle at speeds up to 80 mph, during which time Thompson, from the passenger seat, allegedly leaned outside and hit the victim's car door with a baseball bat.

Olvera, the driver of the pursuing car, accelerated and boxed the victim's car in near a freeway onramp, Ruiz said.

The victim got out of his car to ask for the defendants' insurance information and Thompson hit him in the head, near the eye, with a bat, the prosecutor said.

more

[spotbird]

13. That’s all I need to know.

If two union guys beat-up a scab that must mean all unions and their members beat up their opponents. Since all unions support violence then I have to reconsider my position on unions generally. In fact, since Democrats support unions that must mean that the Democratic Party Platform supports beating-up scabs. Republicans aren’t in favor of beating scabs, so I’m switching parties.

But if some goons for management beat up union guys, what will I do then?

[diamond14]

16. 'scabs' is what they're called, not "replacement workers"...

undermining America by becoming a scab is reprehensible...there should be no effort to justify scabs...they are a drain on our society, leeches, destroying America, destroying human rights...

these scabs should be on their hands and knees thanking those union guys for not killing them....the scabs were cut a lot of slack and they should stop complaining...

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. By that logic abortion Dr's should thank pro-lifers for not killing them

We live in a society governed by laws. Beating someone with a baseball bat is not the way to solve problems. A few more incidents like this, and I am sure that the public's perceptions of unions will take a beating as well.

[proud patriot]

18. That's how we won our union rights

It's sad that people have died to got these rights .
The feds have killed and union members have done the same .

You'd think people would remember this so it wouldn't have to be
repeated . I think the unions must be feeling very
vunerable to resort to this sort of thing . Crossing a
Picket Line as a scab is a low low low thing to do .
For generations scabs have been beaten , and verbally
assulted . Howard Zinn's people's history goes into
great detail , the bloody past of winning the right
to collective bargining .

[Muddleoftheroad]

19. TFB

If people wish to strike that is their business. If I wish to honor it, that is mine. If they try to stop me from my choice, then it is a police matter.

Just because unions got powerful by breaking the law and companies got powerful breaking the law, doesn't mean we should condone either act.

I have crossed a couple picket lines as a shopper and honored others. It depends on my view of their cause. But I am not obligated to do either. And if I choose to take a job and they try to stop me, heaven help them.

[proud patriot]

21. That was my point

To learn from history , but alass neither side
has .

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. The union struggles today don't compare to the ones of 100 years ago

Back then it was coal miners fighting for safer working conditions and a 40-hour work week. Now it is overpaid grocery cashiers quibbling with management over what percentage of their health insurance they have to pay.

[regularguy]

24. Disagree.

Unions are as important now as ever. If these cashiers weren't "overpaid", as you so empithetically put it, they'd have to work another job and so they are fighting for a 40 hour week after all.
Cheers.

[benfranklin1776]

27. Au contraire

Safer working conditions and forty hour work weeks are precisely what are at stake in today's labor struggles. The laws which secured both things, which were paid for in the blood of striking workers are under relentless attack from corporations aided by the Bush administration. The only organizations offering concerted resistance to the assault on workers rights generally are unions. What those supermarket workers are striking for is to preserve what they have and every other worker should have, namely a livable wage and affordable health care.

The average wages of the striking grocery workers are betwen twelve and fourteen dollars, hardly "overpaid." http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/healthpolicy/ns10172003.cfm

As for the cost of the striking workers' health care it is not a minor " quibble" Employees face staggering increases in their out of pocket expenses to the point where they would pay from four to as much as thirty times their out of pocket medical expenses than they now do. So we are talking about a real and deep financial impact on these workers which they felt absolutely necessary to take to the picket lines to prevent. http://www.saveourhealthcare.org/shifting.html

Violence is never acceptable but the misguided, criminal actions of a few are not reflective of the attitudes of the workers or the labor movement as a whole any more than Bush's actions are reflective of the attitudes of all Republicans.

[Freddie Stubbs]

29. They are getting paid $12/hour for a job that high schools kids could do

I worked at a supermarket in high school. It's not very difficult work. I don't think that many people there was being paid over double the minimum wage. And yes, I was in a union (United Food and Commercial Workers).

[benfranklin1776]

30. Difficulty is not the issue.

The work that they do, no matter how "menial" confers monetary profit on the corporation. In this case the company has realized an increase in its profit per worker of thirty-nine percent from 1998 to 2002. http://www.ufcw.org/ The issue is the degree to which the worker should share in the profit. The right to bargain collectively to insure that the worker receives a fair share of the profit that the worker generates is fundamental and exactly what these striking workers are exercising. It is not unreasonable for a full time worker who devotes 40 hours of his life to a corporation to earn enough money to support himself or herself, particularly when the worker generates far more profit for the corproation then he or she is remunerated for.

As for making twice the minimum wage that is a meaningless measure. The minimum wage should afford a full time worker enough to meet his or her basic needs. A full time minimum wage worker will net the princely sum of $10,712 per year, hardly enough to live on anywhere, especially not in Southern California. Sorry I don't begrudge these folks their 12.00 an hour especiallly when their executives earn an average of 2.6 million dollars annually. http://www.saveourhealthcare.org/faces.html

[NNN0LHI]

32. Bet I could find someone to do your job for a little cheaper too

Unless you are a boss somewhere that is.

Don

[nolabels]

20. Violence is often a act of the reflection of the world people see.........

Around them. There is nothing hidden about the fact that potentially the new governor of California is largely famed by the violence help depict, is also seen as gaining position by force, physically or otherwise. I am a Union member and in no way support any part of this type of behavior. But one also must question much of the governments double dealing on almost all fronts in which labor is involved.

IMO Labor support and legislation is one area which the federal government has little to be proud of, mostly it has always been dragged to the table by Business seeking relief. Mostly the laws we now have on the books about are a result of union pressure on business. Even more ridiculous is the problems that surround the ethics of US business that often would rather go under or out of business than negotiate with the workers and the unions they represent. This is world we live in, we didn't make it, but we all have to live in it. Think about it when you buy that ticket to next so called action movie

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0212-04.htm

Published on Monday, February 12, 2001
Marc Rich's Hidden History as a Union-Buster
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Longtime fugitive from justice Marc Rich has become the most notorious recipient of a presidential pardon since Richard Nixon. President Clinton issued a pardon for the commodities trader in the final hours of his tenure in office.

What is now widely known about Rich has cast a dark cloud over what Clinton hoped would be a glorious exit from the presidency. Charged with income tax fraud and conspiracy, Rich fled to Switzerland, from which he could not be extradited. Living in the lap of luxury, he continued his wheeling and dealing in international commodities markets, including through trades with apartheid South Africa. He invested heavily in seeking a pardon, courting the Israeli government (dethroned Israel President Ehud Barak personally lobbied Clinton for Rich's pardon), hiring top-ranking officials from Democratic and Republican administrations to represent him, and relying on his ex-wife to lavish money on Democrats during the Clinton years.

What is not widely known, at least outside of West Virginia and certain labor circles, is that Rich played a central role in one of the highest profile union-busting efforts the United States has seen in recent decades.
In the early 1990s, Marc Rich was the power-behind-the-scenes at the Ravenswood Aluminum Corporation (RAC) facility in Ravenswood, West Virginia, site of one of the most embittered U.S. labor-management disputes of recent decades.
The Ravenswood conflict has been chronicled by Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner in their inspiring account, Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor (Ithaca, New York: ILR/Cornell University Press, 1999).
In 1990, in a premeditated effort to break the union, RAC locked out its 1,700 workers, members of the United Steelworkers of America, and hired permanent replacements.

As the contract deadline neared, RAC installed surveillance cameras, new security systems and a chainlink fence around the perimeter of the facility. The night of the lockout, the company brought in a goon squad security force equipped with riot gear, clubs, tear gas and video cameras used to constantly monitor the workers' pickets. The goons introduced a climate of fear and made violence on the picket lines, and in the town, an ever-present fear.
Caught unprepared, the Steelworkers' local was able to keep all but a handful of workers from crossing the picket line and union solidarity was strong and militant, but RAC was ready to wait the workers out.
(snip)

[KFC]

22. I guess I'll be shopping at Vons now

As a personal protest against the violence. I'm hoping those chickenshit picketers go to the hole for a long time. And if the union doesn't kick them out, the union has zero credibility.

[nolabels]

26. Why not cut to the chase and go shop at Wall Mart full time

With ideals like blaming other uneducated people It's still a wonder the internet, HMO, and college even exists

Here are some more lies by corporate media, not only that but the people who work at these stores have some very high work related injuries which Corporations also want to blame on the workers

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-10-20-healthcare-cover_x.htm
(snip)
Striking supermarket employees "pay no premium at all for health care, and that's almost unheard of," says Gary Rhodes, a spokesman at Kroger. "It's not realistic in today's world to expect companies to continue footing the bill for double-digit increases in health care."

Also frightening for grocers in California: Last year's announcement by Wal-Mart that it would introduce its "supercenters" to the state. Those stores stock full grocery lines as well as general merchandise.

"The prospect of Wal-Mart, a non-union employer with very modest health benefits, entering this market has convinced the established supermarket chains that they need to reduce their labor costs," economist Ginsburg says.

While health care costs are currently the hot issue in California, the problem has bedeviled labor negotiations across the country.

(snip)

[KFC]

28. Lies?

Fact: UFCW workers don't currently make a direct employee contribution to health care costs. (I sure as hell do.) Safeway wants them to start. The crux of the dispute is how much.

I also think it is true that Walmart is going to introduce their "supercenters" in California. But I can't say for sure. Are you saying that Walmart is lying about this?

[nolabels]

31. Excuse me, I misread the article

I thought they said "not" when they said "hot". They are trying to bust the Unions really though, they see them as impediment to their profits. Read a article in my local paper today "The Press-Enterprise" (can't find it online) on the front page where Safeway's CEO (parent company) cashed in stock options for $5,200,000.00 for this year.

[David__77]

25. Fires of class struggle sometimes burn... it's sad.

I hate to see the working class divided by the bosses--that's what this is all about. The rich are trying to pull all the strings. People should be contemptful of scabs, and should fight like hell against corporate goons. The backward--the scabs--should be struggled with firmly, but not violently.