Seems everyone in my union at work shops at Wal-Mart

[bedpanartist]

and are COMPLETELY unaware, or uncaring, about Wal-Mart's anti-union stance. Although after being exposed to information, many do seem to get their eyes opened.

Seeing that is the case, why are we spending so much time bickering online? My union is TOTALLY corrupt and is pretty much owned by the management group. And guess what? The members of our union hate the union almost as much as they despise our management team (a bunch of circle-jerking sexist asswads if I've ever been around any).

I live in a high poverty post-industrial area of the United States where the people have been pretty much abadoned by politics (Repubs and Dems). And yet, there is a huge machine in place to react to Trent Lott's flatulence. I don't get it.

THE POPULACE IS RIPE FOR THE PICKING for progressive politics. Sadly though, not too many progressive types are willing to venture into the ghetto and instigate and advocate for progressive causes, preferring the comfort of e-mail or the monthly vegetarian society pot-luck dinner.

[Richard Steele]

1. "vegetarian society pot-luck dinner", huh?

Yeah, bullshit like that is gonna win you LOTS of friends around here.

Good luck with that.

[bedpanartist]

3. Sounds like I'm right

the truth always wins you lots of enemies.

Funny how you avoided the entire post and instead decided to complain about my complaint about the insular life that many so called political progressives lead. I suppose the vegetarian pot luck dinner hit too close to home?

See ya' in the hood.

[LostinVA]

30. Sounds like you're wrong -- hung up on stereotypes and you are

Ill-informed.

All the "so-called progressives" (nice slam, btw) IO know, and I know plenty, dedicate alot of their free time to progressive cayuses.

I don't know whose memes you've been reading, but they're wrong.

[bedpanartist]

32. I live in the inner-city

and the most vocal populated progressive population in my area is Yellow Springs, Ohio - an upscale community that sits about 10 miles away from one of the biggest pockets of poverty in America - Dayton, Ohio.

I don't see the Yellow Springs progressives vying for any face time in the ghetto.

They can gather a couple of hundred for a protest about conditions in Guatemala, but are absent when it comes to the dismantling of our very own community.

Sorry. Wish it weren't true, but from a streets eye view, it is.

[marmar]

2. I know lots of people who claim to be progressives...

then run to Wal-Mart to save 30 cents on Right Guard, even though it's not like they need to. I'm not perfect when it comes to shopping with a conscience, but Wal-Mart is an obvious and easily avoided one. And many of these people too are from union households. I just don't get it.

[bedpanartist]

4. thank you

I didn't think I was crazy in noticing this.

[Orsino]

37. There are many people who need to save those pennies.

That people still shop there, further torpedoing their own best interests is not necessarily a measure of hypocrisy. I see it as a sign of how bad we all let things get. We've let the media sing us to sleep on the subject, and there is still no national movement to dismantle the would-be monopolies.

We were lazy enough that the truth is still hidden from those who can make a difference by boycotting. We were lazy enough to let Wal-Mart's control over the working poor become permanent.

[Selatius]

5. Your union has become a tool of exploitation. It has become top-heavy and

has become the vehicle for exploitation of your hard-won labor. It is not just the case of your capitalist employer exploiting you but also your very own union boss extorting you out of the fruits of labor in your name.

The reason why I will never join a traditionally structured union is because of this, and I would never actively push a fellow worker into joining one either. However, that doesn't mean you or I should despair and give up the very notion of unionizing. There is another way to organize unions that keeps power at the base of the structure where the common people are.

They are not as common as they used to be in the past due to oppression by communists and fascists back in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond, but there are unions that operate on principles of direct democracy and popular organization. Workers themselves, not union bosses or bureaucrats, are empowered to run the union how they see fit. Workers, organized into assemblies, make the major decisions about what needs to be done, not the union bosses at the top.

This is but one example:

[bedpanartist]

12. Got links to union alternatives?

we have a movement afoot in my union to jump ship from our parent union (a national, traditional union). We just need some solid alternatives.

We pay them over $100,000 a year and get:

No professional representation on contract negotiations (while our management has five lawyers)
No day-to-day representation on the job (its all volunteer)
No union house to hold meetings in
I could go on all day long.

However, we do get to pay a lot of money to send these people at the state and national level to conferences where they can stuff their fat asses with meat and liquor.

See where I'm going? I am sure we are by no means alone.

I see the fact that the Democratic party being in bed with so many corrupt unions (all of our union leaders at the regional level are old hillbilly mobsters), as one of the main reasons there is such a thing called Reagan Democrats.

[Snotcicles]

21. Here you go

http://www.teamsters.org/
They do a good job for me.

[bedpanartist]

24. do tell more

please??

Thanks

[Selatius]

25. Unfortunately, I haven't seen or heard of any unions in my area that...

operate under principles of popular organization and direct action. Of course, Mississippi is a "right to work" state, and that pretty much helped to de-unionize nearly all of the state and, indeed, nearly all of this region of the country. Mississippi's government is very pro-business.

The biggest anarcho-syndicalist unions around are largely based in Europe. Unfortunately, few people were allowed into the US to spread these ideas and organize people. In fact, they were actively deported or imprisoned. In short, they were liquidated, so we never developed a cultural heritage from which we can draw from for support in the US. All we have are traditional unions, and many of them are suffering from rot at the top.

It is a dream of mine to organize worker co-op businesses and unions based on the principles of direct democracy or something as close to it as possible. I have to build from scratch though, and it's going to be terribly difficult, and I'm going to piss off a lot of powerful people, but nothing good ever came so easily.

BTW, what is the name of your union? Are you AFL-CIO?

[bedpanartist]

27. name of the union

http://www.afscme.org

Not good overall.

[muntrv]

6. That's why I shop at Target.

Target stores look more professional than Wal-Mart. Furthermore, one of the members of the Dayton-Hudson family, which owns Target, is a Democratic Senator from Minnesota. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my money go to the Dayton-Hudson family than those repukes commonly known as the Waltons.

[bedpanartist]

8. I try my best not to give any corporate chain stores

any of my money. That means clothes, food, etc...

I buy all my stuff second hand, grow lots of my own food, although I will buy food at Krogers though. They are unionized, and have always treated me and mine well.

I am very serious on a daily basis in all areas of my life on doing everything I can to make the class of Americans who live in McMansions live in McTrailer courts some day.

[muntrv]

10. Good cause.

McMansions don't exactly encourage neighborliness.

[bbinacan]

11. I don't think Dayton-Hudson owns

Target. Target is a public company. Does Dayton-Hudson own a large stock position in Target? :shrug:

[blondeatlast]

14. Target IS what Dayton-Hudson used to be. I'm a shareholder

owing to previously working at a DH store.

They've just changed the name of the corporation. Dayton-Hudson no longer exists; it's now TargetCorp.

[bbinacan]

18. Thanks. I didn't

know the history of Target.

[muntrv]

15. Tartget was founded by George Dayton.

Dayton-Hudson also owned Mervyn's and Hudson's.

[bbinacan]

17. Thanks for the info. n/t

[leftstreet]

7. Where did people shop before Wal-Mart came to town?

:shrug:

To hear some people, you'd think Wal-Mart was a humanitarian relief effort or something.

By the way, welcome to DU!
:hi:

[Selatius]

13. They used to shop on Main Street with many "mon & pop" stores. Now...

Main Street is run-down. They've all been driven out of business or out of town by the power of Wal-Mart. People don't go to Main Street anymore except to score drugs. There's gang graffiti on the walls, and many windows are either broken or boarded up, and empty store shelves are left to collect dust.

[leftstreet]

20. Exactly!

Hey, great post above concerning union alternatives.
:thumbsup:

[dcfirefighter]

31. The economics of Mom & Pop's

doesn't work because of the economics of the ownership class.

Walmart is Labor efficient, but Land inefficient. (read up on your Smith & Marx for definitions Land, Labor, & Capital) Mom & Pops are Land efficient but Labor inefficient.

Labor, when all taxes are considered, is taxed 25-40%. This tax makes people more expensive to employ than they otherwise would be. This means that the stock-boy in the backroom of the mom & pop is replaced by the (unpaid labor) customer in the warehouse store.

Land, when all real estate deals are considered, is almost taxed not at all. This means that the multi acre Walmart parking lot which allows the unpaid delivery labor (customers) to drive in on the public roads (paid for by state & local taxes on labor, mostly) burning their still cheap oil (another form of Land) to save 35 cents on laundry detergent.

Prior to WWI, there was a progressive movement afoot, known as the Single Tax movement. It desired to replace taxes on labor with taxes on land. Such a shift would make unemployment, for all intents, disappear. With near-zero unemployment, employers must pay well and work to attract and retain their employees, union or no. Normally, a widespread increase in wages would lead to the inflation of real estate (AFAIK, none of our inflation to date is b/c of this, despite claims by conservative economists, but it is a real issue), as more money chases a fixed supply of Land. Goods & Services will adapt production levels to stabilize prices, but Land, not being produced, will simply inflate. The single tax would capture all that inflation and value creation for the public.

But, in the mean-time, I'm still interested in this alternative union deal:
My Local gets very little from the International, which tends to cater to the needs of small suburban departments and not old urban departments.
My Local is run by Officers, who are affected by policies differently than non-officers. In short, the rank-and-file has no real union representation.

[Selatius]

34. Come to think of it, I do recall a movement to tax land instead of labor.

I was looking at the city I'm in currently and studying the situation. There's roughly 16,000 people in it, and it's got one of the highest business taxes for miles. They pay 9% sales tax. Mississippi has a 7% sales tax as it is. The city levied a 2% tax on top of that.

The current mayor of the city is very powerful. He is the largest landowner in the city as far as I know, and now he has mayoral power. He's almost a feudal lord now. He owns quite a large number of buildings that he charges rent on, and most of the tenants are relatively poor college students, and his income isn't subject to that 2% tax. I was told that he will even use rent as a weapon to force out business owners he doesn't like in favor of business owners he does like, and there are allegations he has discriminated against homosexuals when it comes to housing.

One solution I kicked around and told a friend was to remove the 2% sales tax and replace it with a tax on income derived from charging rent within city limits. It's less painful on people, especially the working poor.

Your union, on the other hand, there's not much that can be said for your union besides the fact that it is not under worker control.

When it comes to methodology, people are divided.

• Some prefer indirect action: You elect representatives, and you give them decision-making power. Your role is limited to simply choosing others to do things for you, the representatives who in theory serve you. You don't make decisions. They do, and if you don't like them, then you have to replace them with new people, but sometimes the new people are just as bad as the prior. That's the nature of representative forms of governance. It's a problem with all hierarchical decision-making structures that nobody has really been able to solve with respect to representative forms of decision-making.
  
• Some prefer direct action: Rather than choosing somebody else, you make decisions directly in congress with everyone else with you. (In this case a hypothetical union) The workers themselves make the decisions usually through a process of consensus building. Once a decision is made, delegates can be chosen to carry out the mandate of the workers depending on what the consensus dictates. Unlike a representative or a "trustee," a "delegate" is not entrusted with the power to make decisions, only the power to carry out the mandate given to him by the assembly. If the delegate fails, the delegate is either given a choice to correct his or her mistakes or is promptly removed by the workers and replaced.
  

I'm assuming it's relatively difficult to remove corrupt or incompetent union bosses in your organization or make any significant changes for the better, isn't it?

[dcfirefighter]

36. Thanks for the info

tax info: http://www.urbantools.org/
A shift in property tax such that 50% or more of revenue is derived from land, perhaps a 3% rate on lnad and a 0.6% rate on improved property. It would 1) crush your mayor 2) make housing more affordable 3) increase buildings & renovations 4) benefit ~75% of homeowners (if your city is typical).

union question:
Most of the members are fairly apathetic unless there is a pressing issue at hand. In fairness, our Local has done a GREAT job with staffing and safety issues, and as well as they can with Pay and Retirement issues. So, since they're (The E.B.) not doing a terrible job, it's difficult to motivate too many people to change.

I think you have a very valid point. I've been a fan of proportional representation since before I realized I was a liberal, and have thought that implementing PR in organazational meetings would be a great way to replace first-past-the-post voting from the ground up. An analogous situation would certainly exist with your democratic means.

I do have one fear with this: straight democracy ensures that popular decisions are enforced. What about those cases where 'what is popular isn't always right...'? I'm sure we need more accountable elected leaders (both in my Union and in my country), but how do we insulate them the appropriate amount from the latest public whim? (for example, for most of history, racism was popular)

[Selatius]

38. Yes, the "what is popular..." issue is one that must be addressed.

If you want a union that adopts more elements of direct democracy, a union that is easily controlled by the base, you also need to adopt safeguards to balance majority rule with minority rights.

If it's a minor resolution that is being introduced, a simple majority could be needed to pass it, but if it's a major resolution, then it's important that the bar be raised to 60 percent or even require a 2/3rds vote of support or perhaps even higher if it is an emergency such as a confrontation with a corporation seeking to crush your union. This is why I specifically mentioned "consensus building" earlier as opposed to simple majority rule. A Bill of Rights in the US Constitution is one such example. It is difficult to change that Bill of Rights for a reason. If you're going to erect a new charter for a union that draws elements from direct democracy, it'd be wise to adopt ground-rules such as a union "bill of rights." Remember that an assembly can crush the rights of any individual as easily as any dictator can.

Ultimately, things such as hate and greed and fear can destroy any system no matter how well-designed or how well-intentioned its creator. I recommend not only robust safeguards be put in place but also a program of active education of people. It's a necessary measure if one is honest about our human flaws.

If people are to be truly free in the fight for freedom not just from greed but also hate and fear, it's got to be a fight where everyone is given a weapon to defend themselves, and that weapon is education. I would never argue for moving closer to something resembling direct democracy if at first I did not advocate educating the people in preparation of introducing a little bit more democracy to the equation. Things such as greed and hate can be unlearned just as they are learned, but it's a long, difficult process, and there will probably be failures and mistakes along the way, but nothing changes if nothing is risked.

Yes, it's true apathy is always a problem, and to be frank, I'm having difficulty trying to address that. I know; I'm finding that it can be a real killer in any organization. The only thing that I could say from what I've seen so far with organizing people is that during apathetic or slow times when things are stable, just work on educating your fellow friends and co-workers so that when something important or alarming or disasterous happens, the people will fall back on what you and others working with you showed them. That is when things begin. The people aren't stupid; they will know when to do something if they are armed with knowledge of how and why to do something. The how and why to do something cannot be stressed enough. Often times, it takes a long time to educate, prepare, and organize people but a very short time to accomplish something once the people are awake and are mobile. It is like planting seeds and waiting for them to grow. Pampleteering is still a good way; it was Thomas Paine's way.

There appears to be an educating phase (the longest phase) where people are made aware of the new idea, an earnest organizing phase after a few people identify a problem or vague threat and begin to think about the new idea more often as a solution to the danger, an active organizing phase after many people begin to identify a serious problem or urgent threat and seriously consider implementing the new idea, then the implementation of the idea itself in a time of upheaval, change, and necessity. The last phase is the acid test, the most dangerous phase of all.

The key, in short, is to make such ideas like direct participation and popular organization a common idea, something many people know or are aware of. In many parts of the country, however, you're going to have to start from scratch. I'm going to have to start from scratch. This country suffers from intellectual darkness in many cases, and some people made sure it came about on purpose by denying them information.

[Sgent]

28. Can't speak to everyone

but in my town, a good deal of what's available at walmart wasn't available elsewhere -- or was 2 times the price.

[question everything]

9. When Ford started his company, he paid decent wages to his workers

because he wanted them to be able to purchase the products they were making. Today, even Wal-Mart employees cannot afford to purchase the merchandise they fold, and sell and shelve and re-shelve. Read Barbara Ehrenreich's excellent Nickled and Dimed in America book.

In 1979, during another gas shortage, we were in the market for a new car and decided to buy an American one (we bought a Ford Mustang). Later, when I was having so many troubles with it in clod climate, and when a co-worker was laughing that her spouse, a mechanic at a Ford Plant was driving a Toyota, I've learned my lesson. This was the last American car we have had in our household.

This is also part of the immigration debate. We claim that legal and illegal immigrants lower the wages for unskilled labor. This means that if we stop immigration, wages will rise and so are the prices of products and service. (I don't know how true this is and I don't know whether a $5.00 head of lettuce is a correct figure).

This is a puzzle that I have never understood. The ones who cry the loudest about loss of jobs are the ones who stand in line to purchase merchandise made by outsourced labor. For some - this may be the only way they can afford to buy anything but for others...

[Selatius]

26. Ford didn't win in the end. You do know that, right?

The shareholders on the board of directors were getting upset that he was spending too much money on workers, and so they took him to court. He lost in front of the Supreme Court in Dodge v. Ford. The Court said that because the company was for-profit and served the interests of the shareholders, Ford was not allowed to turn the company into a "charity." The money in dispute was declared as dividends for the shareholders, not used to increase the pay of workers.

The shareholders wanted more money, not a better living for the workers. They got what they wanted, and in a way, it has become a microcosm of our country.

[leftstreet]

33. Was that the Michigan Supreme Court?

Was Ford able to get this to the scotus?

[Selatius]

35. Yeah, Michigan Supreme Court. The case was not appealed.

I guess he figured he was fighting too many powerful people and called it quits.

[question everything]

40. Sad ending. I suppose this is what capitalism all about

the interest of shareholders. Though I think that today it may be different, if the board, at least, is convinced that good paying employees make better products. And, of course, today many corporation donate to various charitable causes.

[Phx_Dem]

16. a lot of people live in areas

where Walmart is the only place for them to buy certain items.

[leftstreet]

19. But where did they get "certain items" before Wal-Mart came along?

:shrug:

[Phx_Dem]

22. mostly they didn't

Don't get me wrong, I don't "love" walmart, but if they follow the laws like any other corp. then what's the problem? If we want to have real employment reform in this country that we should do that through legislation.

[fiveleafclover]

23. Well, I live in one of those areas

We do have a Target, just one. We have one Walmart already and another going up soon. If they run Target out of town (which is doubtful), then we won't have much of a choice anymore. Pretty much everything else in this town has been shut down by Walmart.

Before Walmart took over, we shopped downtown. Those places are long gone now.

[Iris]

41. tools and home improvement items - hardware store

toiletries, medicines, feminine products - drug store
food - grocery store
tires and auto parts - local mechanic
sewing supplies - sewing store
electronics - local electronics store (like the one Donna's father owns on "That 70s Show")
clothing, make-up, accessories - department store

[LostinVA]

29. "Union is corrupt," "members... hate union," and "vegetarian..."

OMG... I'm gone for most of the day and come back to THIS?

Hate to tell you, but those "vegetarian society pot lucker" progressives are the ONLY ones to venture into the ghetto... whatever the hell that means.

[davsand]

39. A lot of Union members shop for cheap prices.

They have to because the current climate really has put the screws to the middle class. Hate to be broken record, but what we all earn now is not too far above what we were making about 10 years ago. What we PAY out now, however, is a whole lot higher. We are ALL getting squeezed.

Walmart is able to undercut the other chain stores in an area, and they will frequently sell at a loss if they are trying to shut down the competition.

Read up on the business practices of Walmart and you will soon come to realize that they are a parasite on the ass of every store in the areas they come to, and they literally drain the lifeblood out of that community. They are not just anti-union assholes to work for, they are a drain on the community and its resources.

Now, I will go on to admit that I have set foot in a Walmart exactly twice in my life. One time I did buy a bottle of soda. I know a LOT of union folks who DO shop Walmart, but I also know a fair number that refuse.

Will it matter in the long run whether or not I buy from Walmart? Probably not. What it will do, however, is make me feel bit better about walking the walk when it comes to unions and the labor movement.




Laura