The Walmart Saga: Empty Shelves, Full Exec Pockets

I've been debating about writing about Wal-Mart for a while now for one very good reason:  If I write as a knowledgeable shopper, people will know I shop at Wal-Mart.  Chicken of me, I know, but some of my best friends, relatives and acquaintances refuse to shop at Wal-Mart, and they don't like to be reminded that I'm not one of them.

I shop at Wal-Mart.  Not always, but often enough to be considered a Wal-Mart shopper. I will make no excuses for shopping there because I know that every one of my excuses can be shot down.  Sometimes when I'm walking into a Wal-Mart I think about all the storekeepers who will hate me for what I'm about to do and I beat them to it:  I hate me, too.  But I go in.

So when I write that I've seen empty shelves in many Wal-Mart stores, you should know that I know what I'm talking about.

Today Bloomberg News published an article about Wal-Mart's empty shelves and, while I wasn't completely shocked at the scope of it, I did feel vindicated, considering the lengths I've gone to to get the managers of the various Wal-marts to understand how irritating it is to go looking for a list of things and not find even one of them.

For example, my morning must-have to go along with my essential mug of coffee is a two-square slab of Nabisco Nutter Butter Patties.  Our particular Wal-Mart up north stopped stocking them and when I went looking for the person responsible I was told that not enough people were buying them, so out they went during the periodic product purge. They were kind enough to order a case just for me, and what I didn't want out of the case they would put on the shelves and leave them there until they were purchased, either by me or some other Nutter Butter nut.  Fine.  Solved.  (No other store around sold them.  Really.  I looked.)

Wal-Mart also makes an excellent blue cheese dressing, sold in the refrigerated section of the produce department.  It's like finding gold when we see them stocked, which isn't very often.  You would think they would at least pay attention to stocking their own brands.  But, no.

Empty shelves are a given at every Wal-Mart now and the reason, we've finally confirmed (but should have known), has more to do with a scaling down of employees than it does with incompetent managers.  Not every manager of every store could be that incompetent.  No, this is about greed.  The Walton Companies rake in so much money entire countries (including this one) are green with envy, yet when it comes to money and the Waltons, there's no such thing as sharing without a fight.

This from the Bloomberg piece (emphasis mine):

 Adding five full-time employees to Wal-Mart’s (WMT) U.S. supercenters and discount stores would add about a half- percentage point to selling, general and administrative expenses, according to an analysis by Poonam Goyal, a Bloomberg Industries senior analyst based in Skillman, New Jersey. Assuming the workers earned the federal minimum wage and industry standards for health benefits, the added costs would amount to about $448 million a year, she said. In the year ended Jan. 31, Wal-Mart generated $17 billion in profit on revenue of $469.2 billion.

I, an admitted Wal-Mart shopper, have long despised Wal-Mart's employee practices.  That's my dilemma and my shame.  In my little corner of the country there are no Targets, no Kohls, no Costcos, no Meijers.  I wish there were, but there aren't.  But there are smaller supermarkets, other stores that don't offer one-stop shopping.  And there is the internet.

So Sayonara Wal-Mart.  Raspberries to you.  And as a parting shot, here's how Costco does it and why it would be worth the $50 a year it costs to join if there was one in the neighborhood:

Costco CEO Craig Jelinek openly supports raising the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour, “At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business. We pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 in all states where we do business, and we are still able to keep our overhead costs low. An important reason for the success of Costco’s business model is the attraction and retention of great employees. Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty. We support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.”

 So, okay, most of Costco's goods come from China and other foreign countries, as do most if not all the goods in every other store, bulk or otherwise, but Costco gets it.  They understand that their success wouldn't be nearly as sweet if their employees weren't sharing in it, too.

Trader Joe's is heading that way, too.  (Though TJ gets demerits for holding out for years before finally relenting and agreeing to give Florida tomato workers a raise of a penny a pound, and supporting better working conditions for those poor, poor, desperately poor pickers.  I mean. . .really? Years?)

But, here. . .

Many employers believe that one of the best ways to raise their profit margin is to cut labor costs. But companies like QuikTrip, the grocery-store chain Trader Joe's, and Costco Wholesale are proving that the decision to offer low wages is a choice, not an economic necessity. All three are low-cost retailers, a sector that is traditionally known for relying on part-time, low-paid employees. Yet these companies have all found that the act of valuing workers can pay off in the form of increased sales and productivity.
"Retailers start with this philosophy of seeing employees as a cost to be minimized," says Zeynep Ton of MIT's Sloan School of Management. That can lead businesses into a vicious cycle. Underinvestment in workers can result in operational problems in stores, which decrease sales. And low sales often lead companies to slash labor costs even further. Middle-income jobs have declined recently as a share of total employment, as many employers have turned full-time jobs into part-time positions with no benefits and unpredictable schedules.

So way to go, Wal-Mart!  You've finally figured out a way to make yourselves Numero Zilch!  It took a while but take a bow.  A long bow.  Hold it.  Just a little longer. . .

News from Michigan, the Nation's First Dictator State

It could be that with all that's going on in the world you might have missed what's happening closer to home, in the sovereign state of Michigan.  In just over two years, since businessman and venture capitalist Rick Snyder became governor, bringing along with him a Republican majority in the legislature and in most courts (including the Supreme one), with a push from the Tea Party, the Koch Brothers and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, our beautiful state has suffered under the country's first duly elected dictatorship.

In March of 2011, two months after his inauguration, Snyder pushed through a draconian Emergency Financial Manager law, essentially giving him the authority to appoint one person to take over the governing of any municipality or school system deemed failing by Our Man Snyder.

In November, 2012 the voters, finally coming to their senses, soundly voted down that outrageously unconstitutional law.  A few weeks later Snyder's minions, ignoring the wishes of the voters, not only reinstated the law, they added wording that would keep the voters from ever voting it down again.

This slid by just days after the Republicans stuck it to the already bruised and bleeding unions by making Michigan, the home of the labor movement, a Right-to-Work state. 

Just last week, the Republican legislature was back working on a bill that would allow health care providers to refuse services to patients/customers for religious or moral reasons.  It's a transparent smackdown of abortion and contraception, but it could also affect anybody from gays to Muslims to blacks to liberal Democrats.

And two days ago, DemocracyTree reported this:

Today the Michigan House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee passed a bill that will punish any university that negotiates with its union for an extended contract prior to the Right-to-Work law going into effect on March 28th. If this bill becomes law, universities stand to lose 15 percent of their funding for any contract negotiated between the Dec. 10th lame-duck RTW law and the March 28th enactment.
The Associated Press reports that Wayne State University could lose $27 million if they follow through with renegotiating their contract. Among universities rumored to be in contract talks are Michigan State University, Lansing Community College, and Western Michigan University.  

And this dispatch from Eclectablog yesterday.  It appears the GOP is caving to Tea Party interests in Michigan again. Medicaid expansion and the state-run Obamacare health exchange will be dead in the water unless they either grow hearts or come to their senses. (I won't hold my breath.)

And it goes on.  Because that's how it works in Michigan now.  The goal is to stop all democratic processes, including governing, in order to allow private profiteers to take over and make bundles off of us.  Roads?  Bridges?  Schools?  Health?  Human services? Out of our hands and going to the highest bidder. (They'll still collect taxes, of course, because. . .why not?)

Now they're working at making life even harder for old and disabled veterans.  The Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, one of two state vets homes, has been turned over to private contractors and, as predicted, it's a mess.  (I'm still trying to figure out how a state-run veteran's home, partially funded by the Feds, can just willy-nilly decide to privatize, but apparently it's one of those loopholes none of us ever has access to.)

From the Free Press this morning:

The contract employees are paid about half as much as the state employees, who made a little more than $20 an hour at the top of their pay rate.
The state workers, who belong to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, say the lower wage results in inexperienced and inadequately trained workers and high turnover.
Tammy Porter, a licensed practical nurse who still works at the home, cited examples of inadequate and negligent care she said she had witnessed. She also read a letter from Andrea Rossman of Saginaw, who works as a nursing director at a health facility and whose father, Joe Vela, lives at the Grand Rapids Home.
On Saturday and Sunday, the home was understaffed and Vela wasn't given a chance to go to the restroom, eat breakfast, or take his medications in a timely manner, Rossman said in the letter. The delayed medication meant "my father's life was put in peril," she said.

There's more.  There's always more.  I can barely keep up, but thankfully there are others who do.

Chris Savage at Eclectablog works tirelessly to get this information out.

Democracy Tree keeps Michigan political news out there, too, as do many others.

Scroll down to the bottom of my "Michigan Under Siege" page for the growing list.

If you want to pass any of this on, we would appreciate it.  We need all the help we can get. (And, by the way, we're worth it.)

Lower Tahquamenon Falls - Upper Peninsula (Photo: Ramona Grigg)

CPAC 2013: Wingers Just Want to Have Fun

Every year around this time Republicans get to let their hair down and show the world that no matter what we've heard otherwise, they do have a silly side.

Doom and gloom and global warming is our problem, not theirs.  Enough about the poor, the pregnant, and the pressures put on them by the peons.  Get those party hats on!

Tomorrow the three-day celebration of hedonism, corporatism, and puritanism known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) begins.  This is the 40th such event and you have to hand it to them--each year they outdo themselves.  I mean, holy cow!  What a line-up!

But, wait. . .no Limbaugh?  No Beck? No Coulter?  No Eastwood?  It appears that way. They're not on the list.  Steven Crowder "Fox News's Brightest, Funniest Conservative Mind" will be there, and isn't afraid to call himself a comedian.  There are others who will be giving him a run for his money, however:  Donald Trump and Allen West will be there.  So will Sarah Palin and Rick Perry.  So will Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal.  And Rand Paul and Mitt Romney.  And Ted Cruz. (Dick Morris will be there,too, talking on "The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution", but apparently he doesn't photograph well.  They left him off the front page.)

For good measure, the NRA will be represented by both Wayne LaPierre and David Keene.

Theprogram for these three days (March 14-16) reads like a thriller, what with war and conspiracies and scary Obama and what-not.  Amazing what they can find to talk about.  And--no way!--Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson are scheduled to go mano-a-mano, Crossfire-style. (And you thought nobody cared anymore.)

"Fight Club 2013: A Liberal & A Conservative Duke it Out"

The Honorable [??] Paul Begala, Political Contributor, CNN 
Tucker Carlson, Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller 
Referee: Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

It'll cost you, that CPAC.  And there's a dress code, so don't be trying to get in there in just any old thing:

Well, come on, you obviously can't wear strapless necklines during the daytime activities (We're talking to you, Paul Ryan), but Walmart wear?  Leggings or pants? ("If struggling with this decision, don't pack the items in question.  Neither jeans nor leggings are appropriate for the official conference.")

Lots of fun after-conference stuff, too.  Here's a can't miss:  "The Walking Dead, Obama Zombies on Parade" bash on Friday night.  (They're gonna dress up like zombies, and everything.  There's a message in there someplace, but I'm not one of them so I'm not privy to it.  Sorry.)

I've written about previous CPAC conferences here, and here.  They're addicting, I admit.  I can't promise I won't be writing about it again this week, but for now I'm having enough fun just anticipating what's going to happen this year.  (Don't disappoint me, Republicans--I've looked forward to this for a whole year.  And you owe me, you rascally rascals.)

Will the Real Bob Woodward Please Sit Down?

 Once there was a young Washington Post reporter named Bob Woodward who became a celebrity almost overnight by joining with another reporter named Carl Bernstein (remember him?) to expose the inner workings of a penny ante break-in at the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington. D.C.

The Woodward/Bernstein team, aided by WP editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katherine Graham (along with several unsung on-the-ground reporters), wrote a series of powerful exposes, thrilling and galvanizing an entire nation, opening our eyes to the widespread corruption, collusion and obstruction in the Nixon Administration.  That seemingly inconsequential 1972 burglary grew into a major scandal involving and eventually bringing down a sitting president of the United States.  (Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974.)

Woodward and Bernstein won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting and then went on to write the first of two books about their experiences. The book was entitled, "All the President's Men"  and it became an instant bestseller. (Their second book together, "The Final Days", recounted Nixon's last months in office.)

As if those accolades weren't heady enough for a young reporter like Woodward, the crowning glory came in the form of a gorgeous famous actor named Robert Redford, who portrayed him in the highly acclaimed Academy Award-winning movie based on their book.

That was Bob Woodward way back then.  Shift to this week, when the real Bob Woodward is busy trying to disentangle himself from a claim he made that the White House threatened him!  Threatened Bob Woodward!  When all Bob Woodward was doing was attempting to expose President Obama's "lies about the sequester". (Was the sequester the president's idea, or not?  Bob says it was.  Huge.)

When Woodward discussed his upcoming column with a "very senior White House aide" (no secret any more, it was National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling) both on the phone and through subsequent emails (where Sperling actually apologized to Woodward for coming on too strong), the seasoned reporter came away from them believing, he said, that he had been threatened.

As much as the real Bob Woodward wanted to convince the rest of us that he's so important he's still getting threats from the White House, he couldn't get around the fact that the emails are out there and we've seen them.

This is what Woodward told Jonathan Karl at ABC News:

Feb 28, 2013 9:31am

 Kris Connor/Getty Images

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has shared with ABC News his email exchange with the White House official who told him he would “regret” his reporting on the sequester.  That official was Gene Sperling, the director of President Obama’s National Economic Council.

Woodward tells me that Sperling’s words – “as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim” – was an implied threat because, Woodward says, the White House was not really disputing the facts.

“It’s just not the way to operate,” Woodward told me, saying Sperling’s implied message was, “You challenge us, you will regret it.”

Why did he respond to Sperling’s email so politely?  He was trying to keep open the lines of communication.

“They don’t have to talk to anybody,” Woodward said.

That was yesterday.  Today, Woodward says he never said he was threatened. (That's all, folks.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.)

But we're talking about Bob Woodward here.  Attention must be paid.

Rush Limbaugh starts a program this way and then moves on from there:

I don't know, folks.  I don't know.  I'm just not sure that what we're dealing with here is a "you're gonna have a dead horse in your bed tomorrow morning" kind of threat.  I don't think that's what we're dealing with.  I do think the White House is gonna take care of Woodward with a death panel down the road.  That's how they're gonna deal with this.  We'll never know.  Woodward's gonna get sick and the death panel will come in there and that will be that.

 Fox News and the Right Wing media have a field day.  Because he's Bob Woodward and. . .attention must be paid.

The real Bob Woodward, it turns out, is not the stuff of Hollywood.  That Bob Woodward, if he ever existed, is long gone.  Someone needs to tell that to the real Bob Woodward.  And then someone needs to tell that to people like Politico's Ron Allen, who appeared on Morning Joe today defending Bob Woodward by reminding everyone that (guess what?)  "Attention must be paid to Bob Woodward."

This isn't the first time that Woodward has either outright lied or exaggerated in order to make himself more important.  The stories about his inaccuracies are out there in great enough numbers to show that, in fact, attention has been paid. And then forgotten.

Perhaps the most egregious (and easily disproved) outright self-aggrandizing lie was the one he told about the supposed deathbed confession of former CIA director William Casey, as told to Woodward and spelled out in great detail in his 1987 book, "Veil".

Six years ago, Jack Kelly brought it up again in an article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Skeptics noted:
That Mr. Casey had suffered a stroke which deprived him of the power of speech.

That Mr. Casey's room at Georgetown University hospital was guarded 24/7 by CIA security personnel, who likely would have noticed if Mr. Woodward had attempted to sneak in.

That Mr. Casey's wife, Sophia, said that either she or their daughter, Bernadette Smith, were constantly at Mr. Casey's bedside, and likely would have noticed Mr. Woodward if he had been there. "We had our food brought up there," Mrs. Casey told Time magazine. "There was a lavatory there. We never had to go out of the room."

That intimates said Mr. Casey despised Bob Woodward, and that he would be the last person on earth to whom Mr. Casey would grant a deathbed interview.

One of the skeptics, Michael Ledeen, was contacted by Ted Koppel, who was going to have Mr. Woodward on ABC's "Nightline" program, and was soliciting suggestions for questions he should ask.
"Ask him to describe the room," Mr. Ledeen said he told Mr. Koppel. "What was Casey wearing? Were there lots of flowers? What color were his pajamas?"

Mr. Koppel did ask those questions, and, Mr. Ledeen said, "Woodward froze, deer-in-headlights. Then he said he couldn't discuss it because it would 'reveal sources.' "

That was over a quarter of a century ago, and still life goes on for Bob Woodward--as if it's All Watergate All the Time and nothing he has done to blacken his name since then has caused even a smudge.

Jonathan Cohn over at the Atlantic, while making light fun of Woodward's "I was threatened" claim, along with showing us how wrong Woodward got the whole "sequester" thing, still says, "Woodward remains one of the best fact-gatherers in the business."

Anybody who has watched Woodward in action over the years can't possibly still believe he walks on water, but what he has going for him, what keeps him up there on top, is that magical name.  Bob Woodward.  It's like a cloak of invisibility for him.  It renders him omnipotent, even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.

  

He basks in his Watergate glory because the truth is, we really hate to see our idols fall. We have so few journalistic idols anymore, we especially can't stand the thought of a protector of the people turning into a pompous prick. 

So once again Bob Woodward not only makes the story, he is the story.  And as much as I hate that kind of stuff,  I'm doing it, too.  I'm giving Woodward what he wants.  Attention.  Attention.  Everlasting attention.

_________________

3/13/13 - I've been trying to quit this thing but more and more about BW keeps coming out.  Tanner Colbey, co-author of the 2004 book, Belushi, a Biography, (under Judy Belushi's byline) writes in Slate about the inconsistencies he found while going over Woodward's 1984 book on Belushi (Wired) as part of his research.
The bottom line:  The humorless Bob Woodward wrote a humorless dissertation concentrating on John Belushi's drug habit and eccentricities without ever considering his genius as a comedian or his history as a human being.  He made up and/or altered conversations, forgetting that the people involved are still living and still sentient.  They protested after his book came out, but it became a bestseller anyway.  (Why am I not surprised?)

(Cross-posted, as always, at dagblog)

Me at the Oscars: Fabulous or Fizzle, 60 years and counting

When the first televised Academy Awards ceremony took place on March 19, 1953, I, a bedazzled 15-year-old movie fan, sat in front of our black and white TV set, riveted and no doubt pledging to never forget that moment as long as I lived.   Since then I have never (and I mean NEVER) missed a telecast.

It was the 25th such award ceremony but the first one televised. (“The Greatest Show on Earth” won over “High Noon” and “The Quiet Man”.  Go figure.) Bob Hope was the first TV host and of course we all thought he was just funny enough and perfect for the part.  But year after year he was the host, and, as you might expect, even the great Bob Hope lost his edge.  But I watched.  Every year.  No matter how long into the night they went on, I watched.

They began televising the awards in color in 1966 but we still had a black and white TV, so I missed seeing it in all its glory until much later. But since movies were still mostly in black and white it wasn’t like we knew what those stars looked like in color, anyway.

Off the top of my head, here are my highlights over the years:  (I’m doing this without looking anything up; I just want to see what’s still in my memory bank.)

Eva Marie Saint blurting “Oh, shit” into the microphone when she won for “On the Waterfront”.  Big news in the day, that cussing.  Especially coming from a woman and a PG one at that. (Pregnant, but nobody said the word out loud then.  It was always PG.  Or, in certain circles, knocked up.)

John Huston drunk as a skunk accepting a special award for something.

The actress in the indian costume un-accepting the award the Academy gave Marlon Brando for some movie.

A streaker running across the stage, stealing David Niven’s thunder for a second until Niven recovered and commented on the guy’s physique.  I remember it was Niven and not the streaker who got the standing ovation.

Laurence Olivier giving a speech that made me and almost everyone in the audience cry.  It was splendid.  Jon Voight’s reaction, caught by the camera, is etched into my mind. (I don’t know what happened to that Jon Voight.)

Sammy Davis Jr.’s last appearance on that stage when everybody, including him, knew he was dying.

Elizabeth Taylor talking about aids when nobody was talking about it.

The year “Gandhi” swept the awards, winning almost all the big categories, and Ben Kingley’s speech.  I don’t remember a word of his speech, of course, but watching him up there accepting a most deserved award gave me chills.

Billy Crystal’s opening bit where he was wheeled on stage wrapped in restraints and hidden behind a Hannibal Lecter mask.  Brilliant.

Madonna’s astonishing stage fright night, where she sang shakily and off-key and danced as if she’d just had knee surgery.  I almost felt sorry for her.

Michael Moore talking against the Iraq war.

Rob Lowe “singing” with Snow White.

The little Italian actor who leaped over the seats to get to his Oscar.  (See?  I remember that but can’t remember his name.  So much for Oscar antics.)

I know there are many more if I really thought about it, but that brings me to last night, when Seth McFarlane hosted the 85th Academy Awards ceremony. I watched the entire thing, from the red carpet to the sign-off, and there are a few moments that stand out for me.  Daniel Day-Lewis’s irreverent and funny acceptance speech,  Michelle Obama’s opening of the envelope and announcement of best picture (Argo), Ben Affleck’s not-so-subtle smack at the Academy for snubbing him in the Best Director category.

The opening bit was–oh, my GOD–so, so, long.  And bad.  Really bad.  Even Captain Kirk couldn’t save it.   It made James Franco’s performance as host in 2011 look just okay, which is, I hate to say, some feat.

The “We Saw Your Boobs” song might have been funny in a shortened version, but, as with everything in the McFarlane script, it went on into the realm of the interminable.

The musical performances are what saved the night for me.  Adele, Shirley Bassey, Jennifer Hudson, Barbra Streisand–sublime, those ladies.

(Notice I’ve left out the last song–the duet between McFarlane  and Kristin Chenowith.  Yes, well. . .)
But speaking of Franco.  (We were, weren’t we?) this is what I wrote about Franco’s stab at hosting on the morning after that event two years ago:

If I could have timed my naps to James Franco’s appearances, I would have been almost as happy as I was when “The King’s Speech” won best picture.  I like the guy and I hate to add to the pile-ups on whatever the heck he thought he was doing up there, but man, he was dreadful.  (Anne Hathaway clearly saw she was in the middle of a train wreck and was trying not to panic, but there were moments when I thought she was going to tear off one of her many dresses and run screaming out of the theater.)

But for Franco, it wasn’t over even when it was over.  He got into a Tweet war with a 20-year-old fellow Yalie (He’s working on a Doctorate in English at Yale), and she posted this about him in her blog:  “Combined with his Oscars hosting performance and in accordance with the opinion of commenter’s [sic] on my last blog, I’m becoming convinced that James Franco’s whole life is a form of postmodern performance art. In that context, his Twitter fits right in.“    Oh, ouch.  That’s harsh.

Okay, maybe the hardest job in the world is hosting the Oscars.  It shouldn’t be, but considering the fails over the years with talent that should have been talented, I will cut those hosts some slack.  Because I love the Oscars, even when they’re bad.  There is nothing else like them at all.

I do love the Golden Globes and they’re my second best, as long as Ricky Gervais is nowhere in sight. (I know, I know–you like him; I just find his attempts at out-ickying himself feeble and far from funny.)  I love that everybody can drink at the tables, so that by the end of the night anything can happen.

But this is about the Oscars. Any  thoughts about the Oscars?  I’m all ears.  As you can tell, I can’t get enough of that wonderful stuff.  I’ve been at this for 60 years.  I can’t quit now.

Panera Bread artisans Knead a union

In March, 2012, just six months after their franchise had been bought up by Bread of Life, a company owned by Manna Development, a former McDonald's franchisee, 18 bakers at six Panera Bakery and Cafes along the I-94 corridor in Southwestern Michigan decided to join a union.

The bakers take the midnight shift, working raw dough into the artisan breads Panera has grown famous for.  Their training is extensive--a seven-week "boot camp" with exams and skill demonstrations, a 90-day assessment period, and sometimes as much as a year's worth of kitchen work before the comfort level reaches "artisan" stage.

For their efforts, they earn in the neighborhood of $10 to $11 an hour.  Many of them have no insurance benefits at all, and those who do find their premiums biting a huge chunk out of their already low pay.  The bakers thought they deserved better.

They approached  the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union through their website, and the union took them on, apparently finding nothing odd about such a small contingent--only 18 workers--attempting to form a union.  

Small as the group is, their move toward labor representation was unprecedented in a couple of ways:  They're the first Panera workers in the country to attempt to organize (a move the new owners found "embarrassing") but more than that, their method of organizing took on new dimensions that would have been impossible even a few years ago.   They organized through social networking.

"This group was ready. They did all the work themselves," said [John Price, the bakers' union rep], who added that the Labor Board will issue certification to the I-94 corridor workers on Friday. The Panera workers will be represented by Local 70 out of Grand Rapids. "This is a really intelligent group. They really impressed me. For the most part, they are under 30. They used social media to contact one another." The bakers' use of Facebook and other social media tools are modern twists in the history of collective bargaining -- ones that may prove especially effective in the future, experts say.

"You see a lot of this happening on Facebook and emails. It is very hard for an employer to counter," said Satish Deshpande, associate dean at the Haworth College of Business at Western Michigan University. Deshpande pointed out that no one has to hand out pamphlets or meet in hotel rooms anymore. And while employers can bar union organizers from the workplace, they can't bar them from Facebook.

"Thanks to social media, union organizers can very easily access these people directly at their homes. ... You can control your employees at the workplace, but once they leave the workplace, it's impossible," Deshpande said.

But then the real fun began. This, according to a March, 2012 article on the BCTGM website:

When the 18 bakers, who are employed by the Bread of Life Franchise which owns all Panera locations along the I-94 corridor of Southwest Michigan, decided they had enough of being improperly compensated as skilled bakers, they reached out to Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) through the union’s website, BCTGM.org. The Panera bakers were concerned with inadequate medical insurance, insufficient time off, unsafe working conditions and improvements to the bakeries that were being ignored by management. When 90 percent of the Panera bakers signed union cards, they approached management and requested recognition as a union.

Rather than honoring their skilled bakers by recognizing them as a union, the owners of the Michigan Panera franchise hired a law-firm to delay a union vote by claiming the I-94 Division was not an appropriate unit. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled these bakers were indeed an appropriate unit and directed a secret ballot election be held on Thursday, March 22, 2012.

Bread of Life/Panera Bread also hired one of the largest known Union Busting Consulting firms to fight its own employees. “I felt like we were Prisoners of Panera, rather than Bakers of Panera,” one of the Panera bakers told BCTGM International Representative John Price. “They would work us all night and then force us to attend mandatory captive audience meetings in the morning.”  Another Panera baker recalls, “They would keep us sleep deprived, hungry and then cram us with anti-union Panera propaganda.”

The workers held together through eight weeks of threats, intimidation and other tactics used by management in an attempt to pressure the workers to vote against the union.

Following the NLRB election on Thursday morning, which had voting at each of the six Panera café locations in Southwestern Michigan, the NLRB Agents counted the ballots and announced the bakers had won by a two-to-one margin to be represented by the BCTGM.

By September, nearly six months later, the company still refused to recognize the union.

Contacted by The Herald-Palladium, the company issued the following written statement regarding the dispute: "There is a process in place to deal with the issues that remain concerning the union vote. The union and the company are both aware of the process and have agreed to see it to conclusion. These are not processes that move quickly. As the process moves forward we're continuing to work closely with our bakers and run our business to serve our guests daily the best we can."

John Price, BCTGM representative for the Panera Bread bakers, said in a phone interview Friday that the company failed to address workers' concerns before they sought to join a union and have failed to do so since. He said that following the bakers' vote March 23 to join the union the company filed an unfair labor practice charge objecting to the election.

The workers also filed unfair labor practice charges, listing 43 complaints about the company's treatment of them, Price said. He said that after an investigation of several weeks, the National Labor Relations Board dismissed the company's charges against the workers but found merit to the union's charges against the company and scheduled a federal hearing before an administrative law judge. Before the scheduled hearing the company decided to settle the complaint, Price said.

But, he said, the company has not lived up to terms of the settlement, which was to include withdrawing all objections to the union vote and back pay to the bakers to resolve a failure to bargain. He said the workers are still without a contract.

Now jump to February 16, 2013 (last week) when Dave Jamieson at HuffPo picks up the story:

Eventually, 90 percent of the Panera bakers signed cards authorizing a union election. But according to a complaint filed last year by a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that enforces labor law, Bread of Life managers allegedly violated labor law in trying to dissuade workers from joining the union. [Paul] Saber was personally responsible for many of the violations, the complaint stated. Bread of Life has since settled the complaint without admitting any wrongdoing.

Among the allegations in the complaint, in the weeks leading up to the election Bread of Life told employees not to sign union authorization cards; asked employees who'd signed them to retract them; launched a website designed "to discourage support" for the union; promised workers better employee benefits if they declined to unionize; and threatened employees with "loss of benefits" if they did unionize.

The effort also included at least two required meetings with management and a consultant, who outlined the reasons why the employees didn't need a union. The bakers say the meetings were held at hotels in Kalamazoo, Mich., just before the union election, and started in the morning, right after they'd finished their overnight shifts, and lasted several hours.

According to the NLRB complaint, Saber promised workers promotions if they didn't unionize and told them he would fight the union "until his dying breath." He also said it would be "futile" for them to unionize because "he would delay the certification ... as long as possible no matter the cost."

According to bakers who attended the meetings, the pressure from Saber also included religious appeals. Well-known as a Christian, Saber has been a board member of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and the name Bread of Life (like another Saber holding, Manna Development) has obvious religious connotations. (The website for the Graham organization tells the story of Saber once proselytizing a friend as the pair drove together in a Ferrari during a Ronald McDonald House Charities fundraiser.)

According to the bakers, Saber said workers shouldn't unionize in part because Bread of Life is a Christian company that looks after its own.

"We had to hear about how he was a good Christian who'd take care of us so we needed to stop this union nonsense," said [Kathleen] VonEitzen, whose version of events was corroborated by Jared Miller, another baker in attendance. "They asked us to delay the vote.

"I read the Bible regularly," VonEitzen added. "We don’t have the same Bible."

So there it stands.  Add to their plight the fact that, thanks to Michigan's Republican governor and Republican legislature, our once-great state is now a Right-to-Work state, which means further restrictions on union organizing, moving the effort from "almost impossible" to "damned impossible".

So we wait and see.

But one more thing:  This is not an indictment of all Panera stores.  This is one small franchise, remember.  The Panera mother company, in fact, does some admirable work in the inner cities and low income areas with their Panera Cares Community Cafes. Anyone can come into the community cafes and get a hot meal for whatever they can afford to pay.  And if they can't pay, they can volunteer an hour of their time working in the cafe.  Their motto is, "We're not offering a hand out, we're offering a hand up."

I'm impressed, honestly.

Now if they could just train a certain Bread of Life franchisee to follow Panera's "Live Consciously" model.  

I'm pretty sure there's something about that, even in Paul Saber's Bible.

A Piece on Writing Opinion Pieces. Imagine that!

I had the pleasure of writing a guest post for Anne Wayman's great website, "About Freelance Writing" and it was published today.  My blog--this one right here--concerns itself mainly with political opinion, which means I tend to dive right into controversies on purpose--and often for fun.  So when Anne asked me to do a piece on writing about controversial subjects--well, of course I dove right in.

I called it "How to Survive Writing Opinion Pieces" and started it like this:

When I began writing a weekly column for a small chain of suburban newspapers, I was thrilled that I could write about anything as long as it fit the space (600-800 words). I had happened upon a lazy editor hungry for content (and eager to pay me as little as possible) and he gave me a chance, even though my newspaper experience was just north of nil.

Ronald Reagan was president then and I was a flaming liberal feminist, so what started out being a column about kids and cats and lovely Liz Taylor’s appearance on General Hospital turned into an ongoing rant against the establishment.

I lived near Detroit at the time and the auto industry was dying. People were losing their jobs right and left. Food banks were emptying out as fast as they were filled, and the churches serving the poor couldn’t keep up. I began to attend emergency meetings on poverty and reported strenuously on the suffering I found.

I wrote about women’s issues, about religion, about civil rights, about the still-strong feelings over Vietnam. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when the letters to the editor began to take on a surly note, most of them directed at me. But I was. I was surprised. They hurt!

***So I would really love it if you would go over to "About Freelancing" to read the rest.  And don't forget to comment.  If you feel like it, that is.  Either here or there.  We both love visitors.

And we both thank you.

Ramona

VDAY. Ending Violence Toward Women and Girls

Join us here.  We can get this done!

This Valentine's Day I'll be foregoing jewels and candies and pink teddy bears with red hearts on their tummies (Ha! As if!) and I'll be going, instead, for dancing. Some of you who have seen me dance might find that cause for concern but never fear--it's not me dancing, it's them:

Did you notice when you got here that my walls are now pink? You should know that normally I'm not a "Pink" person, but in this case I will wallow in pink if it means this message is getting out:  Unbelievable numbers of women and girls are being viciously abused minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and we must be the catalyst that brings these horrors to an end.  No one else will do it.  It's up to us.

One in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime, often more than once.  If we haven't been victims ourselves, we know someone who has been.  We can't have lived this long and not know that women and girls all over the world spend their days in fear because of what men have already done to them or will do to them.  They are not safe from men--either the men in their lives or complete strangers--who see them as sexual or domestic chattel, of no use except as a belonging or a conquest.

Please, please, go here (or click on the logos above) and join the crowds of men and women rising up to let their voices be heard. Watch the videos, grab the links and spread the word.  Let them know we're in this together.  Send a message to the abusers that we're out to protect women and girls from them and we won't stop until we've done our jobs.

And dance.  Let's all dance.  Because womanhood is meant to be a joy and not a burden.

We'll show them how it's done. On Valentine's Day.


NOTE:  The walls are back to brown.  Pink was yesterday and the day before.  Your eyes are okay.  Feel better?)

 

Remember Transvaginal Ultrasounds? They're baaack.

You have to hand it to those Republican legislators in Michigan, my beautiful, besieged state.  I swear, they must stay awake nights trying to think up ways to protect our wicked womanly bodies from the fools who happen to own them.  (That would be us, ladies.)  In late December, Gov. Snyder (R) signed a bill handed down by the Republicans setting strict limits on clinics providing abortions, in hopes they couldn't comply and would have to shut their doors.  In that same bill, doctors would now have to have a conversation with the patient, asking needless questions of mostly mentally competent women about whether or not they had been coerced. 

These same Michigan Republicans, having already thrown their weight around, passing an unpopular, unprecedented Right-to-Work law in the state where labor successes made it the birthplace of the middle class, and then going against the voters to reinstate the hated emergency manager law, have again turned their sights on that old standby attention-getter, the fertile womb.

You would think they might have other, better things to think about, considering it's the year 2013 and they haven't quite scaled all the walls of the castle yet, but here they are, socking it to us one more time with a new anti-abortion bill that includes forced ultrasounds, forced heartbeat recordings, forced lectures, forced permission slips, forced 24-hour cooling off periods--all in the interest of taking care of the little women who obviously can't even begin to fathom what's about to happen to them.

Yes, on Tuesday, February 5, 18 Republican men and three Republican women put their signatures to House Bill 4187, wherein they take on the thankful task of coming as close to banning abortion as is politically possible in this, the early part of the 18th 21st century.   

In the very first paragraph they let us know right off that whatever the hell the Federal government agreed to in Roe v. Wade, here in the the great state of Michigan, all bets are off:

Sec. 17014. The legislature recognizes that under federal constitutional law, a state is permitted to enact persuasive measures that favor childbirth over abortion, even if those measures do not further a health interest.

And that's just the beginning.  Let me grab one more section here--the highlight of the entire bill.  The ultrasound part:

(iii) The performance of a diagnostic ultrasound examination of the fetus at least 2 hours before an abortion is performed with the woman given the option to view the active ultrasound image of the fetus, hear the fetal heartbeat, receive a physical picture of the ultrasound image of the fetus, and hear an explanation of the ultrasound image of the fetus. The performance of a diagnostic ultrasound examination of the fetus, now a standard practice at abortion facilities, protects the health of the woman seeking an abortion by verifying an intrauterine pregnancy, as undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies can result in potentially fatal complications and infertility.

The performance of a diagnostic ultrasound examination of the fetus further protects the interests of the woman seeking an abortion by assessing the viability of the fetus and confirming the approximate gestational age of the fetus, as this information is necessary in order to determine appropriate medical care for the woman seeking an abortion.

(All caps and bold was their idea.  I had nothing to do with it.)

Well, I could be picking out juicy parts all over the place but I'll leave it to you to read the rest of the BS, while I get to the (seemingly) good part.

Something (seemingly) big happened yesterday (Thursday, Feb 7, 2013).  Something that could potentially change everything.  Speaker of the House Jase Bolger came out and said there would be no bill from the House that would require invasive, transvaginal ultrasounds.

And cheers were heard for miles around.  I mean!  The Republican Speaker of the House!  Said no Transvaginal Ultrasounds under his watch!  Lordamighty!

But wait. . .

House Bill 4187 doesn't use the word "transvaginal".  It's not anywhere in there.  So what is Speaker Bolger talking about when he says so carefully, "While I want to be sure women have access to the best technology available, I have absolutely no interest in forcing a woman to have a transvaginal ultrasound."

That's what he said.  So why, in the heat of this glorious first, a moment when a Republican leader-man in Michigan actually comes out in defense of women. . .why am I so, so suspicious?

Because it's Michigan and it's the House, and they're Republicans and we're talking about abortion.  Speaker Bolger didn't say he had absolutely no interest in forcing a woman to have an ultrasound.  No, he said, very specifically, a transvaginal ultrasound.

 So now we wait.  The shoe will drop from that other foot.  Mark my words.

Gabby Giffords Spoke and Some of Us Listened

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords appeared at the Senate judiciary hearing on gun violence yesterday to try and convince lawmakers that we have a major problem with guns in this country and gun control must be addressed.  This is what she said, in its entirety:

"Thank you for inviting me here today. This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats, and Republicans.  Speaking is difficult but I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying - too many children. We must do something. It will be hard. But the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be Courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you."

 Seventy two words.  Most people could say what Gabby said in about 30 seconds (I timed myself doing it.  Thirty two seconds.)  But because Gabby was shot in the head two years ago in Tucson by an assassin who killed six people, including a Federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, and injured 16 others, giving that 72-word speech required hours of rehearsal so that every word would come out exactly the way she hoped it would. 

This is how Gabby looked and sounded when she spoke at that hearing.

I watched that video at least eight times yesterday and I'll watch it again and again, and then again.  I wish I could tell Gabby that it doesn't matter if Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, or the committee members planning to vote against any new gun laws were moved by her words and her efforts to speak them.  What matters is that she did it. It was hard but she did it, and she did it for us. Not for them.

She showed us what courage is all about, but beyond that, she reminded us of the realities behind a single act of gun violence--the long haul to recover, the probability that full recovery is not possible, the willingness to overcome the nightmarish horror and the anguished aftermath and move on.

I put her words and her video on my page not simply because I admire her so completely--I do--but to remind me that the way we fight for something as obvious as universal background checks and total banning of assault weapons is to never claim victimhood.

We just get out there and work to get this thing fixed.

Because NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, also invited to testify at the hearing, is neither a victim nor a hero.  He is a paid shill for an industry that pushes its weight around in order to keep producing and selling military-style weapons designed solely to kill or maim human beings.

And because the millions of pawns who follow the NRA and help to spread the lies about Second Amendment protections need to see what courage in the face of that kind of opposition to common sense gun laws looks like.