Adding Injury To Insult

This post originally appeared on RingofFireRadio.com.

As if one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet paying poverty wages wasn’t bad enough, McDonald’s (one of several franchises being represented in a lawsuit against the city of Seattle over its recent mandate to raise wages to $15 an hour) apparently believes itself to be exempt from regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Remember Ketchup As a Vegetable?

In the great tradition of the Reagan years, the management at McDonald’s “restaurants” consider mustard and mayonnaise to be first aid ointments. It’s not a joke. In a press release from the website FightFor15.org, a McDonald’s worker from Chicago described her experience:

“My managers kept pushing me to work faster, and while trying to meet their demands I slipped on a wet floor, catching my arm on a hot grill…the managers told me to put mustard on it, but I ended up having to get rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.”

This worker’s story is not unusual. At least 80% of McDonald’s employees report suffering moderate to severe burn injuries. Of that 80%, 6 out of every 10 workers suffered multiple injuries. 1 in 3 report that the first aid kit (mandated under OSHA regulations) is either not readily accessible, lacking supplies – or missing altogether.

And what of safety equipment? Dream on, folks – you think this is a four-star French cafe?

(Incredibly, there are 1,200 McDonald’s outlets in France – but in order to survive in that country, the corporation was forced to adapt to French eating habits and preferences…and you’d better believe working conditions are better as well.)

Actually, McDonald’s and most other “fast food” franchises have far more in common with an automotive assembly line than any sort of upscale dining establishment.

A Bit of History

The concept of “fast food” in the United States goes back over a century, but arguably, the first modern “fast food” chain was A&W (of root beer fame), which began franchising in 1921. 19 years later, two brothers in San Bernardino, California, created a kitchen and food service method modeled on the same assembly lines pioneered by Henry Ford.

The brothers’ names? Richard and Maurice McDonald.

In 1954, a salesman for milkshake blending machines visited the McDonald’s operation in order to learn why the brothers had ordered a dozen machines (most eating establishments and soda fountains had one or two at most). When the dust settled from that visit, the McDonald’s had a partner in that visiting salesman, who went by the name of Ray Kroc. He opened the first McDonald’s franchises in his home state of Illinois shortly thereafter. By 1961, Kroc was in a position to buy out the McDonald brothers – and the modern McDonald’s Corporation was born.

It’s Not All Bad

For better or worse, this food service business model has become almost ubiquitous. However, some present-day fast food restaurants treat employees far better than others. Not surprisingly, these tend to be either small, independent family businesses or more localized chains, such as the Pacific Northwest’s Burgerville or the Southwest’s In-N-Out Burger. Both of these companies have always paid starting employees more than minimum wage and provide low-cost, full medical and dental benefits. Current and former employees give the companies high marks when it comes to worker satisfaction, despite the fast-paced and stressful nature of the job.

So….what is it about these issues that McDonald’s doesn’t get?

Ronald Could Learn a Thing or Two

On 16 March, 28 complaints from workers having suffered burn injuries were filed with OSHA. This issue – now attracting national attention – is quickly becoming part of the fight for higher wages among these workers from across the nation. Demonstrators in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere in the country are gathering outside of McDonald’s stores, not only demanding $15 an hour, but speaking out about unsafe working conditions as well.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s told USA Today that alleged safety violations would be investigated, but added that the media should to be aware that said allegations were “part of a larger strategy” on the part of “activists” who were targeting the company.

According to the allegations, as managers exert extreme pressure on employees to work faster and “more efficiently,” basic, common-sense safety precautions are ignored. One of these is to wait for cooking oil to cool down before emptying fryers for cleaning. At least one employee was instructed to line a cardboard box with plastic, fill it with ice, and dump hot cooking oil into it so the fryer could be cleaned faster and the used product disposed of sooner.

After all, profits are at stake. Franchisees are themselves under intense pressure from the corporate office, which sends out inspectors regularly to make certain they are toeing the line. (Conformity appears to be the main concern, here; safety is low on the priority list.)

It must be paying off for someone. Despite a great deal of bad press in recent years, McDonald’s – a global corporation with 36,000 locations worldwide – has been seeing a modest increase in sales. In 2012, the corporation had revenues of $27.5 billion, a little over 3% over the prior year. That averages just under $764,000 per restaurant.

In-N-Out, which has a mere 232 locations in five Western states, made an estimated $625 million that same year. But that represents an income of nearly $2.7 million per restaurant – about 350% better than McDonald’s.

One significant difference between the two restaurant change is that the global corporation must grow and expand at all costs. If that means cutting corners and gaming the system, so be it. If workers get hurt and customers get sick, well, that’s just part of the cost of doing business.

It is what the late author and social critic Edward Abbey described as “the mentality of the cancer cell.”

The regional chain, which was founded in 1948, has an entirely different business philosophy. Central to In-N-Out’s philosophy is treating employees well and sharing the corporation’s success with the workers who make it possible. According to Wall Street wisdom, anything that cuts into the profit margin and prevents constant, rapid expansion is bad business.

Yet In-N-Out is doing phenomenally well by all standards. McDonald’s, which follows Wall Street convention, is facing charges for violating labor regulations, armies of angry, dissatisfied employees demanding a greater share of the wealth they work to generate – and a rapidly tarnishing public image.

And in the meantime, McDonald’s employees continue to suffer unnecessary, painful, on-the-job injuries. One hopes that OSHA officials will take these complaints seriously and give the Golden Arches a good, hard, detailed once-over.

Walker unscripted falls flat

Gov. Scott Walker proudly touts his ability to survive a recall election and his union busting ways, but a poorly planned analogy at CPAC fails to impress. Ed Schultz, John Nichols, and Jean Ross discuss.

Paying employees fair wages

Bar Marco in Pittsburgh sets a golden standard for paying their employees a fair wage, along with giving benefits rarely granted to food service staff. Ed Schultz, co-owner Justin Steel, and employee Andrew Heffner discuss these incredible steps for worker’s rights.

The Political Win That Could Make Elizabeth Warren the Next President of The United States

By Miles Mogulescu

Led by Elizabeth Warren, this week progressive Democrats and the American people scored an unusual victory over Wall Street, Too Big To Fail Banks, and corporate Democrats.

Wall Street investment banker Antonio Weiss -- President Obama's nominee for the third ranking position in the Treasury Department, who had helped Burger King merge with a Canadian company to avoid U.S. taxes and stood to receive a $20 million payout from his bank for taking the Treasury job - withdrew his nomination rather than face questioning on his Wall Street ties in a Senate confirmation hearing.

On its face, Weiss's withdrawal might seem like a relatively small thing. But in politics, this is the equivalent of a large earthquake, and a big boost to Elizabeth Warren's political influence.

A presidential appointee is almost never withdrawn because of opposition from the president's own party. The last case I can remember is in 2005 when George W. Bush withdrew the Supreme Court nomination of his friend Harriet Miers after she was opposed by Republican Senators and activists.

As Joe Biden is known to say, "This is a big deal".

This political earthquake is a barometer of the growing influence of Sen. Warren, without whose outspoken opposition - joined by a grassroots campaign which generated over tens of thousands of signatures -- the nomination would have sailed through.

Four weeks ago, I wrote a piece on The Huffington Post entitled The Speech That Could Make Elizabeth Warren the Next President of the United States. Much to my surprise the piece went totally viral. Over the next few days, the piece was "Liked" by 243,000 readers, reposted by over 37,000 people on their own Facebook pages, and Tweeted by thousands more (including by Mark Ruffalo to his 1.2 million followers). The piece seemed to have touched a nerve in the political zeitgeist. The response indicated that there's a hunger for new leadership which is not bought and sold by corporate America, whether it's another Bush or another Clinton.

Even as Jeb Bush is staring to lock up Republican donors in the money primary that hugely influences who wins the actual voter primary, and Hillary adds top Clinton and Obama advisor John Podesta to her potential campaign staff, there's a growing grassroots outcry for a Warren candidacy.

MoveOn has raised $1m for a Draft Warren campaign, has opened staffed offices in Iowa, and has gathered over 200,000 signatures (sign here) which are growing daily. Democracy for America is launching an on-the-ground grassroots campaign this Saturday in New Hampshire. 300 former Obama campaign staffers have signed a letter urging Warren to run.

It's clear that if Warren runs, she'll have an army of experienced grassroots campaign organizers and donors. And unlike with Barack Obama, they're the type of grassroots organizers who would stay organized if she won to be sure that she and a reluctant Congress lived up to her campaign promises.

Even though it's early to put much stock in polls, a Colorado focus group of Republicans, Democrats and Independent organized by the Annenberg Center expressed widespread distaste for both Clinton and Bush and strong positive interest in Warren. A Republican-leaning independent, supported by half the participants, said "I wouldn't be opposed to Congress saying, 'If your last name is Clinton or Bush, you don't even get to run'". Words used by participants to describe Clinton were "Hopeful." "Crazy." "Strong." "Spitfire." "Untrustworthy." "More of the same." "Next candidate, please."

Comments on Jeb Bush were even worse.

But many participants responded positively when Elizabeth Warren's name was mentioned. Words used to describe her included "Passionate." "Smart." "Sincere." "Knowledgeable." "Intelligent." "Capable. Half of the participants said they'd pick Warren as their next door neighbor, including the most conservative member of the group. A Republican-leaning independent said, "She's personable and knowledgeable, and I think she's got a good handle on what's going on in the country". The Washington Post reported the pollster's takeaway:

"'One is [that] the political classes told us it's going to be Bush against Clinton. But these people are hundreds of miles away from that choice. Essentially what they're telling us is, 'I don't trust these people. They're part of an establishment that I don't like.'

That was one turning point, he said. The other was Warren. 'Elizabeth Warren, from every part of the compass, had a level of support," he said. "She's not invisible. She's not unknown. She's not undefined.' And, he added, she reached them on the issues so many people spoke about, which is their own economic concerns.

'You couldn't leave this without feeling how hard-pressed these people are and how they're looking for someone who will be a force for their cause. And Elizabeth Warren has broken through.'"

Given that Elizabeth Warren is the only national politician who addresses the economic concerns of the American people without the corporate ties of Bush, Inc. or Clinton, Inc., as an Atlantic Magazine" column put it, if Warren doesn't run, "she'll do a tremendous disservice to her principles and her party."

"Warren is the only person standing between the Democrats and an uncontested Hillary Clinton nomination. She has already made clear what she thinks of the Clintons.

Warren has suggested that President Bill Clinton's administration served the same "trickle down" economics as its Republicans and predecessors.

Warren has denounced the Clinton administration's senior economic appointees as servitors of the big banks.

Warren has blasted Bill Clinton's 1996 claim that the era of big government is over and his repeal of Glass-Steagall and other financial regulations...

Lead a fight for America's working people? Hillary Clinton wouldn't lead a fight for motherhood and apple pie if motherhood and apple pie were polling below 70 percent."

In contrast, Warren lays out a concrete program for giving average Americans a fighting chance in an increasingly unequal economy. As she told the National Summit on Raising Wages last week,

"We need to talk about what we believe:

• We believe that no one should work full time and still live in poverty - and that means raising the minimum wage.

• We believe workers have a right to come together, to bargain together and to rebuild America's middle class.

• We believe in enforcing labor laws, so that workers get overtime pay and pensions that are fully funded.

• We believe in equal pay for equal work.

• We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security, Medicare, and pensions.

We also need a hard conversation about how we create jobs here in America. We need to talk about how to build a future. So let's say what we believe:

• We believe in making investments - in roads and bridges and power grids, in education, in research - investments that create good jobs in the short run and help us build new opportunities over the long run.

• And we believe in paying for them-not with magical accounting scams that pretend to cut taxes and raise revenue, but with real, honest-to-goodness changes that make sure that we pay-and corporations pay-a fair share to build a future for all of us.

• We believe in trade policies and tax codes that will strengthen our economy, raise our living standards, and create American jobs - and we will never give up on those three words: Made in America.

And one more point. If we're ever going to un-rig the system, then we need to make some important political changes. And here's where we start:

• We know that democracy doesn't work when congressmen and regulators bow down to Wall Street's political power - and that means it's time to break up the Wall Street banks and remind politicians that they don't work for the big banks, they work for US!"

Given the stark contrasts between Clinton's corporate bromides and Warren's specific plans to make the economy work for the 99%, how can Warren cede the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton without a contest?

Moreover, Warren's current political influence derives, in no small part, from her potential as a Presidential candidate. If she wins the Democratic nomination, she will become the most influential Democrat in the country, and if she wins the Presidency, she has a chance of effecting some of the transformational changes she proposes. Even if she loses a close nomination battle with Hillary, she will have established herself as a defining national figure and might force Hillary to move in a more populist direction.

But if, after all the fiery rhetoric, Warren sits out the presidential race, her political influence will quickly wane. She will become one more backbench Senator with little political influence. She'd be something like Bernie Sanders (whom I personally like) who's little more than a political gadfly but is unable to achieve much in the way of concrete accomplishments. And Elizabeth Warren doesn't strike me as the type of person who would be satisfied with talking big and accomplishing little.

So, Run Warren, Run. Anything less would be a disservice to yourself, your principles, your millions of supporters, and the American people.

Most Of The Population Now Needs Government Assistance To Make Ends Meet

By Susie Madrak

Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.

 

All too true. It always amazes me to see people on my TV singing the praises of the growing new economy, and I think to myself: Don't you know any normal people? Via Political Blindspot:

If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that you are now living in poverty or near poverty. Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.

That near poverty statistic is perhaps more startling than the 50 million Americans below the poverty line, because it translates to a full 80% of the population struggling with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on government assistance to help make ends meet.

In September, the Associated Press pointed to survey data that told of an increasingly widening gap between rich and poor, as well as the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs that used to provide opportunities for the “Working Class” to explain an increasing trend towards poverty in the U.S.

But the numbers of those below the poverty line does not merely reflect the number of jobless Americans. Instead, according to a revised census measure released Wednesday, the number – 3 million higher than what the official government numbers imagine – are also due to out-of-pocket medical costs and work-related expenses.

The new measure is generally “considered more reliable by social scientists because it factors in living expenses as well as the effects of government aid, such as food stamps and tax credits,” according to Hope Yen reporting for the Associated Press.

Some other findings revealed that food stamps helped 5 million people barely reach above the poverty line. That means that the actual poverty rate is even higher, as without such aid, poverty rate would rise from 16 percent to 17.6 percent.

Latino and Asian Americans saw an increase in poverty, rising to 27.8 percent and 16.7 percent respectively, from 25.8 percent and 11.8 percent under official government numbers. African-Americans, however, saw a very small decrease, from 27.3 percent to 25.8 percent which the study documents is due to government assistance programs.

Non-Hispanic whites too rose from 9.8 percent to 10.7 percent in poverty.

“The primary reason that poverty remains so high,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist said, “is that the benefits of a growing economy are no longer being shared by all workers as they were in the quarter-century following the end of World War II.”

The Walmartizaton of Thanksgiving

Posted by Jim Hightower

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Everyone from the Obama family in the White House to my little family in Texas will take a deserved pause from the unrelenting intensity of work on Thanksgiving Day. But millions will not get a work pause.

Such workers as firefighters, police and hospital workers must stay on the job, but they're providing essential services for our society. Yet Walmart, Target, Macy's, Radio Shack, and other retailers are also requiring their low-paid workers to report. Why? What's essential about buying gewgaws, gizmos, or garments from these mass marketers of consumer excess that justifies them forcing employees to give up this family day of giving thanks?

Retail giants already exploit the day after Thanksgiving, which they've dubbed "Black Friday," for an orgy of commercialism. Yet that's not enough to satisfy soulless profiteers. So they've moved their Black Friday start back into Thursday, during the family mealtime of Thanksgiving Day itself. Some are even opening their doors at 6 am on Thursday, essentially wiping out this day of family grace for every employee they require to be at work. Show up… or lose your job. Thanks, boss.

A mall outside of Buffalo has gone even more extreme, requiring its 200-plus stores to open on Thanksgiving Day or pay a $200-an-hour fine. What we have here is the insatiable excess of what Pope Francis recently condemned as "unbridled consumerism." Yet a Walmart PR flack claims to be doing consumers a favor by staying open on a spiritual day to "provide what consumers need."

Bovine excrement! Walmart has nothing that needs to be bought on a holiday, and any of the stuff it sells can be bought the very next day from Costco, Crate & Barrel, Barnes & Noble, Dillard's, Nordstrom, Patagonia, and other stores that respect their employees and America's values by closing on Thanksgiving Day.

"Spending: Retailers Are Facing off Over Closing or Opening," The New York Times, November 15,
 2014.

"New York Mall Will Fine Stores If They Don't Open On Thanksgiving," www.alternet.com, November 12, 2014.

"Mall Will Fine Stores If They Don't Open On Thanksgiving," www.time.com, November 11, 2014.

"Pope Francis: 'Unbridled Consumerism' Is Destroying Our Planet," www.ecowatch.com, November 13, 2014.

Christie takes a hard line on minimum wage

Hardball Roundtable—Jay Newton Small, David Corn and John Stanton—join Chris Matthews to discuss Chris Christie’s latest comments on not raising the minimum wage.

Validating Marriott's low wage exploitation

Posted by Jim Hightower

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As an old popular song asks, what do you get if you "work your fingers right down to the bone?"

Boney fingers.

As housekeepers in the sprawling Marriott chain of hotels know, that's more than a cute lyric, it's the truth. These "room attendants," as they're called, are paid barely $8 an hour to perform a very hard, physical job, suffering the highest injury rate in the so-called "hospitality" industry. Some two-thirds of them take pain medication just to get through their day of heaving 100-pound mattresses, stooping to clean floors, and twisting to readjust furniture in 15 to 20 rooms per shift.

Yet, Marriott's CEO publicly hails the very women he exploits as "the heart of the house," saying his chain likes to express its appreciation to them with "special recognition events" during International Housekeepers Week. Yes, exploited room attendants are not rewarded with a living wage, but with a congratulatory week – how great is that?

This year, housekeeper week came with "a new tipping initiative" – a scheme created by multimillionaire Maria Shriver, urging Marriott's customers "to express their gratitude by leaving tips and notes of thanks for hotel room attendants." Shriver says she hopes the voluntary tips "will make these women feel validated." Is that sweet or what?

Does she at least urge that this tip be the standard 15-20 percent we give at restaurants? No, one-to-five bucks per night's stay is recommended. Let's see, at about $250 a day for a Marriott room, even $5 is a sad two percent expression of "gratitude." As for customers leaving a little thank-you note, imagine trying to buy a baloney sandwich with that.

How about this:  

Instead of paying $9 million a year to Marriott's CEO, make him rely on customer tips – and see how validated he feels.

"House Keeping Can Be Dangerous Work," Unite Here.

"Compensation up for Marriott, Hilton CEOs," www.bizjournal.com, April 8, 2014.

"Marriott: Company Information," www.news.marriott.com, September 1, 2014.

"Marriott's New Envelope For Room Tips Stirs Debate," www.npr.org, September 16, 2014.

"Hotel Chain Will Leave Envelopes In Rooms To Encourage Guests To Tip Housekeepers," www.thinkprogress.org

Wells Fargo Employee Emails CEO Asking For a Raise—Copies 200,000 Other Employees

By Joanna Rothkopf


Tyrel Oates, a 30-year-old Portland, Oregon-based employee of Wells Fargo, shot to Internet fame after emailing the company’s CEO John Stumpf (and cc’ing 200,000 other employees) to ask for a $10,000 raise… for everyone at the company.

The Charlotte Observer reports:

Oates proposed that Wells Fargo give each of its roughly 263,500 employees a $10,000 raise. That, he wrote, would “show the rest of the United States, if not the world, that, yes, big corporations can have a heart other than philanthropic endeavors.”

In an interview Tuesday, Oates…said he has no regrets and that he has received many thank-yous from co-workers who told him they shared his views.

And, at least as of Tuesday afternoon, he said he’s still employed by the company, where he processes requests from Wells Fargo customers seeking to stop debt-collection calls.
“I’m not worried about losing my job over this,” Oates said.

Oates has been working at the company for almost seven years and makes slightly more than $15 per hour, working 40 hours per week excluding mandatory overtime. “Just knowing the unease of my fellow team members as far as pay goes and how horrible our pay increases have been over the seven years… I just decided to send a letter to John Stumpf,” he said.

The full letter was posted on Reddit. Here it is:

Mr. Stumpf,

With the increasing focus on income inequality in the United States. Wells Fargo has an opportunity to be at the forefront of helping to reduce this by setting the bar, leading by example, and showing the other large corporations that it is very possible to maintain a profitable company that not only looks out for its consumers and shareholders, but its employees as well.

This year Wells Fargo in its second quarter alone had a net income of $5.7 billion, and total revenue of $21.1 billion. These are very impressive numbers, and is obvious evidence that Wells Fargo is one of, if not the most profitable company in the nation right now. So, why not take some of this and distribute it to the rest of the employees.

Sure, the company provides while not great, some pretty good benefits, as well as discretionary profit sharing for those who partake in our 401k program. While the benefits are nice, the profit sharing through the 401k only goes to make the company itself and its shareholders more profitable, and not really boost the income of the thousands of us here every day making this company the prestigious power house that it is.

Last year, you had pulled in over $19 million, more than most of the employees will see in our lifetimes. It is understood that your position carries a lot of weight and responsibility; however, with a base salary of $2.8 million and bonuses equating to $4 million, is alone one of the main arguments of income inequality. Where the vast majority, the undeniable profit drivers, with the exception of upper management positions barely make enough to live comfortably on their own, the distribution of income in this company is no better than that of the other big players in the corporate world.

My estimate is that Wells Fargo has roughly around 300,000 employees. My proposal is take $3 billion dollars, just a small fraction of what Wells Fargo pulls in annually, and raise every employees annual salary by $10,000 dollars. This equates to an hourly raise about $4.71 per hour. Think, as well, of the positive publicity in a time of extreme consumer skepticism towards banks. By doing this, Wells Fargo will not only help to make its people, its family, more happy, productive, and financially stable, it will also show the rest of the United States, if not the world that, yes big corporations can have a heart other than philanthropic endeavors.

P.S. – To all of my fellow team members who receive a copy of this email. Though Wells Fargo does not allow the formation of unions, this does not mean we cannot stand united. Each and every one of us plays an integral part in the success of this company. It is time that we ask, no, it is time that we demand to be rightfully compensated for the hard work that we accomplish, and for the great part we all have played in the success of this company.

There are many of us out there who come to work every day and give it our all, yet, we struggle to make ends meet while our peers in upper management and company executives reap the majority of the rewards. One of our lowest scored TMCS questions is that our opinions matter. Well they do!

This email has been sent to hundreds of thousands Wells Fargo employees, (as many as I could cc from the outlook global address book). And while the voice of one person in a world as large as ours may seem only like a whisper, the combined voices of each and all of us can move mountains!

With the warmest of regards,

          Tyrel Oates

Fast Food Workers Will Serve Up Massive Minimum Wage Protests This Thursday

By Arit John

The next round of protests from fast food workers will take place on Thursday, when people in more than 100 cities will stage sit-ins or walk off the job as they seek a $15 minimum wage. “On Thursday, we are prepared to take arrests to show our commitment to the growing fight for $15,” Terrence Wise, a Burger King employee  and a member of the fast-food workers’ national organizing committee, told The New York Times.

The strike is the latest in the Service Employees International Union's two-year effort to pressure lawmakers and employers to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from $7.25. During a nationwide protest held May 15, workers in several countries across the world protested in solidarity. And unlike past protests, unions are also encouraging the nation's 2 million home-care workers to participate in the day's protests to put more pressure on cities.

On Labor Day, President Obama renewed his support for a raise in the minimum wage — to $10.10 an hour. At an event hosted by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Obama said that American workers deserve a raise and, if he was a fast food worker and “wanted an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, I’d join a union.”

Standing up to post office privatizers

Posted by Jim Hightower

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"Boss," spelled backwards, is double-S-O-B, and that's how most of the employees of the US Postal Service feel about their top boss.

America's postal employees –from mail clerks to letter carriers – take great pride in moving millions of pieces of mail to us every day, whether we live in inner cities or way down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where mail is delivered by mule-riding letter carriers to a Native American tribe living there.

But USPS bossman, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe, definitely does not make postal workers proud, for he's been deliberately monkey-wrenching our mail system by slowing delivery, reducing staff and hours of service, closing neighborhood and historic post offices, shutting processing centers, trying to end Saturday delivery, badmouthing his own agency's performance, steadily corporatizing public functions, and transforming decent, union-scale jobs into the low-wage retail economy.

One portentous example of Donahoe's determination to bust the wages and undermine the performance of USPS is the sweetheart privatization scam he's set up with Staples. He's letting this big box retailer place official postal kiosks in its 1,500 stores – only they're not being staffed by highly trained, publically-accountable postal workers, but by Staple's own poverty-wage, high-turnover floor staff. In at least one case, Donahoe even cut the hours of service at post offices around a Staples store, then put up a sign directing postal customers to the Staples outlet.

Mark Dimondstein – the feisty president of the American Postal Workers Union – calls Donahoe "Wall Street's Trojan Horse, the privatizer from within." But, says Dimondstein, "We intend to stop him." His union has launched a Dump Donahoe campaign as well as a national boycott of Staples stores. For information and support, go to www.apwu.org

A Walmart in North Dakota: Or AEI thinks you're dumber than a bag of hammers

By Dante Atkins for Daily Kos

There's a Walmart out there that pays well. But it's not yours.

 

It's hard to think of two things that the right wing loves more than Walmart and oil drilling. So it comes as no surprise that the American Enterprise Institute, one of the conservative movement's most influential and aggressive pro-business economic think tanks, would be overjoyed at the opportunity to promote both in one fell swoop. 

 

Last month, Professor Mark J. Perry, a scholar at AEI, found just that opportunity in the form of a picture documenting the starting wages at the Walmart in Williston, North Dakota. The wages in question range between $17.20 and $19.90 an hour—far higher than Walmart's average hourly rate, and yet still a few dollars short of the wage of the average employee at Costco.
Now, to set the stage here, North Dakota is in the middle of an oil boom. The increased price of crude has combined with the development of new extraction techniques to result in a massive expansion of oil production in the Bakken shale. This has led to North Dakota having the lowest employment of any state in the country, and the Williston area is right at the boom's epicenter.

Now, in what follows, we're going to ignore the fact that the continued extraction of oil from the Bakken shale is actively contributing to the warming of our planet and the concomitant impending destruction of society as we know it, and choose instead to focus on the specific economic arguments.

See, Dr. Perry is using the example of this one Walmart situated in the middle of perhaps the strongest economy in the state to argue for Walmart and against the minimum wage. Either he's dumber than a bag of hammers, or he thinks his readers are, and it's hard to tell which.

In his first point, Professor Perry notes the first and most obvious thing about about the store in Williston: the comparison between the wages at the store in Williston with Walmart's average wages nationwide indicate that, yes, even Walmart has to respond to the market forces prevalent in a particular community in order to get its stores staffed.

Yes, Walmart won't be able to staff its stores if it attempted to pay minimum wage in Williston—but that doesn't mean that market forces require Walmart to pay lower wages in other places. Perry's apparent confusion on this issue is illustrative of a significant difference between upward pressure and downward pressure on wages: upward pressure on wages sets a higher floor for businesses to be able to get labor at all.

Downward pressure, on the other hand, allows businesses to use wage levels as a determiner of company values and strategy. A Costco and a Walmart in the same general vicinity are subject to the same wage pressures, but Costco chooses to pay a higher wage to engender higher employee loyalty and morale, along with its corresponding effects on customer satisfaction.

Walmart, on the other hand, chooses to exploit its labor by seeking it out at the lowest possible price, and expecting government to pick up the remaining tab through social services. In short, Walmart could choose to pay higher wages: after all, if it weren't profitable to keep the store in Williston open despite the comparatively high labor costs, Walmart would simply close it down.

But Dr. Perry isn't just using the example of this one store to mistakenly defend Walmart's business practices. Instead, he and AEI are using it to attack the very concept of a minimum wage:

2. The fact that Walmart is paying almost 2.5 times the minimum wage in Williston, ND is evidence that a single, national minimum wage for every city, county, labor market in the country can’t possibly make sense. Even proponents of the minimum wage have to agree that a single national minimum can’t be optimal for every labor market in the country. In that case, they would logically have to support thousands of minimum wages tailored to thousands of local communities, or maybe even more logically agree that minimum wages are unworkable.

3. You probably won’t be hearing anybody calling for a $15 per hour “living wage” in North Dakota, since the entry level wages at Walmart's there are already above that

Now, as we break down this section, let's not forget that Perry is a professor of economics at the University of Michigan. Arguments like this are convincing evidence that Wolverine State taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth. 

 

To begin with, Perry is assuming that Walmart is by its very nature a minimum-wage employer, and will only pay the lowest wage it can possibly get away with. But if Perry is representative of his colleagues, it seems that AEI is so invested in the supremacy of free markets that it has forgotten what the job of the minimum wage is. 

 

The entire point of a minimum wage is not to find what the lowest wage is that the market will bear, and codify it. The minimum wage exists as a tool for governments to contravene the very cheap price that the free market places on human dignity, and to ensure that  those who work can theoretically enjoy some modicum of decency regardless of what the free market might have otherwise intended for them. The entire point of a minimum wage isn't to tailor it to every single local community. 

 

Instead, the point is to establish a floor that will be functional for every community, regardless of whether upward pressure on wages in boom towns like Williston is ensuring that nobody will ever meet that floor. The same principle, of course, applies for the concept of the living wage: if a local economy is putting such upward pressure on wages that everyone is making a living wage, that's fantastic in theory—but it doesn't change what a living wage is or why it needs to exist. They exist because some businesses won't pay even that much unless they absolutely have to.
This, of course, brings us to Perry's final, and most ridiculous, claim:

5 (New). From Jon Murphy in the comments: Of course, what we also have here is a huge hole blown in the "we need minimum wage because businesses won't pay good wages" argument.

Yep. This, after writing just a couple of paragraphs earlier that Walmart is only paying good wages in this one boomtown because the local economy gives them no other choice. It's simply amazing that material like this is being published on the website of one of the most active, longest-standing economic think tanks on the right. They're clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel.

GOP ready to tank the economy

Republicans refuse to make a deal to finance the highway trust fund—and if they don’t act by August 1, Congress will have to cut highway and infrastructure by 28 percent, putting 700,000 jobs at risk.

Rev. Al Sharpton discusses with Jared Bernstein and Krystal Ball, co-host of “The Cycle.”

Walmart’s Food Stamp Scam Explained in One Easy Chart

By Erica Smiley

Walmart, the nation’s most profitable corporation, may also be the greatest beneficiary of the taxpayer-funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps.

But how has Walmart managed to make so much money off of taxpayers? For the short answer, take a look at the chart below where we’ve illustrated the scam. For the long answer, keep reading.

Step One: Pay your employees so little that they are forced to rely on food stamps to survive.

Even at Walmart’s definition of a full-time job, an employee earning the company’s average wage of $8.81/hour makes just $15,500 per year, placing them well below the federal poverty line for a family of four. With such low wages, even when working full-time hours, many associates are forced to depend on taxpayer-funded assistance such as food stamps and Medicaid to survive. In other words, Walmart is shifting responsibility onto the public for ensuring their associates’ basic needs are met.

One study showed that a single Walmart can cost taxpayers anywhere from $904,542 to nearly $1.75 million per year, or about $5,815 per employee for these programs all because one of the world’s most profitable retailers is paying substandard wages and benefits. A more recent report by Americans for Tax Fairness revealed that Walmart’s reliance on programs like food stamps cost federal taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion a year.

Step Two: Exploit loopholes to avoid paying billions in taxes that fund food stamps.

While taxpayers are shouldering the responsibility to ensure Walmart’s employees can make ends meet, the company zealously avoids contributing its fair share of taxes using a myriad of schemes. Another report by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies claims the company exploits a little-known loophole to avoid an estimated $104 million in U.S. taxes by granting extravagant “performance pay” bonuses to top executives. You read that right – the more Walmart pays its executives, the less it pays in taxes.

The Waltons, the nation’s wealthiest family and owners of Walmart, contribute almost none of their personal wealth to the charitable foundation that bears their name and instead uses the charity’s tax structure to avoid an estimated $3 billion per year in estate taxes.

By fervently minimizing its tax liability, Walmart has once again dodged its responsibility in addressing its employees’ basic needs and is instead letting the rest of us foot the bill.

Step Three: Reap billions in profits when food stamps are spent in your stores.

So what happens to all those food stamp dollars? They’re spent at Walmart!

Last year alone, Walmart collected an estimated $13 billion in revenue from food stamps spent in their stores. As Slate and NPR reported in April,

“The same company that brings in the most food stamp dollars in revenue – an estimated $13 billion last year – also likely has the most employees using food stamps.”

There you have it. Walmart’s perfected its food stamp scheme by keeping its employees dependent on taxpayer-funded food stamps, not paying its fair share in taxes to  fund SNAP, and then reaping all the profits from food stamp redemption in its stores.

For a company that can easily afford to pay its employees decent wages, Walmart has decided to do just the opposite. Just last week, the company’s spokesman, David Tovar, published a snarky retort in response to a recent New York Times opinion column denouncing the company’s refusal to meet its employees’ most basic needs. As the Huffington Post revealed, Tovar’s “fact check” was short on actual facts, but it did illustrate another of Walmart’s usual strategies: when problems are exposed within your ranks, unleash a well-funded PR machine instead of addressing the issue.

John Boehner won’t answer his favorite question

Speaker John Boehner's law suit against the president distracts from finding an answer to his favorite question, where are the jobs? Ed Schultz, Sen. Sherrod Brown and United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard discuss.

GOP fast-track sending jobs overseas through TPP

Republican leaders have made it clear that they support fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, sending U.S. jobs overseas. Ed Schultz, Larry Cohen and Rep. Peter DeFazio discuss.

North Dakota was the deadliest state to work in 2012

By Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

The workplace fatality rate held steady at 3.4 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2012, which means that 4,628 workers were killed on the job in America in 2012, according to the AFL-CIO's annual "Death on the Job" report. Where you work makes a huge difference in the risk of death. Take North Dakota:

• The state’s 2012 job fatality rate of 17.7 per 100,000 is more than five times the national average and is one of the highest state job fatality rates ever reported for any state. The state’s fatality rate more than doubled from a rate of 7.0 per 100,000 in 2007, and the number of workers killed on the job increased from 25 to 65.
• Latino workers accounted for 12 of the North Dakota deaths in 2012, a fourfold increase from the three Latino worker deaths in 2011.
• The fatality rate in the mining and oil and gas extraction sector in North Dakota was an alarming 104.0 per 100,000, more than six times the national fatality rate of 15.9 per 100,000 in this industry; and the construction sector fatality rate in North Dakota was 97.4 per 100,000, almost ten times the national fatality rate of 9.9 per 100,000 for construction.

By contrast, the workplace fatality rate in Massachusetts was just 1.4 per 100,000 workers. Obviously some industries will always be more dangerous than others, but the elevated fatality rate for construction workers in North Dakota versus other states shows that it's not just that.

Who you are also matters: Latino workers were particularly at risk, with a workplace death rate of 3.7 per 100,000 workers; nearly two-thirds of the Latinos killed on the job were born outside the United States.

The state to state variations in fatalities remind us that regulation and oversight work. They save lives—something to remember when Republicans drone on about "job-killing regulations." That regulations necessarily kill jobs is just not true, but if you need more evidence that regulations save lives, consider that, according to the AFL-CIO, since the 1970 passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, "The job fatality rate has been cut by 81 percent; more than 492,000 workers' lives have been saved."

Then consider that Texas hasn't seen last year's devastating fertilizer plant explosion as a reason to push for new safety measures.

Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Thu May 08, 2014 at 10:36 AM PDT.

Also republished by WE NEVER FORGET, In Support of Labor and Unions, and Daily Kos.

Don't shut the post office, expand their services

Posted by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary

What's the matter with the post office?

The US Postal Service, I mean – the corporate hierarchy that runs this enormously popular public institution. Yes, I know that USPS has lost revenue it traditionally got from first-class mail delivery, but I also know that letter carriers and postal workers have offered many excellent ideas for expanding the services that USPS can deliver, thus increasing both revenue and the importance of maintaining these community treasures.

Yet, the Postal Board of Governors, which includes corporate interests that would profit by killing the public service, seems intent on – guess what? – killing it. The board's only "idea" is to cut services and shut down hundreds of local post offices. Incredibly, their list of closures include the historic post office in Philadelphia's Old City, the very building where Ben Franklin presided as our country's first Postmaster General, appointed by the Continental Congress in 1775.

All across the country, post offices that are invaluable artistic and historic assets are slated to be sold to developers. One is the marvelous 1935 Bronx post office, with classic architectural flourishes and 13 museum-worthy murals. "It's not just a post office," says one customer fighting the closure, "it's part of my life." No one feels that way about a Fed Ex warehouse. Yet, says a USPS spokeswoman dismissively, the four-story building is "severely underused."

So, use it! Put a coffee shop in it, a public internet facility, a library and museum, a one-stop government services center – and, as USPS employees have suggested, a public bank offering basic services to the thousands of neighborhood people ignored by commercial banks. Come on, USPS, show a little creativity and gumption, and remember that "service" is a key part of your name!

"Protest Aside, Postal Service Is Taking Next Step to Sell Grand Property in the Bronx," The New York Times, February 5, 2014.

"Elizabeth Warren Proposes Replacing Payday Lenders With the Post Office," www.thinkprogress.org, February 3, 2013.

GOP attempt to regulate your micro-beer

Serious "buzz-kill" in Florida, as Republicans find their latest target to attack, the craft brewing industry. Ed Schultz and Joey Redner discuss the impact of conservative policies on your beer.

The rise of the precariat promises a renewal of the left

In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a Proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.

By Guy Standing, The Guardian

Next year is the 800th anniversary of one of the greatest political documents of all time. The Magna Carta was the first class-based charter, enforced on the monarchy by the rising class. Today’s political establishment seems to have forgotten both it and the emancipatory, ecological Charter of the Forest of 1217. The rising mass class of today, which I call the precariat, will not let them forget for much longer.

Today we need a precariat charter, a consolidated declaration that will respect the Magna Carta’s 63 articles by encapsulating the needs and aspirations of the precariat, which consists of millions of people living insecurely, without occupational identity, doing a vast amount of work that is not counted, relying on volatile wages without benefits, being supplicants, dependent on charity, and denizens not citizens, in losing all forms of rights.

The precariat is today’s mass class, which is both dangerous, in rejecting old political party agendas, and transformative, in wanting to become strong enough to be able to abolish itself, to abolish the conditions of insecurity and inequality that define it. A precariat charter is a way of rescuing the future.

Every charter has been a class-based set of demands that constitute a progressive agenda or vision of a good society. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A radical charter restructures, being both emancipatory, in demanding a fresh enhancement of rights as freedoms, and egalitarian, in showing how to reduce the vital inequalities of the time. Since the crash of 2008 and during the neoliberal retrenchment known as austerity, many commentators have muttered that the left is dead, watching social democrats in their timidity lose elections and respond by becoming ever more timid and neoliberal.

They deserve their defeats.

As long as they orient their posturing to the “squeezed middle”, appealing to their perception of a middle class while placating the elite, they will depend on the mistakes of the right for occasional victories, giving them office but not power.

This retreat of the laborist left does not mean progressive politics is dying. Costas Lapavitsas and Alex Politaki, who wrote for this site earlier this month asking why Europe’s young are not rioting now, are too pessimistic. Appearances deceive. The reason for the lack of conventional political activity reflects a lack of vision from the left.

This is changing, and quickly by historical standards. Let us not forget that the objectives and policies that emerged in the great forward march a century ago were not defined in advance but took shape during and because of social struggles.

I have been fortunate to witness the phenomenal energies within the precariat while traveling in 30 countries over the past two years. But a transformative movement takes time to crystallize. It was ever thus.

To make sense of what is happening, one must appreciate that we are in the middle of a global transformation. The disembedded phase dominated by the neoliberal Washington consensus led to the crisis of 2008 – fiscal, existential, ecological and distributional crises rolled into one. By then, the precariat had taken shape. Its growth has accelerated since.

What Jeremiahs overlook is that a new forward march towards a revival of a future with more emancipation and equality rests on three principles that help define a new progressive agenda.

The first principle is that every forward march is inspired by the emerging mass class, with progress defined in terms of its insecurities and aspirations. Today that class is the precariat, with its distinctive relations of production, relations of distribution and relations to the state. Its consciousness is a mix of deprivation, insecurity, frustration and anxiety. But most in it do not yearn for a retreat to the past. It says to the old left: “My dreams are not in your ballot box.”

The second principle is that a forward march requires new forms of collective action. Quietly, these are taking shape all over the world. No progressive moves can succeed without forms of collective voice, and the new forms will include a synthesis of unions and the guilds that for two millennia promoted occupational citizenship.

The third principle is that every forward march involves three overlapping struggles, which take time to spring into effective life. The first struggle is for recognition. Here, contrary to the Jeremiahs on the left, there has been fantastic progress since 2008.

Recognition has been forged in networks boosted by a string of collective sparks, through the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, the indignados, the upheavals in the squares of great cities, the London riots of 2011, the spontaneous actions in Istanbul and across dozens of Brazilian cities in 2013, the sudden rise of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy’s elections last year, the riots around Stockholm, the brave, prolonged occupation of the streets in Sofia, Bulgaria, until usurped by an oligarch’s thugs, and the even braver outrage of the precariat in Kiev in recent months. These events are messy, loosely linked at best. But the energy out there is vivid, if one wants to see and feel it.

What has been achieved is a collective sense of recognition, by millions of people – and not just young people. A growing part of the precariat perceives a common predicament, realising that this is a collective experience due to structural features of the economic and political system. We see others in the mirror in the morning, not just our failing selves. The precariat is becoming a class for itself, whether one uses that word or another to describe a common humanity. There is a far greater sense of recognition than in 2008.

That was necessary before the next struggle could evolve into a unifying call for solidarity. That is a struggle for representation, inside every element of the state. It is just beginning, as the precariat realises that anti-politics is the wrong answer. Again, there are encouraging signs that the energy is being channelled into action. We demand to be subjects, not objects to be nudged and sanctioned, fleeced and ignored in turn.

The precariat must be involved in regulating flexible labour, social security institutions, unions and so on. The disabled, unemployed, homeless, migrants, ethnic minorities – all are denizens stirring with anger and collective identity. We are many, they are few. The years of slumber are over.

The third struggle is for redistribution. Here, too, there is progress. The social democratic, lukewarm left has no clothes, and neither does the atavistic left harrying at its heels with empty threats, wanting to turn the clock back to some illusionary golden age. They would not understand the subversive piece of precariat graffiti: “The worst thing would be to return to the old normal.”

Unstable labor will persist; flexibility will increase; wages will stagnate. Now what? The struggle for redistribution is in its infancy, but it has evolved into an understanding of class fragmentation, of how the plutocracy seduces the salariat and placates the proletariat. The struggle will show that with globalization a new distribution system must be constructed, far more radical than that offered by a living wage, however desirable that might be.

A precariat charter should revive a rights-based path towards redistribution of the key assets denied to the precariat, including security, control over time, a reinvigorated commons, assets essential for its reproduction and eventual abolition. This vision is taking shape, messily but perceptibly.

In 1215, the class of barons forced a powerful monarchy to concede to demands for recognition, representation and redistribution. Throughout history, emerging classes have done much the same, from the French Revolution with its radical Enlightenment and the wonderful achievements of Thomas Paine and others to the Chartists of the 19th century and the spate of human rights charters after the second world war. The progressives of the era have always reinvented the future. They are doing it now. Cheer up.