Protesting Target's anti-union agenda and other problems

An administrative judge from the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that an election at a Target store in New York is invalid because the company engaged in illegal intimidation of employees, leading to the 137-85 against the union. This would've been the first union at a Target store.

The judge ordered Target, which is notorious for its anti-labor practices, to hold a new election after agreeing with the United Food and Commercial Workers, who had accused the company of intimidating workers ahead of the election, Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

The decision comes almost a year after The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 contested the 137-85 vote against unionization in June 2011. It argued that Target illegally intimidated workers for months leading up to the vote. Target denied the allegations. [...]

“Target completely poisoned the democratic process from day one,” said Patrick Purcell, assistant to the president of the UFCW Local 1500 in an interview with The Associated Press. “And now a judge agreed with everything we said.”

Among the complaints were that Target threatened to shut down the store if workers voted to organize and that employees were interrogated about their union activities. Target did shut down the store for six months for renovations. Most of their other stores undergoing renovations, however, stayed open during the process. Workers who were most vocal in their union support were not allowed to transfer to other stores and were not re-hired when the store re-opened.

Target officials said they "respectfully" disagree with the NLRB decision.

Target's anti-union propaganda video uses unionized actors

The United Food and Commercial Workers have launched a campaign to save the jobs of workers at the Valley Stream Target in New York, who are being laid off for six months in an attempt to kill discussions about the workers forming a union. UFCW is calling on federal regulators to step in and stop the closing of the store.

Workers at the Target in Valley Stream, N.Y., did a very brave thing last year: they exercised their constitutionally protected right to come together to talk about the issues they face at work and what they could do to improve their jobs for themselves, their families, and their community.

Target responded to these workers' initiative in a sadly typical way - waging a vicious campaign to scare the workers away from joining together as members of UFCW Local 1500. The company's tactics ultimately derailed last year's election at Valley Stream - and those tactics are currently being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which could decide to call for a new election with fairer conditions.

But now Target has sunk to a new low. The company announced plans to close the Valley Stream store for six months - a move that seems designed to put an end to the workers’ campaign to join together to improve their jobs.

Target is targeting these workers, singling them out, and trying to prevent the possibility of a second, fairer election. It's a shameful strategy, and one that takes aim at a core American value: the right to stick together on the job. We can't stand for such a bald-faced attack on the basic rights of working people.

UFCW is asking supporters of working families to contact Greg Steinhafel, the Target CEO:

Workers at the Valley Stream Target in New York have been exercising their constitutionally protected right to come together to talk about the issues they face at work and what they could do to improve their jobs for themselves, their families, and their community.

Target has done everything it can to try to squash these workers rights, and now the company has sunk to a new low: its planning to close the store during a crucial time when workers could be given the chance for a second, fairer union election.

I am outraged by this bald-faced attack on the rights of working people and urge Target to keep the Valley Stream store open.

Take action now.

Click on the picture to view the full video

Gawker obtained a copy of Target's notorious anti-union propaganda video showed to all new employees. The poorly-designed video is little more than a litany of lies and misleading statements about unions and a series of statements about how awesome it is to work for Target without a union. The video begins with a portrayal of unions as 'businesses' that exist solely to make a profit:

That's a huge challenge but we believe we can win the battle with the competition because not only do we have high quality products at competitive prices we've got the best guest service in the business. And because we're the best that makes those of us at Target a target our selves.

We're a Target because we're a threat to unions. The unions that represent grocery store workers.

When we take business away from unionized grocery stores that means they need fewer employees.

And fewer grocery store employees means fewer union members. And fewer members? Well that's a problem for the union business. That's right, I said business. Union business.

A union is not a charity. It's not a club and it's not part of the government. It's a business. A business that has to take in money to survive. But it doesn't have any products to sell. All it has is memberships to sell. A unions only source of income is the money they charge members.

Money for initiation, dues, fines, assessments. You get the picture. So it's pretty obvious that the fewer members their business has the less money they collect.

Then it transitions into an argument that unions were once really great, but that they achieved their goals and are no longer needed:

One of the biggest reasons is that workers know that all the good things unions once did child safety laws, workmans comp, all of that they're all laws today. Laws protecting workers. They were passed along time ago.

And no body wants to pay dues for something they already have.

So the numbers just keep going down. You can see why the union would want to organize us here at Target.

The next argument is that unions are rigid and prevent noble companies like Target from responding to mythical emergencies that they don't describe:

If the unions did try to organize Target team members they could also try and bring along there way of doing business. An old fashioned rigid structure.

Old fashioned is right. Being able to change quickly and adapt to new opportunities being flexible. That's the key to running a successful business in todays market and we've got the flexibility now.

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Nearly 150 truck drivers effectively shut down shipping out of the Port of Seattle when they went to the state capitol in Olympia instead of the port, to protest dangerous work conditions in the trucking industry. Drivers were so concerned about the way the industry treats them that they risked their careers to make their voices heard.

This week the truck drivers – who toil under the guise of false self-employment – are making it their job to sound the alarm on occupational hazards, overweight containers, shoddy equipment, risks to motorists, and the culprits responsible for these rampant safety violations: their employers and their giant retail shipper clients like Wal-Mart, Sears, and Target.

The trucking bosses at Pacer, Seattle Freight, Western Ports and others were stunned, but the state troopers weren’t. Washington’s top cops testified before lawmakers right alongside the workers, detailing a dizzying array of dangers associated with the drayage industry: Chronic safety violations so serious that an investigative journalist discovered late last year that officers pulled 32% of rigs they inspected outside the terminals off the road — double the rate for trucks throughout the state. When specially trained troopers conducted more thorough inspections in 2011, King 5 TV reported, 58% of Port of Seattle cargo vehicles were yanked. And according to Captain Jason Berry’s testimony, an astonishing 80% have been put out of service during certain recent time periods.

The drivers called upon legislators to support HB 2527, which would address many of the concerns they have. They called upon allies to help spread their story and make the dangers of the trucking industry more widely known:

Semere Woldu, who has been hauling cargo at the Port of Seattle for 8 years, told the panel:

“Our work is extremely dangerous. So the safety laws are very important. Unfortunately though, we drivers are forced to pay for violations that we are not responsible for. We often get tickets or are cited for faulty equipment that we don’t own. One time, my boss knew I had a heavy load. He told me to go by the scale early in the morning when it was closed to avoid having the load weighed.”

More drivers cited these illegal pressures their employers put them under, and shared their fears for their personal safety and the lives of motorists. “Every day, I haul two or three loads that are overweight, possibly putting myself and others at risk,” said Aynalem Moba, a 14-year port veteran. “The truck could tip over. I’m afraid I might kill myself or someone else. Sometimes we’re carrying hazardous materials, and we don’t know it.”

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The violation of the no-fly zone Wednesday led more than 30,000 people to quickly leave the White House complex, the Capitol and the Supreme Court and triggered an eight-minute "red alert" at the White House.

At the time, Bush was riding a bicycle at a wildlife center in suburban Maryland and wasn't told of the alert until after he had completed his ride at 12:50

According to the latest campaign finance report, Wal-Mart has spent more than $280,000 trying to overturn one local ordinance. This makes this little local election the most expensive in Flagstaff's history. The Wal-Mart money is spent on full-page newspaper ads and mailings, both full of vicious Orwellian rhetoric implying that a zoning ordinance that limits store size is somehow the same as burning books. Yeah, go figure.

So, when H. Lee Scott Jr. says that Wal-Mart doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, he's a liar....I'm so surprised.

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Wow, we know how much the extreme right hates this man and now Dr. Tiller has been killed:

WICHITA, Kansas - Media reports say that abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has been shot and killed at his Wichita church. Tiller has been among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortion. His clinic has repeatedly been the site of protests for about two decades. He was acquitted in March of misdemeanor charges stemming from procedures he performed, but moments after the verdict the state’s medical board announced it was investigating allegations against him that are nearly identical to those the jury had rejected.

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Tiller has been a favored target of anti-abortion protesters, and he testified that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats. His clinic was the site of the 1991 “Summer of Mercy” protests marked by mass demonstrations and arrests. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and an abortion opponent shot him in both arms in 1993.

There's not enough information in about this yet, but BillO. certainly has made him a huge target.

Here's More:

Wichita television station KAKE-TV reported that police were looking for a blue Ford Taurus with a K-State vanity plate, license number 225 BAB. Police described him as a white male in his 50s or 60s, 6 feet 1 inch tall, 220 pounds, wearing a white shirt and dark pants.

UPDATE: Scarce just posted about this on Video Cafe too.

If we were having an actual national emergency, rather than corporations happily sitting on piles of cash and handing out record bonuses and dividends, this might --- might make sense. But since the only "emergency" here is corporate greed, I can only speculate as to why it only makes sense to take money from workers.

I think it would make a lot more sense to take 95% from CEOs:

With 9.5 percent unemployment and millions more underemployed, it seems like a daunting, almost impossible, task to find jobs for everyone. But Ken Maryland, president of ClearView Economics, has an idea: Cut everyone's pay by 10 percent.

"EVERYBODY -- from the president down to the chambermaid -- takes a 10% cut in compensation," writes Marlyand for Marketwatch. "This freed-up compensation expense is then used to re-employ the 8% (12.3 million) of the unemployed. Net-net, the nation's compensation bill has remained unchanged, and the unemployment rate is now 4.5%! Voila!"

The 4.5 percent Maryland refers to, is the optimal unemployment rate, which allows for employee turnover and doesn't risk inflation. While his idea may seem crazy, companies have begun to do it in small fashion, as Maryland points out, by having furloughs and pay cuts.

Maryland says this has a chance because there's an "inherent fairness" to the idea since everyone will be receiving the pay cut. But not really, since the employed would have to take the pay cut, while the unemployed will receive a significant increase in pay by suddenly having a paycheck.

Not to mention, the drop in pay doesn't mean a mortgage that's locked in will suddenly be cheaper or a car payment miraculously fall 10 percent. Maryland also says an issue with the idea would be making sure everyone falls in line, pointing out that unions would have a fit (although I'm not sure that CEO, whose pay increased more than anyone in business over the past 30 years, would be too happy with the idea as well).

Not to mention the biggest flaw in this proposal: Namely, why would you trust executives to hire people after they cut salaries?

If I were a Freudian, I'd think that Tucker Carlson is overcompensating big time for one major inferiority complex. However, I think it's more likely he's just overcompensating for something much smaller and manifestly more inferior: his basic humanity:

The latest development in the battle between Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann is a front-page headline announcing “We own you.”

That’s because, somehow, the “conservative answer to the Huffington Post” has acquired KeithOlbermann.com – and has some big plans for the new site.

In a post by “The Daily Caller,” the site announced the acquisition:

“We plan to make The Daily Caller the one-stop online shop for Keith Olbermann commentary,” said Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson. “We will be THE Keith Olbermann superstore.”

“This is part of our long-term growth strategy,” added Publisher and CEO Neil Patel. “Our future acquisition targets include several other annoying cable news commentators.”

What a classy, classy guy that Carlson is. Given his long and disgusting career as a TV pundit, it's amazing that he can sleep at night. Of course that gives him credit for having decency, something that a quick glance at our archives shows is very generous. As for "Tuckie" as Olbermann referred to him in his Twitter response?

Meanwhile, “Tuckie” tells The Upshot’s Michael Calderone, “I woke up this morning with a smile on my face,” and that he plans to use the email address Keith@KeithOlbermann.com.

Hope Tuckie has a good lawyer versed in copyright and intellectual property law.

Mediaite's Colby Hall complains to the world that Chuck Todd called Andrew Breitbart a conservative propagandist.

What was rather remarkable was Todd’s reference to Andrew Breitbart as a “conservative propagandist,” which is interesting in that it not only aims to marginalize the Internet provocateur, but is a clear effort to diminish Breitbart’s influence moving forward.

According to reference.com, “propaganda” is defined as “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.” Given what we now know about how the Shirley Sherrod scandal, this appears not only to be true, but pretty much what Breitbart has admitted himself (though his candor has been lauded by some unlikely media personalities.) But does Todd, who’s goal is to be an “objective reporter,” really want to get involved with the Cable News/Internet name calling?

Apparently so – and we will delight in covering his participation.

Isn't Todd actually doing his job? He called Breitbart exactly what he is. How is that not being an objective reporter? Oh, that's considered name-calling. Why did Colby Hall even bother writing this post? Man, my head hurts from the stupidity. Please criticize the MSM when they actually deserve it.

I wonder how Colby Hall would want Chuck to describe Breitbart? Take a shot.

John Atlas, author of "The True Inside Story of ACORN," dissects Friday's court ruling that has Rep. Darrell Issa in such a happy, giddy whirl:

Despite a slew of independent investigations exonerating ACORN of misdeeds, on Friday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned federal court Judge Nina Gershon's decision that cutting off ACORN's funding punished ACORN without a trial. Gershon had ordered the United States government to restore ACORN's funds.

Congress canceled funding for the controversial group last year in the wake of highly edited, secret-video tapes, appearing to implicate the group in promoting prostitution.

[...] ACORN had sued the federal government in November 2009 arguing that the U.S. Congress violated the Constitution by illegally targeting the group. Gershon determined that Congress singled ACORN out for punishment in the absence of any judicial or administrative process adjudicating guilt.

In her opinion, District Court Judge Gershon wrote that Congress relied on unsubstantiated accusations to cut off ACORN's funds. Republican conservatives claimed Congress had to act to protect the taxpayer's money. Gershon countered saying, Congress can't "rely on the negative results of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization."

Last Friday, the appeals court, made up of two Republicans and a conservative Democrat, reversed a key part of the lower court ruling.

George Bush Sr. considered appointing the lone Democrat, Jose Cabranes, to the Supreme Court. The court determined that Congress can punish a specific group, overruling what the district court judge had identified as an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

"Despite that evidence of punitive intent on the part of some members of Congress . . . there is no congressional finding of guilt in this case," the three-judge panel ruled. The appeals court also sent the case back to Brooklyn federal Judge Gershon to consider ACORN's claims that its free-speech and due-process rights were violated.

As Atlas points out, Congress frequently ignores significant transgressions by military contractors.