Unleashing Corporate Spies
Google’s computers are spying on its workers.
Anytime a Google employee uses an online calendar to schedule a meeting involving more than 100 co-workers, management gets an alert—a great way for the anti-union corporation to sniff out union organizing efforts.
Lots of other employers also would like to put union organizing campaigns under surveillance. And they’ll have their chance if the National Labor Relations Board gives corporations a free hand to snoop on employees, as two of the board’s right-wing members, John Ring and Marvin Kaplan, evidently want to do.
Ring and Kaplan want to reconsider the longtime ban on labor spying. It’s a sleazy idea, but typical for these two. They’re part of a three-member Republican cabal that’s taken over the board and issued a string of decisions eviscerating workers’ rights and giving ever more power to corporations.
Because of them, for example, employers can change working conditions in the middle of a contract, fire employees for engaging in what was previously considered protected union activity and misclassify employees as contractors, who aren’t protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Allowing corporations to spy on workers would be one more gift the pair could give to employers that are eager to suppress wages and keep workers from organizing.
Surveillance intimidates employees. It can kill organizing efforts. If corporations get the green light to spy on workers, they’ll have an easier time ferreting out organizing campaigns and bullying employees into dropping them.
More ...How holiday favorite Wendell August Forge rose from the ashes, stronger than ever
The artisans and craftsmen at Wendell August Forge have been making holiday-ready hand-hammered metal gifts and ornaments in Mercer, Pa., for nearly 100 years.
But in 2010, it all went up in flames.
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Located about 40 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh — the capital of the American steel industry — America’s largest and oldest forge sits tucked away in an industrial part of Pennsylvania.
Forging is one of the oldest working techniques of artisans. It involves heating, hammering and shaping metal objects. Every Wendell August Forge piece follows this old school tradition, hand-shaped one at a time by the company’s craftsmen (who also are members of the United Steelworkers).
Wendell August Forge makes a variety of items, including holiday gifts — the company is well-known for its one-of-a-kind Christmas tree ornaments — and just launched a new line of NFL-themed coasters and keychains. The company also creates home décor items including bowls, dishes, cutting boards, glassware, and other tabletop pieces. Wendell August Forge has a gift for nearly every special occasion, including wedding gifts, commemorative gifts, baby gifts, Mother’s and Father’s days gifts and patriotic holidays.
Will Knecht owns Wendell August Forge with his sister. His mother and father bought the company in 1978, and Knecht continues to take pride in the time-tested traditions of its past.
“We really believe in this thing called American craftsmanship. We get calls two or three times a quarter with people saying there is this factory in China that you guys should really consider, and it is no way,” Knecht said. “We were Made in America before it was cool to be Made in America, and we will continue to be Made in America.”
But the future of the tough-as-metal company looked grim in 2010, when a fire caused the factory, corporate offices and flagship retail store to burn to the ground. This was just after the company had gotten its largest order ever from the Pittsburgh Penguins National Hockey League team.
More ...USW Local 675 tackle process safety management after Chevron Refinery Fire
UCLA LOSH PSM v12 82219 from Rory Mitchell on Vimeo.
Where can Trump find a good farm policy?
Jim Hightower Author, Commentator, America’s Number One Populist
Donald Trump’s idea of a good farm program seems to be “Hee Haw.” On a recent trip to Wisconsin, he drew guffaws from the state’s hard-hit dairy farmers by proclaiming that – thanks to his policies – the farm economy was looking good. “We’re over the hump,” he gloated.
Perhaps The Donald thought that farmers are rubes, unable to do simple math. But those dairy farmers were painfully aware that it costs them $1.90 to produce a gallon of milk, but the processing giants that control the milk market are paying them only $1.35 a gallon. That 55-cent-a-gallon loss quickly adds up to a huge loss of income, and a devastating loss of farm families – Wisconsin lost 638 dairy farms last year and another 551 so far this year.
Far from “over the hump,” farm prices have been further depressed by Trump’s tariff clash with China – US dairy sales to China fell by 54 percent in just the first half of this year. Meanwhile, monopoly power is crushing prices – an $8 billion behemoth named Dean Foods now controls 90 percent of Wisconsin’s milk market, empowering it to commit daylight robbery, blatantly stealing farmers’ product… and farms.
Yet, Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue – the one national official who’s supposed to stand up for farmers – nonchalantly kissed them off, smugly declaring it natural that the big devour the small. So, he professes, there’s nothing he can do for family operators except tell them to “go out” of agriculture.
Perdue and Trump are simply inept stewards of America’s farm economy. Time for a change. One who is offering a path to a revitalized, family-farm-based food system that’ll break the corporate stranglehold over US agriculture is Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Download a summary of her comprehensive proposal for “A New Farm Economy” at ElizabethWarren.com/Plans/New-Farm-Economy.
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