California Grocery Clerks Go on Strike

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Especially when the clerks are getting only $15 on average

Good God!

[Ted Striker]

f computers we need to get into grocery work

[JohnT]

Vons president Tom Keller said the chains' contract proposal does not call for wage reductions and asks employees to pay $5 a week for individual health care coverage and $10 to $15 a week for an entire family

Freakin' A, that's generous. Damn, I own a couple of friggin' companies and my out-of-pocket family insurance isn't that cheap. Where's the equality for the poor Capitalist? Who represents us?

[Ted Striker]

YOu guys remember when the dock workers went on strike and they were making an average of like 80K?

[JohnT]

Yeah, and the Left defended them too... just like they defended the $50-80,000/year workers who were going to lose their overtime a few months ago.

Some day they'll get around to me. I guess I'm just not earning enough yet.

[Ted Striker]

Hey in this CNN article it says that the workers were only going to target Von's but I know for a fact that that is not true, as the workers I saw were all at Ralphs

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/10/12/calif.grocery.strike/index.html

[Dis]

$15 an hour isn't that great in California

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by JohnT
Where's the equality for the poor Capitalist? Who represents us?

You represent yourself.

[Odin]

Originally posted by JohnT
Where's the equality for the poor Capitalist?

Give you employees equal say in business matters or we will send you to a reeducation camp.

Capitalism is fine as long as business are all small, but when companies start getting big it's time for socialism. It is the pro-corporate system the the US has that ruins small businesses.

[ixnay]

$15/hr to do a job that a trained monkey could do and they're complaining?

[MrFun]

Isn't $15.00 an hour very low for the cost of living in parts of California??

I don't know, so I'm asking.

[Bosh]

Homer: Wait -- I changed my mind. Stack it in the order
I'll eat it driving home.
Bag Boy 1: Sir, please! I already bagged it by color, and in
order of each item's discovery by man.
Homer: Customer's always right; that's what everybody likes
about us. Now, mush! [claps hands twice]
Agnes: You tell him, Jumbo! [to her lane's bag boy] And
you, start over! I want everything in one bag.
Bag Boy 2: Yes, ma'am.
Agnes: But I don't want the bag to be heavy.
Bag Boy 2: I don't think that's possible.
Agnes: What are you, the Possible Police? Just do it.
Moe: [to his lane's bag boy] Hey, hey, watch what you're
doing there, sack monkey. You're bruising my
DuraLog.
Homer: [poking Bag Boy 1 with a stick] Hurry up! I can't
stand here jabbing you all day.
Bag Boy 1: Ow! Stop. Bag boys have feelings, too, you know.
Homer: No, you don't.
Manager: Eh, excuse me. Is there a problem here?
Homer: No, I can handle it. [sotto voce to Bag Boy 1] I'll
get you, squealer.
Bag Boy 1: That's it. On behalf of Sack Stuffers Local 199,
I'm calling a strike!

[St Leo]

Talking Union
by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, 1941
The Almanac Singers, Woodie Guthrie, Lee Hays, Millard Lampell and Pete Seeger

Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you.
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
But if you all stick together, boys, it won't be long.
You get shorter hours, better working conditions,
Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore.

It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train.
'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We'll all be a-waitin' 'til Judgment Day.
We'll all be buried, gone to heaven,
St. Peter'll be the straw boss then.

Now you know you're underpaid but the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work 'til you're 'bout to faint.
You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten,
You can pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'.
Talk it over, speak your mind,
Decide to do somethin' about it.

Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
To go to your meetin' and act like a stool.
But you can always tell a stool, though, that's a fact,
He's got a yaller streak a-runnin' down his back.
He doesn't have to stool, he'll always get along
On what he takes out of blind men's cups.

You got a union now, and you're sittin' pretty,
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.
The boss won't listen when one guy squawks,
But he's got to listen when the union talks.
He'd better, be mighty lonely
Everybody decide to walk out on him.

Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous
And they're paying you all starvation wages.
You go to the boss and the boss would yell,
"Before I raise your pay I'd see you all in hell."
Well, he's puffing a big seegar, feeling mighty slick
'Cause he thinks he's got your union licked.
Well, he looks out the window and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree:
He's a bastard, unfair, slavedriver,
Bet he beats his wife!

Now, boys, you've come to the hardest time.
The boss will try to bust your picket line.
He'll call out the police, the National Guard,
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card.
They'll raid your meetin', they'll hit you on the head,
They'll call every one of you a goddam red,
Unpatriotic, Japanese spies, sabotaging national defense!

But out at Ford, here's what they found,
And out at Vultee, here's what they found,
And out at Allis-Chalmers, here's what they found,
And down at Bethlehem, here's what they found:
That if you don't let red-baiting break you up,
And if you don't let stoolpigeons break you up,
And if you don't let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don't let race hatred break you up,
You'll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!

[Dinner]

I crossed the picket line today.

The local groucery workers' union is on strike here in California. Normally, this wouldn't effect me but I seem to have drunk the last of my vodka and it is awefully hard to make a vodka & tonic without the vodka. Naturally, I felt sorry for the strikers so I spoke to them and asked them where they would prefer me to shop while they were protesting the horrors of our capitalist society. Unfortunately, the only places they could come up with was a union super market 15 miles away or one of the local liquor stores; I'm not willing to drive 15 miles each way out of my way and the local liquor store charges 25% extra for the same bottle of Russia's finest. So in the end I'm afraid I had no choice.

I'm willing to drive a little to help out the striking socialists but when the dumb asses at the union call for a strike at three different super market chains all at the same time then I have no choice and I will regrettably have to cross the picket line. Those dumb asses should have known better then to come between me and my vodka.

[Ted Striker]

No doubt Oerdin I am in the same boat