Dear football fan, The Superbowl is over. But the real combat is just beginning. This time it’s not Packers v. Steelers. It’s Workers v. Bosses. And for thousands of workers and millions of fans, this is the game that counts. In the game of football, the rules favor neither side. And they are enforced. Each team … Read More
Nearly one-quarter of Wal-Mart’s 37,000 workers in Tennessee rely on Medicaid, according to state officials who released the figures at the request of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.The data show that Wal-Mart has more employees enrolled in TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, than any other company. Other states have also found that Wal-Mart’s labor practices are placing a heavy burden on public assistance programs.… Read More
Wal-Mart and its ilk are muscling small businesses aside. But mom and pop are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. More than 1,000 people attended a rally a few weeks ago in Connecticut to demand fair trade and denounce the sweatshop buying habits of big retailers like Wal-Mart. The speakers were passionate, the crowd pumped. But this rally differed from the usual fair trade gatherings in one key respect: It was not organized by labor, student, or environmental groups. It was organized by an alliance of small and mid-sized manufacturers. "The major retailers and big manufacturers are doing us in," explained rally-organizer Fred Tedesco, owner of Pa-Ted Spring Co. in Bristol. "They’re destroying small- and medium-sized businesses. They’re destroying jobs. They’re destroying the middle class. . . That’s the dirty secret of this whole thing." … Read More
Big retailers are increasingly coming under fire from small and mid-sized manufacturers. Last month, more than 1,000 employees and owners of small manufacturing firms attended a rally in Connecticut to denounce Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, and other chains for forcing large manufacturers to move their factories to China. … Read More
In February, the Domini Social Equity Fund removed Wal-Mart from its portfolio. The decision to dump the Fund’s 1.2 million shares of Wal-Mart stock was prompted primarily by concerns about the company’s labor and human rights policies abroad. Domini had initially sought to alter Wal-Mart’s practices through shareholder activism. … Read More
Wal-Mart wants to open 300 new "supercenters" by 2002, but the corporation’s plans may be derailed by mounting opposition in heavily unionized regions. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union has joined with local business owners and neighborhood activists to stop Wal-Mart’s expansion in several western states and parts of the Upper Midwest and Northeast.… Read More
Let’s Go For Full Employment by David Morris November 5, 1996 There are societal tragedies and there are personal tragedies. For many the death of William Vickrey three days after he won the Nobel Prize for economics would be counted as a personal tragedy. He was, after all, 82 years old. Yet the timing of his … Read More
The Republican War Against Workers by David Morris August 29, 1995 If ever the American worker needed the helping hand of government it is now. Yet the new Republican Congressional majority seems intent on giving workers, the majority of the population, the back of its hand. This Labor Day offers us the opportunity to confront the … Read More
Making Workers Owners by David Morris August 1, 1995 In 1983 Jack Stack and a group of managers bought the Springfield Renew Center, a bankrupt division of International Harvester with 119 employees. They invested $100,000 and carried $8.9 million in debt. That left no room for mistakes. To survive Stack adopted a simple yet far reaching … Read More
