When we did a story on Target employees and employee-discrimination allegations back in 2010, ill-will against the Minneapolis-based company surfaced that went against the retail conglomerate’s efforts to seem like it worked on the kinder-side of corporate: the anti-WalMart. But every once in a while, someone will leak the ever-interesting Target employee training videos.
The latest is on those pesky factions that look after worker’s rights: unions. Look, new Target employee, don’t take the candy from the friendly-faced union organizer, and don’t talk to them. They are not your friends. Yeah, a stranger-danger video for employees that’s beyond the cheese-factor they liked so much in Salon.com as part of a “modern makeover.” Nah, just the same old.
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2014.
What a shame, I had thought more of company T before seeing the training video persuading their employees to abandon the concept of having help to bargain in their own interest. The modern example of unionism is actually one where the company and union have a common and sympathetic interest and rely upon each other. Grievances are addressed without the court system in most cases to solve problems in-house and the Union actually acts as the disciplinarian as well as assuming the responsibility for pension oversight and screening applicants for employment. Judging from the bar graphs illustrated in company T’s video, union membership is on the dwindle anyway, and does not appear much of a likely candidate to champion the cause of protecting the workers equitable share of the profits that the workers are helping to produce. Company T can’t be concerned enough by iww.org to have created a video?
The IWW is and always has been an evil, anti-American bunch. One of Bisbee’s proudest moments was July 12, 1917, when the PEOPLE, not the companies, put these traitorous s.o.b.s on a one-way train out of town. Two of my uncles helped do this and were as proud of this as their later service in the US Army in France. Bully for Target to advise their employee’s of the danger that bad, supposed unions represent.
This is so Hitleristic, it’s not even funny!
This is what happens with a society that has declined Union membership. Only 8% of our workforce is unionized. Sooner of later Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the “Blame Unions” conservatives will need to find another scapegoat for their corporate buddies. This is what 30 plus years of demonizing unions have gotten us….a declining middle class. 30 years of blaming unions for “forcing” corporations to outsource jobs and hire illegal workers. It was the middle class’s fault for wanting a living wage and benefits for trading their best years of their lives to work for a company.
I guess my dad was at fault for working for a company for 29 1/2 years, only to be let go because foreign investors bought the company and wanted to maximize their profits. The new foreign parent company closed the entire plant. That plant was the main employer in my small town. Heaven forbid a person that plays by the rules, works hard to provide for his family, and is a productive member of society gets to retire with a pension. Thank God, he was only two years away from being eligible for Social Security. The same program that many conservatives cry as a problem….
These service/fast food jobs used to be for teenagers and college kids. Where it make sense to pay workers lower wages because it was their first job. Now the average age of their employees is 28 and many are single mothers. Then there is the issue with how Walmart led the charge with flooding the US market with cheap foreign goods that killed our manufacturing jobs.
“Corporate executives must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head. Of course, they have responsibilities to stockholders, but they also have responsibilities to their employees, their customers and to society as a whole.”
R.S. McNamara
Even head of the DOD and architect of the Vietnam War thinks corporations have responsibilities to their workers and society as a whole.
IMO Walmart is a traitor to our country. They put profits over the prosperity of our country. Sadly this is the trend of many corporations.
The Oro Valley Police Union is doing great! Check out the salaries the boys in blue are taking home in the OV.
All that cash to make sure the seniors in Sun City are not drag racing with their golf carts!!
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What a crock of shit. I am well over 60 yrs old and have been a union member in 2 different unions since I was 15 yrs old. Yeah, the unions protect people that should be outright fired, but they protect the majority of the members jobs that are unfairly discriminated against through grievances filed against management. I believe that none of those Target employees , if they were unionized, would have lost their jobs through the grievance process. Same with WalMart.( I’m sure they have a similar training video) They all have no recourse if they are fired/let go for no good reason.( Good Ol’ AZ…right to work state) My dues go to pay union stewards, union officials, etc, that will fight to make sure I am getting a decent wage, benefits, paid holidays, paid vacations, raises, cost of living raises, and NO they aren’t going to put me to pasture & replace me with a 20 something yr old. And I DO NOT shop at Target OR WalMart specifically because of their minimum wage, anti union practices. And no, unions aren’t for everyone, but all these Target employees, with all their seniority, got the shaft, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Thank you for proudly trumpeting your family’s bond to mining corporations for at least 2 generations, Bisbee Boy-people can give the proper weight to your defense of their depredations against those who dared oppose them. Most of the people who put those men on the train did so because to refuse would have meant the loss of their livelihoods, if not their very lives. Your ancestry had no such scruples and the lack of same has evidently been passed down through the bloodline, though whether due to inbreeding or indoctrination is debatable.
Mr. Fletcher,
About the Bisbee Deportation, you are woefully misinformed. May I suggest a visit to the small, but fine museum in Bisbee to educate yourself a bit. As for the other part, you may be correct. Who knows.
No matter, as to this day I continue to work fully 50 – 60 hours per week as a consultant for the extractive industries – oil- gas – potash – copper – coal and all of the other things that we as a society need, something I have done now for more than 60 consecutive years. Clearly, I have sold my soul to the Devil, but it pays well and I have been in the top 3% of US wage earners for at least 30 of those years.
However the real joy of this job is seeing the development and opportunity this work brings to some of the poorest, most remote places on the globe and the quantum leap the quality of life makes when oil fields or mines are developed. It was mining that took me from a poor, shoeless Mexican kid to where I am and I do all I can to make this same dream come true for others World-wide.