December, 2009 archive

The U. S. Chamber of Commerce is beating the drum against unions again.

The last time I looked, no union was asking for multi-million dollar bonuses and country club memberships and crying that their rights were being violated if they didn’t get them. (Living wages and health care maybe, but not multi-million dollar bonuses.)

A snippet from the Bloomberg story (emphasis added):

Companies have added anti-union videos to training programs, required employees to sit through anti-union meetings and hired outside labor-relations consultants as a pre-emptive strike against a union organizing campaign.

“The whole culture that currently allows us to be a low-cost producer while paying top wages would probably be destroyed” by the legislation, Craig Milum, president of Milum Textile Services, a Phoenix-based linen supplier, said in an interview.

The internal contradiction: If they are treating their employees so damn good, what are they afraid of?

Full disclosure: I worked in a heavily unionized industry for many years. Unionized workers are no different from any others, except maybe for the living wage thingee and the health care.

A basic lesson of labor history is this:

Management creates unions.

Sure, it’s a little teeny study, and I am suspicious of making big conclusions from little teeny studies, but . . . .

In a study conducted by University of California researchers, 16 volunteers were given a strictly controlled diet including very high levels of fructose. Another group was given the same diet but with high levels of glucose (regular sugar) replacing the fructose. Over 10 weeks, the volunteers that were given fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. The control group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

Via Seeing the Forest, who muses:

All you have to do is look around to see that something has changed in the American diet. Everyone is gaining a lot of weight. It isn’t “personal responsibility” if it is systemic. You can’t blame everyone who is getting fat if everyone is getting fat at the same time.

Everyone is getting fat. Just look around.

And corporate America has never been known to let safety stand in the way of a buck. Just ask Philip Morris.

The EPA, OSHA, and the CPSC were not created as power-grabs. They were created in self-defense.

Maybe the “con” in ConAgra does indeed stand for “con.”

John Cole said this so I didn’t have to.

I stumbled on some of the coverage of yesterday’s attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane (you could tell it was “Northwest” because of the word, “Delta,” on the tail) on CNN (“Coddling Nevous Nellies”). I was channel hopping. None of the major networks was doing wall-to-walleye coverage, but CNN was covering its heart and popping nitroglycerin pills like mad.

I listened to a snippet.

The anchor was interviewing by phone one of the passengers from the plane. I don’t have the conversation verbatim, but it went something like this:

Anchor: Were you scared when it was happening?

Passenger: Not really.

Anchor: How about now, now that you’ve had a chance to think about it?

Passenger: No, not really.

I cut the television off.

The anchor’s disappointment at not being able to foment fear was thick as asphalt on a hot summer day and twice as icky.

I remember a time when Americans weren’t expected to be afraid, be very afraid, all the time.