Nathan Newman wrote:
>Hey, I went through this in Berkeley when all these supposed greenie
>liberals
-"supposed", nathan? a truely democratic choice of words.
Yes-- anyone who crosses picket lines is "supposed"
>crossed the UFCW picketline around Whole Foods, telling me their
>organic tofu was more important than workers rights.
-sound like compassionate conservatives to me. -how many did you talk to?
Actually quite a few, since I wrote a paper about the whole conflict while walking the line. Talked to a number of employees as well-- had one manager tell me what a shame it was that all the unionized workers would lose their pensions (since Whole Foods has few pension requirements) but the moonie green togetherness of Whole Foods was more important to spread.
This was Berkeley where the criticisms of the store, its ties to defense contractors, and all of that was in the news, the store was replacing the dead corpse of the old Berkeely coop, yet the folks kept streaming into the store.
>Whole Foods is in many
>ways the litmus test case, since its clientele is targetted at a whole wing
>of progressives, who just ignore the whole issue of unionization. The
issue
>is not voting, but practicing real solidarity.
-whole foods is important, but not the only union issue or the most significant one.
Says who? You? The workers in the food industry have made it their top target along with Wal-Mart. But that's the point-- lefty intellectually figure they know better than the unions what are the "significant" fights, so why bother acting in solidarity with their chosen top priorities.
>where do gray davis, diane feinstein and barbara boxer stand on
unionization of
>whole foods? how about the thoughtful, principled and effective joe
LIEberman?
>supposedly, diane has no trouble advocating for the spotted owl. maybe she
>could work people into her agenda.
Who knows about DiFi-- only federal candidate I voted Green against-- but none of the others would cross a Whole Foods picketline. Lieberman has been decent on supporting labor struggles-- he came out in support of the striking Yale University workers this year and he was actually one of the toughest opponents of Bush's antiunion provisions in Homeland Security. Davis has signed a slew of pro-union legislation. Boxer has regularly refused to cross picketlines, including declining interviews with ABC when NABET had a strike. She even booted the scab crews from her victory party on election night.
>can you trot out a few show democrats in office that support unionization
of
>whole foods? i'll bet just like jimmy carter practiced adultery in his
mind,
>the progressive, elected, show democrats experience crossing picket lines
in their minds.
>the Democratic Leadership Counsel must be falling all over itself to
express
>it's support of unions, particularly at whole foods.
Some DLCers do in organizing campaigns. And a bunch of elected officials in New York have come out in support of the Whole Foods organizing here, according to the UFCW site (they don't mention the names).
>now if only the democrats could muster as much support for unions as they
do for war ....
>which democratic party do you belong to, nathan, the DLC's or someone
elses?
To repeat, the Democrats blocked Bush's antiunion provision in the Homeland Security bill throughout the 2002 election cycle, losing a number of Senators on that issue alone. It's not that there's nothing to criticize with the Democrats, but when folks so stubbornly refuse to even acknowledge what the Dems have done for unions, it's hard to take the criticism seriously as informed in any real way by reality.
-- Nathan Newman