Channel: Corporate Greed
Score 1 for Darwin, 0 for Wal-Mart
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Wal-Mart: Poster Store for Greed
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One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking about Wal-Mart is the mega-retailer's shoddy treatment of workers, including its sorry job safety record.
Over the years, Wal-Mart has been fined for blocking emergency exits, and so endangering workers, and for several years, implemented a "lock-in" policy at night so no one could enter or leave the building, leaving workers inside trapped.
But while Wal-Mart may not always follow federal job safety and health laws, the $315-billion-a-year corporate behemoth never would turn down the opportunity to make a buck. Even if that means selling posters that highlight federal and state labor laws.
Like workplace safety and health.
U.S. Jobs Down 20,000 in April. Don’t Bring Out the Party Hats Yet
The economy shed another 20,000 jobs in April, the fourth monthly decline this year, further confirming that a recession is under way. However, because many economists had predicted an April job loss in the 75,000 range, news headlines and broadcasts are breathing big sighs of relief.
But an improvement in excessively low expectations does not necessarily result in good news. Looking a bit deeper into the report, more troubling signs emerge:
Employees also appear to be working fewer hours, and for less pay. Among rank-and-file workers, who make up about three-quarters of the workforce, average weekly salaries fell 0.2 percent in April, and average hourly earnings rose an anemic 0.1 percent. [snip]
Marie Antoinette, Meet Angelo Mozilo
This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.
Here's an idea. Instead of retiring when we turn 65, let's go to work scrubbing tables at the nearest fast-food outlet.
Sound good?
Not to most of us. But it's a future that U.S. workers increasingly are facing. America's workers aren't just losing their homes in what is misleadingly termed the nation's mortgage crisis. More of us are losing retirement savings as well, as pension funds bear the brunt of overwhelming losses faced by financial institutions. The International Monetary Fund estimates the financial turmoil triggered by the collapse of the mortgage market could total nearly $1 trillion.
Tell Congress Keep Our Public Airwaves in the Public Interest
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Take a minute to help stop big media moguls like Rupert Murdoch from swallowing up local news around the country and limiting the television and radio news in your community.
Congress is expected to vote soon on legislation that would overturn a December ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that lifted the longtime ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership. The ban prohibited newspapers from owning TV and radio stations in the same market as the paper. U.S. Senate and House resolutions (S.J. Res. 28 and H.J. Res 79) would overturn the FCC ruling.
The ownership rule was created to ensure large corporate conglomerates couldn't control, and become the primary source of, news and information in a community. If the ruling is not overturned, media experts warn there will be fewer diverse voices, less local news and less investigative reporting in cities and towns around the nation.
BCTD Slams Misclassification ‘Scam’
When union members from the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department’s (BCTD's) National Legislative Conference hit Capitol Hill on Tuesday, one of the bills they urged their lawmakers to back had just been introduced that day.
The legislation (H.R. 5804) would put a halt to what the BCTD calls a “scam of unprecedented magnitude”—by eliminating the provision in the tax code that allows employers to escape paying employment taxes when they misclassify workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The problem is especially prevalent in the construction industry.
AFL-CIO PayWatch: Mortgage Company CEOs Fueled Crisis
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Millions of American families are losing their homes through foreclosures—and the financial turmoil set off by the collapse of the mortgage market could total nearly $1 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, CEOs of companies at the center of the crisis are walking away with big pay.
According to the AFL-CIO 2008 Executive PayWatch released today, the CEO of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made, on average, $14.2 million in total compensation in 2007, according to early estimates. In comparison, the median pay for workers rose only 3.5 percent, to $36,140 in 2007, from $34,892 the previous year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Wal-Mart: Everyday Low Behavior
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Wal-Mart has been laying low, trying to spruce up its image in recent months. But two recent items show that fancy window dressing can't hide the mega-giant retailer's ugly anti-worker underbelly. First, Wal-Mart's unjust treatment of its female workers. Second, a court decision that pretty much lets Wal-Mart proceed with its eight-year battle to bust a union in Texas.
Pride at Work, an AFL-CIO constituency group, pointed out this great video from a Wal-Mart company party, which pretty much speaks for itself. As PAW points out:
Considering that Wal-Mart now faces the largest class-action gender lawsuit in the history of the United States, their little drag show is just not that funny.
The video, taken by a now-disgruntled contractor who has posted it on YouTube with a few clarifications, shows Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott patting the posterior of a male employee parading around in a dress and wig.
Crandall Canyon Families File Suit on Behalf of Miners Killed in August
The owners of the Crandall Canyon coal mine in Utah where six miners were killed last August used dangerous mining techniques and "were motivated by avarice and greed, at the expense of safety and human life," the families of the six charged in a lawsuit filed in Salt Lake City last week.
The lawsuit, filed April 2 in the state's 3rd District Court, names Murray Energy Corp., its subsidiary UtahAmerican Energy Inc., and others. The suit alleges the company's use of "retreat mining" where pillars of coal that were left to support the mine roof are pulled down as the miners retreat was "dangerous…and unsafe." The suit says the company acted without regard to safety from its
greedy determination to mine easily accessible coal.
Bear Stearns and Pfizer: A Tale of Two Corporate CEO Excesses
Even after all the headlines and horror stories during the past several years about CEOs and top execs getting huge bonuses, sweetheart stock deals and more goodies—while workers and real people get...well, we'll call it shafted—new tales of greed can still tick you off.
Our friends at the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) point out two of the latest "here we go again" tales.
James E. Cayne, former CEO of financially battered Bear Stearns—battered by its own risky business decisions—will pocket about $13.4 million from the investment bank's fire sale to J.P. Morgan Chase. With Bear Stearns about to go under because of its huge holdings in the collapsing subprime mortgage market, Morgan Chase agreed last weekend to buy Bear Stearns for just $2 a share, having fallen from $132 a share last year. Even just a week ago it was valued at $20 a share.
