Home arrow Forums arrow News & Views arrow Wal-Mart v UFCW: What Goes Around

Wal-Mart v UFCW: What Goes Around

page: 1, 2  next
Display posts from previous:
Author Message
wm pasz
Post Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 2:18 pm

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: Toronto 		When it comes to shameless hypocrisy the leaders of the Canadian UFCW are always trying to push out the boundaries of the known universe. Last week they took things to a whole new level. In a whiny media release, they advised the world that they are being dragged up the courthouse steps by their arch enemies at Wal-Mart Corporation on account of their use of Wal-Mart logos, slogans, color schemes and other "indicia" on www.walmartworkerscanada.ca a UFCW-operated web site. Should we be outraged? Not a chance.

Read the whole sordid story.

_________________
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X

Last edited by wm pasz on Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:04 pm; edited 3 times in total
Back to top profile :: pm :: www
workerpower
Post Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 3:36 pm

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Posts: 101
Although it certainly elicits a chuckle from me, we should be openly and actively protesting Wal-Mart's suit.
The same principles are what allowed UFCW to shut down www.ufcw.net . And Wal-Mart uses basically the same argument, and they carry it to an even further extreme.
So while I get the irony, Wal-Mart's suit is still very wrong, and has a chilling effect on anyone who seeks to protest anything online. (Including the union reform movement.)
Back to top profile :: pm
wm pasz
Post Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:17 pm

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: Toronto 		Wal-Mart and the UFCW are both big, bureaucratic revenue-seeking organizations. They use the same tactics on their critics and each other. You have to start separating the real unions from those that are flying union colors as cover for activities that have little to do with the advancement of workers' interests. They both suck - come to terms with the fact. As long as you keep elevating Wal-Mart over other "evil empires", you'll be doing yourself and the workers' cause no real good and, in fact, will be holding people back from coming to grips with the truth about our existing order.

_________________
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X
Back to top profile :: pm :: www
wm pasz
Post Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:33 pm

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: Toronto 		Once in a while I permit myself some real uncensored freedom of expression. So, consider yourselves warned: This post contains coarse language.

Oh excuse me..., what I meant to say to the somewhat strangely named "workerpower" was:

A chuckle?! You got a gawddamned chuckle out of what all these people - Sharyn Sigurdur, Kelsey Sigurdur, Hugh Finnamore, Steve Giuliano, Bill Gammert and a lot of others - went through with the UFCW suing their asses for speaking out? It gave you a chuckle???!!!

You think it's gawddamned funny that these working people who started these web sites and kept them going with no support from the likes you, thanks very much, lived for years with the prospect of losing their homes and their jobs and their savings and pretty much every-fucking-thing because of these lawsuits by the UFCW?! And now you'd like us to go and cheer for the U-F-C-W?

In advance: I take no prisoners and make no apologies for my hardassedness on this subject. We wouldn't still be online if we didn't call a weasel a weasel and went sucking up to the UFCW every time some other institution yanked their chain.

_________________
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X

Last edited by wm pasz on Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top profile :: pm :: www
SharynS
Post Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:57 pm

Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 2883
Location: the 'puter
Quote:
Wal-Mart's suit is still very wrong,
There's not much more I could add to wm post but if you need to know what's very wrong WP, then it would be that ufcw charted the course for wal mart.

_________________
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie
Back to top profile :: pm :: e-mail :: www
workerpower
Post Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:06 am

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Posts: 101
It appears my reply above was poorly worded. The chuckle was the fact that the UFCW got a taste of it's own medicine now that they are being sued by Wal-Mart to take down a website on the same grounds UFCW sued others.
That being said, we should still defend the UFCW's right to have a website criticizing Wal-Mart (or anyone else) just as union reformers should have the right to host a website critical of UFCW without fear of being sued by the party being criticized.
Free speech applies to everyone or else it soon applies to no one.
I do not think it is one bit funny that the UFCW sued members trying to make it a better union. In fact it is abhorrent.
I know it is unlikely, but perhaps some UFCW "leaders" will think twice now before they sue a union reform website next time.
Back to top profile :: pm
wm pasz
Post Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 12:51 pm

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: Toronto 		Oh and I almost forgot the shameless threat that's been posted on the web site since 2006 (and was also included in at least one UFCW magazine that was sent out to all Canadian members. This threat appears in a lengthy FAQ about the pension plan and the investigation by the FCSO into its mismanagement.

Quote:
Do you know who made the anonymous allegations that triggered the FSCO investigation?

Our legal counsel is seeking to identify the pension plan's accusers.


They might as well have come out and said "if we find out you've been in touch with the pension regulator, we're going to sue your ass".

I do know that attempts were made by the CCWIPP trustees/UFCW to ferret out the name of the person(s) who contacted the FSCO under freedom of information legislation. Those attempts were stymied because a law enforcement investigation was ongoing. With the decision on the FSCO's charges due out in September, you can bet the UFCW's "legal counsel" will be working hard to ferret out the identities of whoever blew the whistle so those persons can be hounded with the UFCW's bottomless legal budget.

These tactics are so disgusting and it's all the more disgusting that a union is engaging in them.

_________________
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X
Back to top profile :: pm :: www
The Third Element
Post Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:37 pm

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 363
Tell us what you really think Wanda... holding back like that can cause stress... Wink

I think most know my position regarding being anti-union but pro-employee. The UFCW is a pawn, a puppet, something that has grown out of the misuse of personal power granted to North American business unions buy the Labour Boards that govern them.

The corporations that have learned to manipulate their union relationship to line the pockets of the power barons in the business unions to suit their own ends has cost the employees too much.

The Labour Boards consider the union member to be a third party to these above noted "relationships" and so are ignored. The business unions and the corporations that sleep beside them are raping their own children - the members.

Workerpower, you must know that Loblaws (your employer) pays UFCW your union, to do stupid shit like that and your dues are being used to defend your union in court. I understand your sentiment - "chuckle" but you should weep not chuckle.

_________________
No Beast so fierce knows but some small amount of pity, but I know none and so I am no beast.
~ Richard III
Back to top profile :: pm
SharynS
Post Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 6:33 pm

Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 2883
Location: the 'puter 		For the record, we are still the proud owners of ufcw.net. Although the order was that it was unusable as is, the court left it in our possession. All that's needed would be an addition to the acronym itself - such as ufcwfucktards.net - and it's good to go.

Anyone want to venture how this case will end?

_________________
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie
Back to top profile :: pm :: e-mail :: www
wm pasz
Post Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:05 am

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: Toronto 		We have so gotta do something with that URL.

My bet on the outcome - there won't be one. The matter will never get to court. The UFCW will make a deal and quietly alter the walmartworkers site. No one will notice or care. The whole thing will slip off the radar.

TTE - I have to say that nothing pisses me off more than people who keep treating this business-appendage as a "union". I really believe that the mainstream union concept is about to fade to black. I've been following the commentary about unions in the US and here in Toronto - and it's remarkable, even scary, the public antipathy towards unions. I don't think it's all deserved or particularly well-considered but I also don't believe that it's all the product of corporate anti-union campaigning. It seems like the world has moved on and working people's advocacy has not kept pace. It will be interesting times ahead.

_________________
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X
Back to top profile :: pm :: www
The Third Element
Post Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:28 am

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 363
Wanda, I agree, today's business union model is not what the good Justice Rand was dealing with in 1946. They (Business unions) are as much, and in many cases more "corporate" than their stated enemy, the corporation.

I hold some hope for unions (that is unions, not Unions). We will see, patience and let's see if anything rises in the next short while.

_________________
No Beast so fierce knows but some small amount of pity, but I know none and so I am no beast.
~ Richard III
Back to top profile :: pm
Bill Sable
Post Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:03 pm

Joined: 14 Feb 2009
Posts: 259
Wanda and Sharyn... how about:

www.ufcwcouldn'tgetitinthenetevenwithoutagoalie.net

EH Question Exclamation Question Exclamation
Back to top profile :: pm
wm pasz
Post Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:24 pm

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: Toronto 		Update on the hypocrisy front:

A couple of days ago, the Hamilton Spectator published an opinion piece by Koala Boy, Wal-Mart aims to silence workers

After I stopped wretching at the shameless hypocrisy of the UFCW's Canadian head doofus, I responded with a few words of my own which, to my delight, was published in today's edition. UFCW no angel on issue of free speech

I mean really, what's with these guys? Did they forget their stunning victory in UFCW v. Members for Democracy? I'll bet the Wal-mart boys will be shoving that one down their hypocritical throats if the latest legal drama ever sees the light of a courtroom.

Hey I wonder if the UFCW will threaten legal action against the Spectator for printing my letter? I understand they've threatened the Spec before over a story about some pension matter.

UFCW tribal chant: Sue baby sue!

_________________
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X
Back to top profile :: pm :: www
The Third Element
Post Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:38 pm

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 363
Too much... THIS is what the UFCW said?!?!?

Quote:
Any attempt to censor an independent website should raise serious questions about the freedom of expression and freedom of association in the digital world. We cannot allow a corporation to determine what is and what is not appropriate content on a not-for-profit informational website. Citizens and working people are increasingly turning to the web to exercise their freedoms of expression and association.


Shocked Shocked Shocked

No shit...

{This part added a few minutes later}

OOPS!! I guess I should read Wanda's piece first eh?

_________________
No Beast so fierce knows but some small amount of pity, but I know none and so I am no beast.
~ Richard III
Back to top profile :: pm
The Third Element
Post Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:48 pm

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 363
Never mind.. read the next post... I was mistaken.

_________________
No Beast so fierce knows but some small amount of pity, but I know none and so I am no beast.
~ Richard III

Last edited by The Third Element on Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top profile :: pm
Home arrow Forums arrow News & Views arrow Wal-Mart v UFCW: What Goes Around
Page 1 of 2
page: 1, 2  next
Display posts from previous:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group