Is it time to start organizing labor via secret societies again?

[gordonzola]

I read the paper every day but I try not to let it get to me. I fully believe that the capitalist press exists in part to demoralize us. Still, there was a quote in the article about a failed organizing drive at Wal-Mart that got to me.

Cody Fields, who earns $8.10 Per hour after two years at the garage, said he originally backed the union "because we need a change" but said the antiunion videos* were effective. "it’s just a bunch of brainwashing, but it kind of worked," he said.

Sigh.

Oddly, this quote only appears in the print edition of today’s Chron. Not in the online version or the NY Times online version where it was syndicated from.



*Shown as part of a daily anti-union campaign by Wal-Mart’s full-time anti-union organizers.

Comments

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Please do that then send help to the south.

and I was kdding about the secret society thing, though no union gets organized without some secrecy. I just would like to see a more traditional response to being forced to watch management propaganda, like a group of masked workers with axe handles paying the full-time propagandists a visit.

[rootlesscosmo.livejournal.com]

The ILWU longshore locals used to have groups like that to deal with scabs. They called them Education Committees.