Sunday, October 19, 2008


AMERICAN LABOUR:
COUNTRY NATURAL BEEF/BEEF NORTHWEST ONCE MORE:



The following appeal is from the United Farm Workers, and it once more asks you for online solidarity with the workers at Country Natural Beef .
...............................
This isn't Democracy:
Country Natural Beef (CNB), the company who fattens its cows at Beef Northwest's feedlot, is about to try to turn back its employees' successful campaign to join a union.

Rather than accepting the results of a free and fair process in June, which clearly showed that a majority of workers want the UFW to represent them, it appears that the company is now looking to ratchet up the anti-union pressure on its workers.
Stand up for worker rights – demand CNB call off its anti-union attacks!

Several prominent community leaders and politicians have rightly refused to take part in the scam. Just look at the company's anti-union campaign over the past 15 months:
*Intimidation. Workers have been coerced into signing anti-union petitions, and pictures of pro-union workers have been posted in the company office.
*Harassment. Pro-union workers have been singled out for retaliation from management.
*Anti-Union attacks. Most recently, a consultant was brought in to interrogate workers about their support for the union, encouraging them to vote against unionizing.

This is hardly a democratic process. In fact, sounds much more like a one party election in a Soviet block country.

Workers shouldn’t have to feel intimidated and fearful of their jobs just because they want to be treated fairly.

Please tell CNB that you won't tolerate these blatant efforts to continue to intimidate workers. It's time for Beef Northwest to negotiate with the union.
............................
THE LETTER:
Please go to THIS LINK to send the following letter.
......................
I demand you immediately stop your anti-union campaign. Interrogating workers is outrageous. Remaining silent in the face of discrimination against women of color is immoral. Playing along with Beef Northwest's anti-union campaign, and refusing to recognize the workers who fatten your cows before being slaughtered, is just plain wrong.
We know that several community leaders and prominent politicians have refused to legitimize your desperate attempt to force a one party election on Beef Northwest workers. As consumers, we're not going to play along either.
It's time for Country Natural Beef to become part of the solution. Take a public stand and demand that Beef Northwest negotiate with the union that its workers have already chosen and denounce the on-going discrimination against women of color.
..............................
UPDATE:
According to the following email from the UFW Country Natural Beef is blocking protest emails, but you can still send private emails, as suggested below. Simply copy and paste the letter above.
............................
If CNB won't listen to you, imagine what it's like for the workers who fatten their cows!!‏:
It appears that Country Natural Beef (CNB) is blocking your emails, by blocking the ISP of the UFW lis' server. This blockage is happening despite of what CNB say on their website--inviting you, the consumer to contact them if you have any questions or concerns about their product. Unfortunately it looks like they put up a firewall to make sure your comments don't get through.
If Country Natural Beef is willing to put up a firewall to attempt to block comments from consumers, imagine what it's like for the workers who fatten their cows.
Your e-mails are continuing to go through to Whole Foods, who buys the lion's share of Country Natural Beef products. Given Country Natural Beef's refusal to listen to its consumers, we need to continue to strengthen our call on Whole Foods to use its influence to do right by the workers who fatten CNB cows.
Also, your personal e-mail address should not be blocked so you can still e-mail CNB directly at Answers@countrynaturalbeef.com .You can cut and paste the message above.
And stay tuned for more actions next week!!
Jocelyn Sherman
UFW Internet Communications

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Instead of blithely cutting and pasting inflammatory, patently inaccurate, and wholly ignorant drivel regarding a situation which has so much at stake, wouldn't it be more prudent to at least 'listen' to what the other side is saying?

Believing everything you read or are told by someone else, without doing your own research has led to centuries of war and human repression up to and including the Holocaust. Don't be lazy. Look at the facts:

http://www.beefnw.com/ufw.html

mollymew said...

Yes, I love you too.
Molly had a look at the Beef Northwest excuses and was not impressed at all. It began with a baldface lie that is patently obvious to anyone but the most ideologically driven observor and it went downhill from there.
By the way, you may not be able to get to the company statement by typing in the reference given by the manager who posted the comment above. It may be that:
1)you can only access it via Firefox
2)the company's method of blocking protest emails has also messed up the general accessibility of their site. Ooops.
or
3)The company has put some blocking on this Blog like they did with the UFW site.
In any case I did get through by going directly to their home site and going to the UFW and Operational FAQs.
The ststement is so full of distortions,non sequitors, poor logic and simple lies that it will be fun to take apart, and I intend to do so on a new post sometimne in the next few days.
As to the casual reader of this blog please read the company statement by all means BUT ALSO don't engage in "believing everything you read or are told by someone else (ie A COMPANY THAT WANTS TO PROTECT ITS PROFITS BY DENYING WORKER RIGHTS), without doing your own research". What the manager DOESN'T want you to read is the other side.
See the website of the UFW (http://ufw.org), go to 'Key Campaigns' and click on 'Beef Northwest'. Yes, by all means do THE research that the company flac runner doesn't want you to see.
All that being said I truly wonder if the flac runner above has the common sense to be embarassed by his high flying rhetoric when he comes down off his snit. I really hope he isn't drinking on the job. TO SAY THE LEAST "centuries of war and human repression (LIKE COMPANIES DO TO THEIR WORKERS MAYBE ???) up to and including the Holocaust" have nothing whatever to do with the matter at hand. Perhaps the UFW and myself are also to blame for his hemorrhoids.
This is, after all, a disagreement between an union and a medium size company NOT one about the course of human history. Wal Mart drops by here everytime I mention them as well, but they have what is probably a higher quality of flac runner who recognizes that it is not worth company time to answer criticisms on tiny blogs. Now if I could just annoy them as much as I have the Beef Northwest hack I would know I was doing my job well.
So...more on this later in a further post.