As all of us know corporations have shoehorned themselves into every aspect of our lives. Their nonstop perpetual engine for self promotion, and survival above all else (morals, ethics, human rights) is destroying our country.
Unions, once powerful in this country now take a backseat.
The corporate media long ago began pushing the idea that unions are bad for the people. And now look where we are. We've entered into a new guilded age. The wealthy get wealthier and wealthier, no matter how badly the tank a company or screw the shareholders and citizens out of their hard earned money.
But what about the Burning Man corporation? Are they model citizens in the corporate community? Do they encourage their workers to unionize,and promote the safety of the public good?
What do those who have worked for the BM Corp have to say on the subject?
Unions, once powerful in this country now take a backseat.
The corporate media long ago began pushing the idea that unions are bad for the people. And now look where we are. We've entered into a new guilded age. The wealthy get wealthier and wealthier, no matter how badly the tank a company or screw the shareholders and citizens out of their hard earned money.
But what about the Burning Man corporation? Are they model citizens in the corporate community? Do they encourage their workers to unionize,and promote the safety of the public good?
What do those who have worked for the BM Corp have to say on the subject?
posted by:
|
SF Bay Area
|
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 3:51 PMThe simple fact is no matter where a corporate leadership may find itself,
in whatever milieu within our society or others, the tendency to give in to greed
and hierarchical structures of gladhanded corruption inevitably leads to
loss of efficiency and widespread disharmony between those who would
take all the profits of the work done while doing very little towards the
productivity of the business, and those who are left out while still being
expected to provide for the losers doing all the stealing. It's like the weasel
scaring all the hens into laying eggs, but not letting any young hens grow
to maturity to lay more eggs. Essentially highly destructive to the nature
of the arrangement, definitely not self-sustaining. Soon it might be
'beat-up-a-suit' week... -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 4:39 PMI can't wait. Is there a date yet for me to put on the calendar? -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 7:34 PMLet it go. It was a joke, really. I just get angry sometimes.
We'll see eventually what becomes necessary.
-
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 8:11 PMi know what your talking about, moist. my only hope is that the unions will stay around until they are needed, and gain strength and become more viable. my grandparents were both in unions in Monterey, and long Beach. GM was a seamstress, and worked hard for her money, and was proud of the union label. GP was a union maintenance man, and was proud of his skills, ands worked hard to keep his union relevant. the stories they used to tell me were awful, but i see more and more of that behavior towards employees in todays market. -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 9:00 PMThat's awesome about your heritage. -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 10:13 PMDid you know that if you put an "R" in front of "evolution"....
-
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 1:52 AMThere are two ways to tackle a corporation from a Guerilla standpoint.
Boycotts and Embarassment. Boycotts hit them in the wallet, and embarassment hits them in the Psyche.
Nobody likes their wallets being made lighter, and nobody likes having their dirty laundry aired in public.
Soooooooooo, do something, if you really have a worthy complaint. -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 8:38 AMThis is a great little video telling the story of our obsession with stuff. It explains it from the manufacturing, complete with our US corporations going overseas to ruin other countries environments (cheap labor, lax environmental standards, natural resources to plunder), to perceived & planned obsolescence, to the consumer all the way to how so much stuff not only hurts the environment getting made but now has to be disposed of as trash.
www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
Check it out, very informative... -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 11:21 AMLet's not discount the fact that the leaders of other countries allow "our" corporations to do business on their lands.
Wether it's corporation or a country, you can usually trace bad policy to the top--the decision makers, liability rests with them.
You have to put a face on your monsters before you can deal with them.
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 5:39 PMWow- great video! So simple and packed with good info! Thanks for that, I'll be passing it on!
-
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 9:13 AM> We've entered into a new _guilded_ age.
I knew it... it was the Masons all along... -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 9:24 AMYou see people talking alot about the significance of
separation of church and state, but rarely does anyone
talk about separation of government and corporatism.
I think the latter is more important.
I'm trying to remember an incident Howard Zinn brought
up in one of his books. A strike in Colorado back early in
the last century, where people were massacred. I'll look
for the details. But it is an unpleasant fact of history. -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 11:26 AMthat incident might have not happend had someone used their brains rather than brawn (on both sides).
The fact of the matter is that a company has no obligation to its employees other than a paycheck for work completed.
Allowing one's self to become so dependent on a single resource can lead to tragic outcomes when that resource is taken away.
Look at what' happening in IRAQ over Oil----oops, did I just say that? -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 11:17 PMRe: "The fact of the matter is that a company has no obligation to its employees other than a paycheck for work completed."
So health and safety issues are not an obligation? By U.S. law that is not so.
Perhaps you meant no moral obligation? That is not true by my moral compass.
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 11:45 PMThe moral obligation referred to uses the corporation's OWN moral compass, which is likely much different from yours or mine.
The biggest obligation a corporation has (and probably the single most important one in the opinion of the decision makers) is to earn profits for the shareholders. The rest of the things - decent wage, health and retirement benefits, product safety, fair pricing structure, and suchlike - are regarded as a necessary evil, and as such are only to be done when strictly necessary.
'Necessary' being defined as when a law is in place to restrict corporate activity AND that law is actually enforced (important caveat), when it could influence public opinion enough to affect market share, or if it could interrupt production or delivery.
Other than that, they really couldn't give much of a shit. It is, as they say 'the bottom line'. -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 2:00 AMIt's difficult for me to think of maximizing return for shareholders as a moral obligation. It may be a fiduciary obligation, but not a moral one.
An assumption that I find questionable is that corporate morality is necessarily divorced from the morality of the individuals working for the corporation, or even those directing the corporation. I've worked for the same large corporation for over 25 years. So far I've been able to satisfy my own moral beliefs while helping that corporation make a decent return. Oddly enough, that corporation has done poorly in a financial sense when its executives have lost their moral sense (not the current case, thankfully).
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 9:32 AMWell, most corporations ARE amoral. I don't mean that in a 'good vs. bad' sense, actually, but rather an issue of not being concerned with morality one way or another. If you think about corporate structure, the shareholders are the parents/lifegivers/ultimate authority in the company's world. The people who decide if the company stays open or gets closed and all its assets are sold, gets bought out by a competitor, split into separate corporate entities, what have you. Pleasing those shareholders is the corporation's ultimate responsibility. Even if you get a person of sterling character making decisions at the top, if that person isn't performing well financially, of if someone underneath can demonstrate that they will perform better* than the person calling the shots, then the top dog gets replaced. And the CEOs know that. I'm not saying they're all good, or all bad. But even the good ones know they can only be so good before someone will come along to push them out of the way.
* by slashing wages/layoffs/outsourcing jobs/doing as little as they can get away with as far as meeting environmental regulations/lobbying congress to weaken restrictions
-
-
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 3:33 PMDreamcatcher, you are mixing up a Fiduciary duty to stockholders with a moral duty to do business in an ethical and moral manner. The moral duty of a company is to do business in a manner that reflects the community standards, and to attempt to hew to such standards and laws that are in accordance with said community standards. this would include the proper disposal of hazardous waste, proper notification of hazards involved with work, and providing such safeguards as are needed by workers. These are both moral, as well as fiduciary duties, due to our legal system that would financially penalize companies that refuse to follow those legal guidelines.
Both ethically as well as legally, Corporations have duties to many people and groups. They have a duty and obligation to pay employees what is agreed to, and to abide by all applicable laws and regulations, a duty that goes far beyond your statement that a company is only obligated to give the employees a paycheck. In fact, the company has no such obligation,and can get out of paying you for setrvices for a number of reasons including stealing. And they can terminate the agreement between themselves and the employee for a very broad range of reasons.
They are also obligated to provide what service or product they are in the business of, in a serviceable and usable manner, in a profitable and legal manner. In our society, that has many ramifications far and above the simple production of said service or product.
Many corps try to evade their moral and ethical obligations. Some get caught, and some don't. Part of the reason some don't is that the employees keep silent. It's not always the corp's fault. Sometimes it's employees that cause the problem, by not following the company policies.
This isn't to say that all, or even most, companies won't try to cut corners and save a buck.
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 10:35 PMWormhole, you're referring to the Ludlow Massacre, in Southern Colorado. That massacre was of 45 people, 32 of which were women and children, by a group of Colorado National Guard soldiers. They were ordered in to "restore calm", but were sympathetic to the Corps. After funds ran out to support the CNG mission, most troops were pulled out, with i believe two companies remaining, and they were "leased" out to the Mines. They subsequently killed these people in a tent city , a city that was erected on land leased by the unions. So we had state militias massacring innocents, on the land they were entitled to be on. And of course, no charges were filed. The actions resulted in a guerrilla war which destroyed much infrastructure of the mines, and the strife was only ended when Pres. Wilson ordered in Federal troops to restore order.
This was a black mark in America's history, and was the most violent anti-union action to ever take place on American soil. -
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 11:22 PMThat was pretty bad. But it is not unlike other incidents that have taken place recently, as far as using excessive brute
force on individuals without reasonable cause.
When the FBI gets orders to break up so called "cults", they get warrants for whatever they think will
pass media scrutiny. Waco being the most prominent incident in recent history.
That polygamist group in Texas, being another, fortunately that group had no guns, otherwise the situation could have
been very different.
-
-
Re: Of Corporations and Labor.
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 3:17 PMUm, dreamcatcher, you state that the Ludlow massacre "is not unlike other incidents that have taken place recently, as far as using excessive brute force on individuals without reasonable cause. "
Please document where any Federal or state agency attacked, without warning, persons on their own property, asleep, with firearms and flame devices, and killed that many innocents.. Even the branch davidians were served with warrants,and actions followed weeks of standoffs. So I challenge you to name one event where such heinous actions were used in America.You are comparing actio0ns where legal search warrants were used with an action by a state military outfit, without warrant or paper, attacked and killed dozens. Not the same thing at all.
-
-
-
-
