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Berkeley Bowl's 2nd Anti-Union Victory
just a bit of an update from someone who has been around for a while...
Some people would like to frame the most recent Berkeley Bowl Produce Inc.(or Glenn and Diane Yasuda)victory over the workers and the union as being solely one group or persons fault. It seems that walking away from this people might say it was the UFCW or the pro-union employees wo messed up, but that would be neglecting everything that management did to ensure that the Anti-Union side would be victorious. In fact, if people were simple to blame the union, which they could, they would somehow have to figure in the fact that their have been 2 major anti-union victories for the Berkeley Bowl in their time in Berkeley and it was against 2 different union locals(though both part of the UFCW). And yes, some of the pro-union employees only wanted to walkout of the store for 15 minutes after Arturo was fired, but the union was not part of that decision, and the union lawyer actually encouraged people to do it longer when he was asked whether it was legal.
I guess the bottom line is....Berkeley Bowl's owners and some of the managers know what they are doing when they bust a union. They pay high priced law firms or lawyers to consult them. If they ever did get rid of Jackson and Lewis in this round of employees' organizing efforts. They still have a previous history with Jackson and Lewis when they used them to defend Jan John and other supervisors in the kitchen for sexual harrassment charges. Jan John is still at the Berkeley Bowl harrassing female customers all the time, and Berkeley Bowl has had a long history of protecting creeps like him. Berkeley Bowl has busted a union in a similar manner before too, in 1986, mostly the same tricks occured only this time they hired a human resources person. It's not too clear what has changed with their tactics, or even how you can overcome rich person who buys people off and intimidates them. Hopefully eventually the owners will be caught somehow in this sick game.
At any rate this most recent campaign is still not over, and they still may get caught in this recent round of union busting and breaking laws to lie, intimidate, and buy out their workers against the union.
I guess the bottom line is....Berkeley Bowl's owners and some of the managers know what they are doing when they bust a union. They pay high priced law firms or lawyers to consult them. If they ever did get rid of Jackson and Lewis in this round of employees' organizing efforts. They still have a previous history with Jackson and Lewis when they used them to defend Jan John and other supervisors in the kitchen for sexual harrassment charges. Jan John is still at the Berkeley Bowl harrassing female customers all the time, and Berkeley Bowl has had a long history of protecting creeps like him. Berkeley Bowl has busted a union in a similar manner before too, in 1986, mostly the same tricks occured only this time they hired a human resources person. It's not too clear what has changed with their tactics, or even how you can overcome rich person who buys people off and intimidates them. Hopefully eventually the owners will be caught somehow in this sick game.
At any rate this most recent campaign is still not over, and they still may get caught in this recent round of union busting and breaking laws to lie, intimidate, and buy out their workers against the union.
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Is Jan John a Czech Immigrant and a former restaurant owner ? If so he is the same guy who on oct. 26 walked around the store harassing pro-union customers holding ballons with union slogans on them . He approached one guy wearing a i.l.w.u. button ( I nternational Longshore and Warehouse union ) and said loudly ''Oh i.l.w.u. , thats a gangster union ! '' The I.L.W.U.. guy just glared at him and then walked away . shortly after he walked up to a woman whos ballon had just floated up to the ceiling and in a loud (falsetto ) voice said "" O h boo hoo ! you lost your ballon ! '' and then smirked . I think the guy was acting like some sort of petty low-rent agent provacteur for the store owners , hoping someone would be so pissed off at his antics that they would tke a swing at him or something and then he would scream ''union thuggery '' and his fellow bosses would then call the cops . (as for his Czech orign and being a former restaurant owner , two people i know informed me of that , one stating that she ate that once but never again , due to a discussion he was having with some buddies about how the communists were far worse than the nazis in his native country and how he didnt understand why ''treasonous '' demostrations were tolerated here . ) A real piece of work .
Is Jan John a Czech Immigrant and a former restaurant owner ? If so he is the same guy who on oct. 26 walked around the store harassing pro-union customers holding ballons with union slogans on them . He approached one guy wearing a i.l.w.u. button ( I nternational Longshore and Warehouse union ) and said loudly ''Oh i.l.w.u. , thats a gangster union ! '' The I.L.W.U.. guy just glared at him and then walked away . shortly after he walked up to a woman whos ballon had just floated up to the ceiling and in a loud (falsetto ) voice said "" O h boo hoo ! you lost your ballon ! '' and then smirked . I think the guy was acting like some sort of petty low-rent agent provacteur for the store owners , hoping someone would be so pissed off at his antics that they would tke a swing at him or something and then he would scream ''union thuggery '' and his fellow bosses would then call the cops . (as for his Czech orign and being a former restaurant owner , two people i know informed me of that , one stating that she ate tthere once but never again , due to a discussion he was having with some buddies about how the communists were far worse than the nazis in his native country and how he didnt understand why ''treasonous '' demostrations were tolerated here . ) A real piece of work .
Is Jan John a Czech Immigrant and a former restaurant owner ? If so he is the same guy who on oct. 26 walked around the store harassing pro-union customers holding ballons with union slogans on them . He approached one guy wearing a i.l.w.u. button ( I nternational Longshore and Warehouse union ) and said loudly ''Oh i.l.w.u. , thats a gangster union ! '' The I.L.W.U.. guy just glared at him and then walked away . shortly after he walked up to a woman whos ballon had just floated up to the ceiling and in a loud (falsetto ) voice said "" O h boo hoo ! you lost your ballon ! '' and then smirked . I think the guy was acting like some sort of petty low-rent agent provacteur for the store owners , hoping someone would be so pissed off at his antics that they would tke a swing at him or something and then he would scream ''union thuggery '' and his fellow bosses would then call the cops . (as for his Czech orign and being a former restaurant owner , two people i know informed me of that , one stating that she ate tthere once but never again , due to a discussion he was having with some buddies about how the communists were far worse than the nazis in his native country and how he didnt understand why ''treasonous '' demostrations were tolerated here . ) A real piece of work .
THEY LOST? THEY voted! Splain?
For more information:
http://THEY LOST? THEY voted! Splain?
Dear Berkeley Community and Berkeley Bowl Union Organizers:
I too, like Upton Sinclair, think that Berkeley Bowl owners are who are mostly responsible for the failure of workers to form a union at Berkeley Bowl. They took advantage of a generation of folks who don't actually know how to fight the system. Management masterfully and at actually not great expense for what they won, clobbered we pro-union folks. The very young generation wasn't at all aware that they might all get fired or worse in the effort to form a union that would ultimately benefit them and even more importantly, FUTURE workers at the Berkeley Bowl and union minded folks at other establishments. Having a new good union anywhere, whatever sacrifice to get it going, is good for everyone within a community. Union organizing has often been bloody and loud. The young workers didn't quite get the level of sacrifice needed. They aren't to be faulted. However, I hope that they understand that to fight the entrenched interests of the right wing rich, it has to be on the cutting edge of ugly to make good things happen and that the circumstances for everyone are only going to get worse if they waste opportunities to unseat management through fear of such sacrifice and pain. I suggest such sacrifice as someone on Social Security disability who has made these sacrifices myself over and over again in life. I am at the bottom of the barrel economically. I’m not a rich yuppie completely detached from your struggles.
I want to say that I suggested early on during the very first outdoor parking lot rally that we shoppers and workers MUST boycott Berkeley Bowl. I hope someone, like me, who too has been around for a long time will be heeded should the rare opportunity to form a union come up again anytime soon. Sometimes we have to sacrifice to unseat management. BOYCOTT of Berkeley Bowl was an extreme measure that was called for in the desperate fight against extremely unfair powerful monetary advantage and legal dirty tricks of management through hiring of Jackson and Lewis. In the future, workers must realize that they MUST cause as much (monetary) pain to management as possible and this will, in these times, nearly always mean that we, for a short time, must endure much pain ourselves to get to the goal that we want. I am no longer shopping at Berkeley Bowl and won't until they have a union. BOYCOTT was the right decision at the right time and should, and I predict will, be used in any successful fight to organize against such unscrupulous and dirty management as that of Berkeley Bowl. Otherwise, we might have to stoop to tormenting these rich owners in some other, maybe illegal, way that effects their pocketbook. The money, man; that's all they fucking care about and ALL they react to. I hope we've learned the lesson of the level of extreme ACTION needed now.
Best wishes to union organizers in the future everywhere in Berkeley and everywhere else. Let's not let Berkeley fall to the neo-liberal, globalization, slash and burn Wal-Martization economics of the Bushy mutherfuckers! Stand up! Be Loud! Separation of corporation and state now!!! Fuck Tom Bates and his neo-liberal agenda of slash and burn city policy blunders.
Please support Safeway and Albertson’s strikers daily if you are able. They fight for YOU. Remember labor brought you the weekend. Things CAN get much worse under these neo-liberal, WTO supporting fuckers.
Sincerely yours,
Frank Snapp
Oakland, CA
Pallas89 [at] sbcglobal.net
I too, like Upton Sinclair, think that Berkeley Bowl owners are who are mostly responsible for the failure of workers to form a union at Berkeley Bowl. They took advantage of a generation of folks who don't actually know how to fight the system. Management masterfully and at actually not great expense for what they won, clobbered we pro-union folks. The very young generation wasn't at all aware that they might all get fired or worse in the effort to form a union that would ultimately benefit them and even more importantly, FUTURE workers at the Berkeley Bowl and union minded folks at other establishments. Having a new good union anywhere, whatever sacrifice to get it going, is good for everyone within a community. Union organizing has often been bloody and loud. The young workers didn't quite get the level of sacrifice needed. They aren't to be faulted. However, I hope that they understand that to fight the entrenched interests of the right wing rich, it has to be on the cutting edge of ugly to make good things happen and that the circumstances for everyone are only going to get worse if they waste opportunities to unseat management through fear of such sacrifice and pain. I suggest such sacrifice as someone on Social Security disability who has made these sacrifices myself over and over again in life. I am at the bottom of the barrel economically. I’m not a rich yuppie completely detached from your struggles.
I want to say that I suggested early on during the very first outdoor parking lot rally that we shoppers and workers MUST boycott Berkeley Bowl. I hope someone, like me, who too has been around for a long time will be heeded should the rare opportunity to form a union come up again anytime soon. Sometimes we have to sacrifice to unseat management. BOYCOTT of Berkeley Bowl was an extreme measure that was called for in the desperate fight against extremely unfair powerful monetary advantage and legal dirty tricks of management through hiring of Jackson and Lewis. In the future, workers must realize that they MUST cause as much (monetary) pain to management as possible and this will, in these times, nearly always mean that we, for a short time, must endure much pain ourselves to get to the goal that we want. I am no longer shopping at Berkeley Bowl and won't until they have a union. BOYCOTT was the right decision at the right time and should, and I predict will, be used in any successful fight to organize against such unscrupulous and dirty management as that of Berkeley Bowl. Otherwise, we might have to stoop to tormenting these rich owners in some other, maybe illegal, way that effects their pocketbook. The money, man; that's all they fucking care about and ALL they react to. I hope we've learned the lesson of the level of extreme ACTION needed now.
Best wishes to union organizers in the future everywhere in Berkeley and everywhere else. Let's not let Berkeley fall to the neo-liberal, globalization, slash and burn Wal-Martization economics of the Bushy mutherfuckers! Stand up! Be Loud! Separation of corporation and state now!!! Fuck Tom Bates and his neo-liberal agenda of slash and burn city policy blunders.
Please support Safeway and Albertson’s strikers daily if you are able. They fight for YOU. Remember labor brought you the weekend. Things CAN get much worse under these neo-liberal, WTO supporting fuckers.
Sincerely yours,
Frank Snapp
Oakland, CA
Pallas89 [at] sbcglobal.net
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