Tell Walmart to STOP INTIMIDATING ITS WORKERS Read and Sign the Petition please! -Elizabeth Barack Obama 08!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- From: David Nassar, Wal-Mart Watch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 9:48 AM To: Elizabeth Ortlieb Subject: "Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win" Dear Elizabeth, You have to read this front-page story from today's Wall Street Journal: "Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win" According to the article, Wal-Mart is holding mandatory meetings with supervisors and managers to warn them that if Senator Obama wins the presidential election, Democrats will pass the Employee Free Choice Act to unionize their stores. Why is Wal-Mart so worried? Because workers who have the power to stand up to their employers have higher wages, better health care, and fairer work places. You and I both know that Wal-Mart will do anything to get out of treating its employees with the dignity and respect they deserve. Not only are Wal-Mart's actions morally despicable, they also raise legal concerns. Tell Wal-Mart to stop intimidating its employees into voting against Senator Obama: http://action.walmartwatch.com/voters Wal-Mart is notorious for its union-busting tactics. As the Wall Street Journal article states: Through almost all of its 48-year history, Wal-Mart has fought hard to keep unions out of its stores, flying in labor-relations rapid-response teams from its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters to any location where union activity was building. With weakened workers' rights, Wal-Mart can bully its employees to skip breaks and work "off the clock" for no pay. Wal-Mart has received numerous fines for violating the Family and Medical Leave Act - firing employees for taking federally protected medical leave. They've also received fines for violating child labor laws and hiring undocumented immigrants to clean stores after hours. We're not talking about one or two violations at rogue stores - we're talking about calculated, systematic business decisions made at Wal-Mart's headquarters that have resulted in millions of workers' rights being violated. It's no wonder why Wal-Mart doesn't want to have to listen to its employees. That's why our work is more important than ever right now. Show Wal-Mart that the country is listening - and we want workers to decide for themselves how to vote: http://action.walmartwatch.com/voters Thanks for spreading the word about this breaking news story. Sincerely, David Nassar Wal-Mart Watch Paid for by WalmartWatch.com, a campaign of Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics To unsubscribe: http://action.walmartwatch.com/unsubscribe Elizabeth Ortlieb [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -Barack Obama --------------------------------------- For Peace Day on 21 September... I will volunteer time with my community to spread peace What will you do? Visit www.peaceoneday.org -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Clifford Conley Owens III Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 1:14 PM To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Civil Disobedience Nelson Pavlosky wrote: > Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: >> Nelson Pavlosky wrote: >> >>> Generally I would agree with Fred that until people are getting >>> arrested, civil disobedience is not appropriate... but I would make >>> significant exceptions. For example, in the Diebold memos example, >>> if publishing the memos had not been fair use, people posting the >>> memos probably would not have been subject to jail time, but they >>> might have been subject to significant copyright damages. I still >>> would have supported it as a civil disobedience. >>> >> I would not have. I think that the rebellion against authority is >> only be justified when authority is causing you to do something >> immoral or taking someone's life. I don't expect any of you to agree with me. > > I'm going to let everything else slide, because this is the example > which I think is actually important. > > Do you really believe that it would be better to allow Diebold to (1) > abuse copyright law for purposes it was not Constitutionally meant to > serve, to (2) crush our first amendment rights to essential political > speech, in order to (3) suppress information about problems with our > elections which might allow them to be fixed or decided by random > chance / computer errors.... than to oppose an unjust law and get the > information to the public necessary to alert them to a threat to the > core of our democracy? In that case I think that sitting silently > while democracy itself fades away would be an immoral thing to do. > > I'm not sure you're thinking this through. I'm thinking this through. You could make noise without showing the emails. You can talk about the constitution, but I don't think it's some inherent right written in the heart of the universe. Once again, I don't expect anyone to agree with me, but I think there would have to be something far more important than any free culture value being threatened to warrant civil disobedience. I really probably shouldn't have started this discussion. It was just a thought that came to mind as a reason I might leave this organization. ~Conley > > Peace, > ~Nelson~ > > P.S. Do you think the American Revolution was a just rebellion against > authority? > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- office: Torgersen 3180 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: [EMAIL PROTECTED] aim: vtconley sip: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
