BUYCOTTING

Three days after our third dancing class I came down with a cold.  Reality dictates that dancing with 10 men who are dancing with 10 women  means someone in the group is passing around some germs which someone else is bound to catch.  Oh well, a week of complete physical misery coupled with my co-worker being away on vacation left me pretty wiped out.  I spent only a bit of time online, panic led to some bills getting paid, I cooked a little for Tom,  but really did little more than sleep and work for about 10 days.  

One e-mail got my attention which led to a quick Facebook post.  That was the boycott of Barilla products following the ignorant and insensitive remarks made by the CEO of the company with regard to the LGBT community which he "doesn't agree with" and prefers his products be sold to traditional families.  He and the company have been backpedaling and trying to stem the fallout with some  poorly chosen new comments.

The whole thing came about when the CEO was asked about advertising his pasta with same sex couples as many other food companies have been doing.  He launched into a statement which went far beyond "not aware of any current plans to do that" which would have been the way to answer.  Instead he offered up his personal opinion about not liking "the things that they do."  

Some people have suggested that boycotting companies (or countries) which express this ignorance and disdain for equality or make judgments on their fitness to have families, etc. is some sort of liberal bullying and pushing of a "gay agenda."  As someone who has long refused to do business with companies with policies I find offensive, abusive or unfair, I call BS on that.  How else can we as consumers and members of a democratic society express out opinions but by calling out what we don't like, calling attention to it and avoid financing such behaviors by not spending our money there?

I am well aware that there are a great many businesses which are likely backed by much smarter people who hold much worse opinions - they just have the savvy not to expose themselves the way Mr. Barilla has. When and if they let their colors show I will make a similar determination about supporting their business or products.  

Do I only buy from liberal, left wing, progressive companies - no.  But when I am aware that there are forces behind a company I do buy from which I disagree with - I stop.  I don't have a specific agenda - just a conscience and a pocketbook I can choose to open to some and not to others.

SEXISM STILL AND ALWAYS?

Today is my husband's birthday.  In my e-mail was an e-greeting to him wishing him a Happy birthday from our insurance agent.  This was my response:

Dear Victor,

I am Susan Walker, my husband is Tom. My birthday was on December 1st and I didn't receive a birthday greeting, even though you clearly have my e-mail address.

 The reason I mention this is that I have been insured by Liberty Mutual since I was 16 years old - continuously insured by the same company. When I got married, my husband joined me on MY policies. Yet your company - the one I have been paying premiums to for over 40 years, keeps sending greetings and thank yous to my husband. I wrote a similar response to something we received over 10 years ago - and yet you are still following this protocol.

Wake up!! Women are not just along for the ride. I am pretty tired of this attitude from businesses. It is time to update your software or data so that you are acknowledging the party who actually chose to make you their insurance company, or at the very least, communicate with husband and wife in equal ways! In the 21st century is it right to default to the man?  I don't think so.

Sincerely,

Have you experienced this sort of institutional sexism, too?

YET ANOTHER REASON NOT TO SHOP AT WALMART

I have only been inside a Walmart store a few times. I have been aware of their anti-union practices for a very long time and chose not to shop there for that reason. Over the years, more and more news has supported my decision.

The actions of our country's largest private employer indicate that they have no regard for their employees, and in fact count on their 70% annual turnover rate to continue to make their profits go up. The majority of their employees with children live below the poverty line, the buy in for benefits at 35% of the total cost is double the national average so less than half opt to buy in. A 2004 UC Berkeley study showed that California taxpayers pay 86 million dollars to Walmart employees - imagine what it is now!

Walmart has been sued and found guilty of numerous wage and hour violations (otherwise known as theft.) They manage by intimidation and employees are frequently threatened with firing if they report overtime, injuries or other inequities on the job such as being denied lunch breaks. Gender discrimination has been proven, as has the knowing hiring of undocumented workers and breaking of child labor laws.

And now we can add discrimination due to sexual orientation. Fernando Gallardo, an 18 year-old resident of Las Vegas, got a seasonal job Walmart. A few weeks into the job, Gallardo says, his immediate supervisor asked him "point-blank" in front of four of his coworkers if he was gay. "I told her yes, and after that she was very rude and short with me," he told The Advocate.

Following that incident, his duties were changed, he was told to wear a yellow vest and "wander around the store." His supervisor and manager stopped speaking to him. His complaints to the store management didn't change anything. He left the job after he overheard two managers talking loudly. One, he says, told the other that Gallardo was "a little girl. All he is good for is walking around the store."

When contacted, Walmart corporate spokesman Phil Keene said the company fosters "respect for individuals" as one of its core beliefs and a foundation of Walmart culture.

Gallardo has filed a complain with the Nevada EEOC. He could win monetary damages and another job with Walmart, but he is requesting that the company hold mandatory annual cultural diversity training for all Walmart and Sam's Club supervisors and managers in Clark County, Nev., with a certified cultural diversity trainer.

THE PROBLEM WITH PROTESTING

My son was home this weekend. Done with finals, a break before his summer job starts. He needs a haircut and apparently he plans to keep the beard...sigh. I grilled his favorite lamb chops and forgot to leave the nuts out of the broccoli salad (he doesn't like nuts.) While I did the dishes he was checking out the website he likes called Digg.

He found an article with lots of "Diggs" - approvals- about boycotting BP and it's companies. I was surprised to hear that the gas station I use is one of them: ARCO. My immediate reaction was, well, I'll have to get gas somewhere else. BP also supplies gas to Safeway.

I already don't buy gas from Shell due to their ongoing human rights issues beginning with their local ( I lived near Martinez CA) workers on the 1970's and moving on into Nigeria where they continued by supporting the military rulers who tortured and executed citizens who protested against the taking of tribal lands for oil production; and then added environmental crimes to their record by killing 100 people and despoiling the Niger Delta, wells and farm lands with a ruptured pipeline.

Or how about buying gas from Exxon? We all know they never fully cleaned up the mess they made in Alaska, much less compensated all those who lost their livelihoods form that disaster. They are one of the biggest financial supporters of the "there is no scientific evidence of global warming" camp. (Funny how these corporations have all kinds of money for political lobbying, but can't afford to clean -up the environmental problems they cause.)

Texaco owns Chevron - and is being sued by Ecuador for 20 years of dumping of oil production waste into open, unlined pits which caused ground water contamination and the subsequent fatal cancers and environmental issues.

Bottom line? We are all complicit in the abuses of these companies. We are all dependent on the products they are drilling for and we want them for as little money as we can spend. We are not changing our lifestyles and reducing our use sufficiently to reduce the demand. Until that happens, these companies feel they have a green light to do what it takes to go get the oil where ever it is how ever they have to get it at what ever cost there is to those they have to step on to get it and keep the profits high and the stock holders happy.

We can be mad at BP. We can be feel sorry for the oil soaked pelicans and the ruined beaches. We can blame "the government" for not doing enough. Our President said he takes responsibility, some people think it may be a defining issue for his presidency. What a crock.

This is a defining issue for this country. When are we going to wake up and see that we can no longer consume as we do and expect no consequences? It is time for us to grow up. Reduce our consumption or pay the price. The rest of the world has already been paying it for years.

ANOTHER COMPANY I WILL BOYCOTT

The Totes/Isotoner Corp. in suburban Cincinnati has been added to the companies which I will NOT do business. This manufacturer that pitches those handy little umbrellas, gloves and slippers to women fought all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court against a woman they fired for pumping breast milk for her 5 month old child at the point in time that her breasts were engorged, rather than on her scheduled break an hour later.

LaNisa Allen waited the five hours to pump for some time, even though she was uncomfortable and her milk was beginning to decrease in volume due to the delay. When she observed other employees taking bathroom and smoke breaks outside the designated break schedule, she decided she would pump when she needed to and take her break early. She made sure she was covered and went to the bathroom to pump. Her supervisor came into the bathroom, discovered her there and she was fired later that day.

The Totes company did not accept the premise that breastfeeding was a pregnancy or gender right under the law. The Ohio courts agree:

Allen gave birth over five months prior to her termination from [Isotoner]. Pregnant [women] who give birth and choose not to breastfeed or pump their breasts do not continue to lactate for five months. Thus, Allen's condition of lactating was not a condition relating to pregnancy but rather a condition related to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding discrimination does not constitute gender discrimination.

Bottom line for me is not that the Ohio courts and legislature are behind the times (more than half the states in the country protect a woman's right to breastfeed during work hours.) It is that Totes/Isotoner, a company which markets it products to women, would be so dispassionate about the needs of their female employee that they would spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost them to take this case on.

Will the company come tumbling down if the break schedule is adjusted to the needs of a new mother.? Will chaos ensue? Corporations can and do survive with respectful, moral and common sense human resource policies. I prefer to give my business to those companies.

NEVER THOUGHT I'D QUOTE LARRY FLINT...

Interesting essay on the Huffington Post written by Larry Flint:

....it's the people versus the corporate state. You hear it more and more, sometimes spoken in code, sometimes spelled out as clearly as a neon sign. We have reached the tipping point. The enemy has been identified. It's not left versus right it's democracy versus greed. This realization sits there like an unexploded bomb. We stare at it, waiting only for someone to light the match.

And in the "pre-game" discussions in advance of President Obama's speech, Keith Olberman (who I watch but frequently think goes too far ala the crazies at Fox) said: "tonight we will find out if The President works for us or for the corporations."

I complely agree. I have had a sick feeling about our President ever since he started talking about taking the public option off the table. My husband thinks it is strategic somehow - I hope he is right.