Category: Business

Corporate news from all over

Ethics Not Important for McCain Ranch

Seth Anderson1 Comment

For all of McCain’s yammering about changing the culture of corruption in Washington, you’d think he’d start by cleaning up his own corruption first. I’m sure you could call up Verizon or AT&T and complain about your cellphone reception, and they’d install cell-phone towers in your remote location, free of charge, right?

Early in 2007, just as her husband launched his presidential bid, Cindy McCain sought to resolve an old problem – the lack of cellphone coverage on her remote 15-acre ranch near Sedona, Ariz., nestled deep in a tree-lined canyon called Hidden Valley.

Over the past year, she offered land for a permanent cell tower, and Verizon Wireless embarked on an expensive public process to meet her needs, hiring contractors and seeking county land-use permits.

Verizon ultimately abandoned its effort to install a permanent tower in August. Company spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said the project would be “an inappropriate way” to build its network. “It doesn’t make business sense for us to do that,” he added.

Instead, Verizon delivered a portable tower known as a “cell site on wheels” – free of charge – to the McCain property in June…

In July, AT&T followed suit, wheeling in a portable tower for free to match Verizon’s offer. “This is an unusual situation,” AT&T spokeswoman Claudia B. Jones said. …

Ethics lawyers said Cindy McCain’s dealings with the wireless companies stand out because her husband is a senior member of the Senate commerce committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry. He has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunication services.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his campaign have close ties to Verizon and AT&T. Five campaign officials, including manager Rick Davis, have worked as lobbyists for Verizon. Former McCain staff member Robert Fisher is an in-house lobbyist for Verizon and is volunteering for the campaign. Fisher, Verizon chief executive Ivan G. Seidenberg and company lobbyists have raised more than $1.3 million for McCain’s presidential effort, and Verizon employees are among the top 20 corporate donors over McCain’s political career, giving his campaigns more than $155,000.

McCain’s Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, senior strategist Charles R. Black Jr. and several other campaign staff members have registered as AT&T lobbyists in the past. AT&T Executive Vice President Timothy McKone and AT&T lobbyists have raised more than $2.3 million for McCain. AT&T employees have donated more than $325,000 to the Republican’s campaigns, putting the company in the No. 3 spot for career donations to McCain, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

“It raises the aura of special consideration for somebody because he is a member of the Senate,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel for Democrats and an ethics lawyer who represents politicians in both parties.

[From Exclusive: Verizon and AT&T Provided Cell Towers for McCain Ranch – Washington Post Investigations]

What a perfect description of John McCain: special consideration for some, and bupkis for the rest of us. The tower would be so infrequently used, it made no business sense, unless you are helping out your friend in Washington, D.C.

Three telecommunications specialists consulted by The Post said the proposed site covers so few users that it is unlikely to generate enough traffic to justify the investment. Robb Alarcon, an industry specialist who helps plan tower placement, said the proposed location appeared to be a “strategic build,” free-of-charge coverage to high-priority customers. A former Verizon executive vice president, who asked not to be named because he worked for the company, agreed with Alarcon, saying, “It was a VIP kind of thing.”

Escaped Red Guard

The Atlantic’s Joshua Green follows up (and please click through if you are interested in the topic, there are several primary documents hosted at The Atlantic)

What’s clear from the report is that the process of putting up a tower required a lot of work—in addition to consultants and archeologists and Indian tribes, it meant notifying all sorts of government agencies, as the report lays out. What’s also clear from the public record is that Verizon knew full well whose non-sacred Indian land this ranch belonged to. Though the formal, bureaucratic name for the McCain’s ranch seems to be “AZ 2 Hidden Valley Ranch,” Verizon’s internal map, obtained by The Atlantic (it was part of a Verizon engineer’s report on the property), refers to it as “John McCain’s cabin.” So while Cindy McCain may indeed have requested the tower over the web like an ordinary millionaire rancher with spotty phone reception, Verizon was well aware that she was anything but that. (As of this posting, Jeffrey Nelson, the Verizon spokesman, hadn’t returned my call.)

All of this suggests a number of things: Rogers looks to have been correct in stating that the Secret Service asked for, and received, temporary towers—but that doesn’t address the parallel issue of the permanent towers, long underway until just recently, that lay at the heart of the Post piece and in the public record. The McCains may not have asked Verizon for any special favors—but, wittingly or not, they sure look like they were about to receive them. To my mind, Verizon looks worst of all: the company is claiming that it abandoned the tower because it wouldn’t “make business sense to do it.” In a sense, this is self evident: you don’t have to look any further than a map of the area to see what a remote and sparsely populated place is “AZ 2 Hidden Valley Ranch.” And so the only reason to embark on the two-year process of lawyers, regulators, consultant, archeologists, and Indians is if you’re seeking a payoff of another kind.

The End of Wall Street

Seth Anderson0 comment

Somehow, someway, Bush and his cronies are going to ruin our country any way they can. However, the end of Wall Street as we know it doesn’t elicit a tear from this mostly disinterested party…

Reserved Light

The Federal Reserve, in an attempt to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from infecting its two premier institutions, took the extraordinary measure on Sunday night of agreeing to convert investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. into traditional bank holding companies.

With the move, Wall Street as it has long been known — a coterie of independent brokerage firms that buy and sell securities, advise clients and are less regulated than old-fashioned banks — will cease to exist. Wall Street’s two most prestigious institutions will come under the close supervision of national bank regulators, subjecting them to new capital requirements, additional oversight, and far less profitability than they have historically enjoyed.

[From Goldman, Morgan Scrap Wall Street Model, Become Banks in Bid to Ride Out Crisis – WSJ.com]

Since so much cash got spent for the Iraq War, the financiers must have become jealous, and directed their servants in Washington to give Wall Street a taste.

United Shares Fall to Nothing

swanksalot0 comment

Yikes, we’re supposed to fly home on United tomorrow. That’s not such good timing. Good thing I brought an extra set of clothes…

Shares of United Airlines lost nearly all their value Monday morning when a false rumor swept financial markets that the struggling carrier had filed for bankruptcy protection.

…

In a statement, United said the rumor occurred when the Web site of The Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper, posted a six-year-old story from The Chicago Tribune archives about United’s previous bankruptcy filing. The airline operated under bankruptcy protection from 2002 through 2006.

“United has demanded a retraction from The Sun Sentinel and is launching an investigation,” the airline said in a statement.

On its Web site, however, The Chicago Tribune reported a different set of events. The Tribune said a reporter for Income Securities Advisors, an investment research firm based in Miami, found a Tribune article in the Sun-Sentinel archives during a search for information about bankruptcy situations. The reporter at Income Securities posted the article to Bloomberg News, and the rumor then spread rapidly, The Tribune said.

The article did not appear on the Web site of The Chicago Tribune or The Sun-Sentinel, people with knowledge of the situation said. The Tribune said it had removed the article from its archives.

[From United Shares Fall on False Bankruptcy Report – NYTimes.com]

The share price has nearly recovered however as of this afternoon, and somebody made a ton of cash shorting, then repurchasing shares. I wonder if there will be a criminal investigation? Also, I presume there will be a lawsuit filed against the Sun-Sentinel by United Airlines.

More on the Decline of Newspapers

Seth Anderson0 comment

More on the Decline of Newspapers and media in general, from Digby, who was on a panel about the media and the blogosphere with Arianna Huffington, Chris Cilizza, Jonathan Alter and Gregory Maffei:

Alter insists that nobody listens to the gasbags and pundits so we shouldn’t worry about them. I asked him how he thought people got their information about politics and he said from their talkative coworker or politically engaged relative and things like chain emails. It’s apparent that many in the mainstream media have not see the documentation and analysis that’s been done online about how the stories and themes of elections, as conceived by political operatives and political pundits, dominate the campaigns and color the voters impressions of the candidates. Maybe the inside of the bubble is too heady a place to be able to connect those dots.

(In the meantime, perhaps I should just direct everyone to Bob Somerby…)

I find it difficult to keep my patience with the inevitable discussion about how the news media is losing money and can’t afford to do the all important news gathering on which we internet parasites depend. It’s as if this problem has happened in some vacuum in which journalism itself has no culpability. They brought a lot of it on themselves, particularly when they gleefully allowed Drudge to rule their world and Rush to be feted and groomed by mainstream conservative politicians without raising an eyebrow. (Live by the wingnuts, die by the wingnuts.)

[From Hullabaloo]

Builds upon the late-great Molly Ivins’ point: the best way to get more subscribers is to put out a better paper, not just whine.

Arugula and McCain

Seth Anderson0 comment

John McCain doesn’t think America labor would pick lettuce for $50 and hour, only immigrants would be willing to work for such cheap wages. Classy, McCain, classy indeed1

McCain Kennedy supporter

Sen. John McCain threatened on Tuesday to cut short a speech to union leaders who booed his immigration views and later challenged his statements on organized labor and the Iraq war.

“If you like, I will leave,” McCain told the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, pivoting briefly from the lectern. He returned to the microphone after the crowd quieted.
. . .
Later, the senator outlined his position on the Senate immigration debate, saying tougher border enforcement must be accompanied by guest-worker provisions that give illegal immigrants a legal path toward citizenship.

Murmurs from the crowd turned to booing. “Pay a decent wage!” one audience member shouted.

“I’ve heard that statement before,” McCain said before threatening to leave.
. . .
But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.

“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.”

Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

“I was impressed with his comedy routine and ability to tap dance without music. But I was impressed with nothing else about him,” said John Wasniewski of Milwaukee. “He’s supposed to be Mr. Straight Talk?”

[From This Modern World » Blog Archive » Republican Elitist Watch]

Maybe there’s a typo here, but $50 an hour is pretty damn good wage for an hourly employee. $50 per hour, 40 hours a week would be $2,000 a week, or $8,000 a month. If the work was available all year2, that would be $96,000 a year. Much better than working at Wal-Mart or even as an electrician3.

Footnotes:
  1. in the sense of ignorance of class [↩]
  2. I’m not sure, but say for argument that Southern California’s lettuce plantations grew lettuce every month, which is somewhat plausible [↩]
  3. our guy is charging us $25 an hour, though I assume he isn’t union [↩]

FTC Rule Barring Oil Manipulation

Seth Anderson2 Comments

I’m sure the final rule will have a lot less oomph, and plenty of loopholes.

Under pressure from federal lawmakers concerned about high energy prices, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule prohibiting petroleum-market manipulation, giving the agency authority to levy fines of up to $1 million per violation a day.

The proposed rule — which would cover both spot and futures markets — is designed to increase oversight of the crude-oil, natural-gas, gasoline and other product markets as directed by Congress late last year.

As oil prices surged to nearly $150 a barrel in July, many lawmakers increased pressure on the FTC to promulgate the antimanipulation rule, feeling existing oversight was too weak and laxly regulated. Lawmakers are concerned that excessive speculation — and possible manipulation — in the oil markets helped drive prices to record levels, and are seeking ways to enforce tougher market oversight. Congress is considering legislation designed to rein in speculative trading deemed to be distorting the market.

[From FTC Proposes Rule Barring Oil Manipulation – WSJ.com]

Brass Rust

Potential fines are discussed:

If the agency enacts the rule as it is currently written, it could subject violators with penalties of up to $1 million per violation per day. The FTC said it aimed to conclude the rule-making process by the end of the year. It drew immediate praise from some lawmakers who have been pushing for more stringent oversight of the markets.

This is some serious cheese for violators. As an example, Exxon Mobil’s profit in 20071 was in the vicinity of $4,633,200 per hour, or $111,196,800 per day. A million dollar fine would reduce Exxon Mobil’s daily profit to a paltry $110,196,800 a day! Won’t somebody think of the children! Of course, I’m not sure Exxon Mobil would be covered by these rules anyway, I’m sure nobody at Exxon Mobil is involved in speculation of oil futures, right? but sounds like there will be a lot more discussion before anything gets enacted in any case.

Given that the proposed rule covers the futures market — also the domain of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — it is likely to upgrade a regulatory turf battle between agencies and spur activity by the CFTC.

Lots of discussion and posturing, and lots of profits to be snatched in the meantime. By the end of the year, Obama will be elected, and the glory years of oil companies might start to sputter.2

Footnotes:
  1. so far 2008 is much higher, so adjust all these numbers by numbers that your calculator can’t even handle [↩]
  2. let us fervently pray so, anyway, though there is no guarantee that Obama will have the intestinal fortitude to tell the oil industry and Wall Street to reign their greed in [↩]

Most corporations pay zero tax

Seth Anderson4 Comments

No wonder the US government is constantly in a deficit! Of course, the politicians rub their collective eyes, and say, “I have no idea why that happened. Must be the previous guy’s fault.”

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office released Tuesday said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO’s estimate.

“It’s shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

[From Report says most corporations pay no federal income taxes; lawmakers blame loopholes — chicagotribune.com]

and the investigators don’t want to know either:

An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called “S” corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.

“Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code,” Edwards said.

The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren’t paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes

Can’t really blame the corporations: if there is money to be had by slightly duplicitous behavior, a corporation worth its shareholder’s trust should take the free money. No, the culprit is a shoddy tax system which encourages abuse, and a corrupt Congress which writes a business-favorable tax code.

More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies, or 66.7 percent of them, paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of large U.S. corporations — those with at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts — did not pay corporate taxes.

The GAO said it analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005. For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the U.S.

How about shifting the tax burden away from individuals, and back on corporations? An Alternative Minimum Tax1 for Fortune 500 companies? Something, please.

The report is here or the complete report (PDF)

Concerns about transfer pricing abuse have led researchers to compare the tax liabilities of foreign- and U.S.-controlled corporations. (Transfer prices are the prices related companies charge on intercompany transactions.) However, such comparisons are complicated because other factors may explain the differences in reported tax liabilities. In three prior reports, GAO found differences in the percentages of foreign-controlled and U.S.-controlled corporations reporting no tax liability. GAO was asked to update the previous reports by comparing: (1) the tax liabilities of foreign-controlled domestic corporations (FCDC) and U.S.-controlled corporations (USCC)-including those reporting zero tax liabilities for 1998 through 2005 (the latest available data) and (2) characteristics of FCDCs and USCCs such as age, size, and industry. GAO analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income samples of corporate tax returns. GAO does not make any recommendations in this report. In commenting on a draft of this report, IRS provided comments on technical issues, which we incorporated into this report where appropriate.

FCDCs reported lower tax liabilities than USCCs by most measures shown in this report. A greater percentage of large FCDCs reported no tax liability in a given year from 1998 through 2005. For all corporations, a higher percentage of FCDCs reported no tax liabilities than USCCs through 2001 but differences after 2001 were not statistically significant. Most large FCDCs and USCCs that reported no tax liability in 2005 also reported that they had no current-year income. A smaller proportion of these corporations had losses from prior years and tax credits that eliminated any tax liability. By another measure, large FCDCs were more likely to report no tax liability over multiple years than large USCCs. In 2005, comparisons of FCDCs and USCCs based on ratios of reported tax liabilities to gross receipts or total assets showed that FCDCs reported less tax than USCCs. FCDCs and USCCs differed in age, size, and industry. FCDCs were younger than USCCs in that a greater percentage had been incorporated for 3 years or less from 1998 through 2005. In 2005, FCDCs were larger on average than USCCs in that they reported higher average gross receipts and assets than USCCs. A comparison by industry in 2005 showed that large FCDCs were relatively more concentrated in manufacturing and wholesale trade, while large USCCs were more evenly distributed across industries. GAO did not attempt to determine the extent to which these factors and others, such as transfer pricing abuse, explain differences in tax liabilities.

Footnotes:
  1. apparently there is something like an Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporations, but obviously it is pretty easily manipulated [↩]

Packit Gourmet Launched

Seth Anderson0 comment

My cousin’s website has finally launched1, a boon to travelers and campers who are looking for quality food to take on trips.

Homecooking is the new Gourmet! Both at home and on the trail, we are committed to eating well; avoiding “fast-food” and artificial ingredients wherever possible. In bringing our own standard to the Packit Gourmet line of meals and grocery items, we personally select and carefully taste-test each and every item offered to make sure that the flavor, texture, appearance and nutrition are something that we would want to eat at home or on the trail. Having trekked a few miles ourselves, we know that size, weight, water and time conservation are also important so we hand pack and package with that in mind. If we wouldn’t use it or eat it – you won’t see it sold in our store.

You’ll find many homemade flavors featured in the meals we offer – and natural and organic ingredients included whenever possible. Both meal components and bulk products are handpicked to ensure that you are getting what we think is the best product possible; and your meal packs are hand-packaged in a commercially certified kitchen.

We love to travel almost as much as we love to eat! You’ll see a reflection of this in the flavor selections found in our meal packs. Heavy influences of the Deep South, Texas and Mexico are featured throughout our offerings; but you’ll also find traces of Canada, Europe, Southeast Asia, India and South America. All places where we have enjoyed great experiences and fabulous food.

[From Packit Gourmet]

Check it out before your next excursion.

Footnotes:
  1. full disclosure, I’ve had a small role as an unpaid consultant [↩]

Free Credit Report

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Free credit report, umm, not so fast. It’s really $14.95 a month. Gotcha!

“It’s called FreeCreditReport.com,” he said. “It’s kind of easy to make that assumption. I didn’t see anything in the process of signing up that said, ‘Hey, if you don’t cancel in 30 days or whatever, you’re going to get charged.’ ”

Consumer groups have long objected to sites like FreeCreditReport.com. Consumers may obtain a free credit report each year from the three major agencies, as mandated by an act that Congress passed in 2003. The only authorized site for that is AnnualCreditReport.com.

The three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, are required to offer reports through the authorized AnnualCreditReport.com, but the bureaus also make money from their own credit reports.

Experian, which owns FreeCreditReport.com, increased both its site visitors and new member sign-ups by 20 percent in 2007.

[From Advertising – The High Cost of a ‘Free Credit Report’ – NYTimes.com]

I should sign up, actually. This post is a public note to myself to see what lies are contained on my consumer DNA file. As long as I don’t sign up in the wrong place:

The FTC has received complaints from consumers who thought they were ordering their free annual credit report online. Some consumers responded to TV ads, email offers, or simply searched online.

The FTC recently settled a lawsuit against Consumerinfo.com – which did business as Experian Consumer Direct – over the “free credit report” promotion it advertised on television, radio and the Internet, including its websites freecreditreport.com and consumerinfo.com.

IndyMac Plans Chapter 7 Filing

swanksalot0 comment

More news about the holder of our mortgage: a Chapter 7 liquidation sale. I guess our re-finance plans are to be delayed (and our appraisal becomes worthless too)

Soon after the FDIC seized the company, it was disclosed that the firm was under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for possible mortgage fraud.

The Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulated IndyMac, said “the immediate cause” of the failure of the bank was statements made by New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer.

Sen. Schumer, who publicly raised concerns about the bank’s solvency in late June, said he may have caused some depositors to withdraw their money but said he wasn’t responsible for the bank’s downfall. He said IndyMac’s lending practices and lax federal regulation are to blame for the failure of the thrift.

[From IndyMac Plans Chapter 7 Filing – WSJ.com]

Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win

Seth Anderson0 comment

Whoa, scary unions! I thought Wal-Mart was going to turn into a warm fuzzy, green company? I guess that was only a marketing strategy, and not anything based in facts.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

[From Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win – WSJ.com]

[Non-WSJ subscribers use this link]

The irony of course is that Wal-Mart workers could do with a little wage increase, the kind of wage increase that unions often can negotiate for its members. A majority of Wal-Mart workers live below the poverty line.

A Substantial Number of Wal-Mart Associates earn far below the poverty line

  • In 2001, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. The 2001 poverty line for a family of three was $14,630. [“Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?”, Business Week, 10/6/03, US Dept of Health and Human Services 2001 Poverty Guidelines, 2001]
  • A 2003 wage analysis reported that cashiers, the second most common job, earn approximately $7.92 per hour and work 29 hours a week. This brings in annual wages of only $11,948. [“Statistical Analysis of Gender Patterns in Wal-Mart’s Workforce”, Dr. Richard Drogin 2003]

If there was an actual Justice Department, instead of a puppet, politicized Bush-loving agency, somebody might actually investigate Wal-Mart for violating the law.

Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees. While store managers are on salary, department supervisors are hourly workers.

and re: Wal-Mart’s warm, fuzzy side, there are nearly as many corporate-loving Democrats as Republicans, right? I doubt the liberal Democrats (all ten of them) are getting much Wal-Mart cash.

Wal-Mart has been trying to burnish its reputation by improving its worker benefits and touting its commitment to the environment. On the political front, it’s hedging its bets, spreading its financial contributions on both sides of the political divide.

Twelve years ago, 98% of Wal-Mart’s political donations went to Republicans. Now, as the Democrats seem poised to gain control in Washington, 48% of its $2.2 million in political contributions go to Democrats and 52% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political giving.

Some other fun Wal-Mart facts:

Wal-Mart closes down stores and departments that unionize

  • Wal-Mart closed its store in Jonquierre, Quebec in April 2005 after its employees received union certification. The store became the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America when 51 percent of the employees at the store signed union cards. [Washington Post, 4/14/05]
  • In December 2005, the Quebec Labour Board ordered Wal-Mart to compensate former employees of its store in Jonquiere Quebec. The Board ruled that Wal-Mart had improperly closed the store in April 2005 in reprisal against unionized workers. [Personnel Today, 12/19/05]
  • In 2000, when a small meatcutting department successfully organized a union at a Wal-Mart store in Texas, Wal-Mart responded a week later by announcing the phase-out of its in-store meatcutting company-wide. [Pan Demetrakakes, “Is Wal-Mart Wrapped in Union Phobia?” Food & Packaging 76 (August 1, 2003).]

Wal-Mart has issued “A Manager’s Toolbox to Remaining Union Free,”

  • This toolbox provides managers with lists of warning signs that workers might be organizing, including “frequent meetings at associates’ homes” and “associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other.” The “Toolbox” gives managers a hotline to call so that company specialists can respond rapidly and head off any attempt by employees to organize. [Wal-Mart, A Manager’s Toolbox to Remaining Union Free at 20-21]

Wal-Mart is committed to an anti-union policy

  • In the last few years, well over 100 unfair labor practice charges have been filed against Wal-Mart throughout the country, with 43 charges filed in 2002 alone.
  • Since 1995, the U.S. government has been forced to issue at least 60 complaints against Wal-Mart at the National Labor Relations Board. [International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Internationally Recognised Core Labour Standards in the United States: Report for the WTO General Council Review of the Trade Policies of the United States (Geneva, January 14-16, 2004)]
  • Wal-Mart’s labor law violations range from illegally firing workers who attempt to organize a union to unlawful surveillance, threats, and intimidation of employees who dare to speak out. [“Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart,” A Report by the Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2/16/04]

Jam buys Uptown for $3.2M

Seth Anderson0 comment

Finally. I truly hope Jerry Mickelson does restore the building, I’ve always had a certain fondness for it.

Uptown Theatre
[Click image for full view]

Without any drama, a venture led by concert promoter Jam Productions Ltd. bought the historic Uptown Theatre on Tuesday for $3.2 million in a court-ordered foreclosure sale.

Jam principal Jerry Mickelson was the high bidder for the long-vacant theater at 4816 N. Broadway. The sale price was essentially a “credit bid” that covers repayment of about $1.8 million owed on a first mortgage and $1.4 million owed on a second mortgage that’s held by Mr. Mickelson’s group.

The only other bid came from the holder of the first mortgage.

Mr. Mickelson, who has said he plans to restore the Uptown, declined comment on the sale.

[From Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Jam buys Uptown for $3.2M | Crain’s ]

I’m not even sure if I’ve ever been inside, I just like vintage theater buildings.

Jam competitors Live Nation Inc. and Madison Square Garden Entertainment both looked into buying the 1925 building, which was originally constructed as a movie palace. Jam in 2006 bought the Riviera Theatre down the street and also owns the Park West in Lincoln Park and the Vic Theatre in Lakeview, all music venues.

Bush Wants to Kill Workers

Seth Anderson0 comment

Follow up on yesterday’s surprising1 admission that there is a secret plan to reduce the possibilities that workers will have safe workplaces. Reduce it to zero, in fact. The Bush-ites want workers just to be happy they have jobs, and not worry about having safe jobs.

Congressional leaders demanded yesterday that the Labor Department withdraw an eleventh-hour rule proposal that would make it more difficult to set industry limits on the amount of dangerous chemicals that U.S. workers are exposed to on the job.

In a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, the Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House labor committees accused her department of crafting a secret rule in the final months of the Bush administration, with the goal of weakening worker safety and helping businesses avoid regulations.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (Calif.) said Chao’s department violated the rule requiring federal agencies to alert the public twice a year to any directives it was considering. They asked her to turn over internal documents of any meetings or communications Labor officials had with business or outside groups relating to the proposal.

Their demand came the day The Washington Post reported that the agency began actively researching the proposal as early as last September, when it commissioned a $347,000 outside study of the idea. It did not disclose its interest until it formally submitted a draft rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget on July 7.

“For nearly eight years, this administration has consistently failed to respond in a meaningful way to the real health and safety threats workers face while on the job,” Miller said. “But now they will stop at nothing to rush through a secret rule that will tie the hands of health and safety experts.”

The proposed rule, which would have the force of law, would call for reexamining long-standing agency assumptions used to weigh risks from toxins, including the notion that some workers spend 45 years in the same kind of job. The proposal has not been made public, but according to sources and internal documents, it aims to address business complaints that previous agency risk assessments exaggerate risk and cost industry too much.

[From Democrats Ask Labor to Forgo ‘Secret Rule’ – washingtonpost.com]

Oh, poor, poor industry, having to maintain safe workplaces when there are profit margins to increase, second homes to pay for in Aspen, yadda yadda. I’ve never understood how working class folks could ever vote for a Republican – screwing people and slurping on corporations is what the Republicans do best.

Footnotes:
  1. and yet, not so surprising, given the track record of the anti-consumer activists currently running the executive branch of the US [↩]

Justices Cut Damages Award in Exxon Valdez Spill

Seth Anderson0 comment

Gears Grind Slow

Nice to have the profits to be able to afford teams of highly compensated corporate attorneys to work on the case for almost 20 years (spill occurred in 1989).

The commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, landowners, businesses and local governments involved in the lawsuit have each received about $15,000 so far ”for having their lives and livelihood destroyed and haven’t received a dime of emotional-distress damages,” their Supreme Court lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, said when the court heard arguments in February.

First-quarter profits at Exxon Mobil Corp. were $10.9 billion. The company’s 2007 profit was $40.6 billion.

[From Justices Cut Damages Award in Exxon Valdez Spill – NYTimes.com]

The Supreme Court reduced damages from $2,500,000,000 way down to $500,000,000. Exxon Mobil’s legal fees for this matter were probably another $400,000,000 or so, meaning somebody’s having a party tonight with nearly $2 billion dollars. Assholes.

Estimated by Amerian Law Daily as $400,000,000:

Those expenses are nothing when compared to the bills Exxon has been paying during the last two decades to firms like O’Melveny & Myers, its primary outside counsel on the litigation. In 1990 alone, according to a feature story in The American Lawyer following the jury verdict, Exxon reportedly paid $60 million in defense fees. O’Neill estimates that Exxon has likely spent about $400 million defending the case during the last two decades, citing numbers that one of his team’s lawyers saw during litigation that was related to the case. Exxon spokesman Tony Cudmore declined to confirm that figure. “We have not released a figure for legal costs,” he says. “I can tell you they have been significant, but I am not able to provide a number.”

Plaintiffs attorneys are crying tonight, as are all the residents of Alaska.

You are now free to take a flying leap

Seth Anderson0 comment

Flight 1053

at a rolling donut. Though the original Kurt Vonnegut phrase was something more like “take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.” The hole in this instance is customer service, by the way, which if you have flown recently, you already knew.

Did you hear the one about the passenger who was charged an extra $15 by the airline to lose his first checked bag? And another $25 for a second bag mistakenly loaded onto an airliner to Calcutta instead of Cincinnati?

That might sound like a Jay Leno monologue, but a disgruntled frequent flier delivered it at a forum Tuesday in Chicago sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation for consumers to air their gripes.

The message from airlines wasn’t reassuring either. Essentially, they said, if you think it’s bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. They warned of shrinking service and higher fees for everything from preassigned seats to bottled water.

Airline representatives defended overbooking flights, saying…

[From You are now free to take a flying leap — chicagotribune.com]

saying: it is your fault for flying with us in the first place. Haven’t you heard of trains, and video-conferencing?

and got to love this claim:

Airlines and government representatives at the forum maintained that a passenger bill of rights, which has never passed Congress, is unnecessary because the industry can regulate itself.

Yeah, right, that’s why everyone who flies and/or works for an airline is so happy all the time.