We have become torturers and bullies who buy products from torturers and bullies. How’s that shrimp cocktail tasting?

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Wal-Mart’s most famous anti-worker case came back a couple of decades ago. The meatcutters in one particular store actually got as far along in the organizing process as to vote to join a union. In response the company closed, not just that meat department but all meat departments at all their stores. All their meat cutting, grinding, processing, etc., is now done at a central location and the packaged product distributed.

That’s for fresh meat of course. Much more of their meat products are sold frozen, and those are bought from, sigh, whoever will sell at the lowest prices. The big recall you’ve been hearing about involves beef from Topps Meat Co. of (soon to be “formerly of” since they’re going out of business) Elizabeth NJ. Their products were sold under their own name and at a wide variety of stores besides Wal-Mart.

The other recall, which is just starting to get publicity, is of the same product, frozen hamburger patties, but sold under the name American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties. That one is sold pretty exclusively at Wal-Mart-owned Sam’s Club, although not in the WM stores themselves.

American Chef is produced by a little mom-n-pop outfit called Cargill. And Topps?  Read more 

So we have two major ground-beef recalls in progress. Both, they tell us, for e. coli contamination. One got a reasonably big, non-hysterical but thorough, coverage on the Saturday evening (NBC anyway) news. That’s this one, which covers a great whacking lot of dead cow over a great number of states. All out West. But one of those no-name meatpackers you never heard of, whose stuff is sold mostly under store brand names.

Unmentioned, oddly enough, was another recall announced just yesterday. That’s this one here. It covers less meat admittedly, but only two companies: Tyson Fresh Meats which processed the stuff, and Wal-Mart which sells it.

Wonder why NBC, when reporting the big Western recall, made no mention of the Eastern, Tyson, Walmart one?  Read more 

* Have you been denied career opportunities in management?
* Have you been denied equal pay for equal work?
* Have you been getting the run-around about promotions or raises?
* Have you hit the glass ceiling?

If you worked for Wal-Mart at any time since December 26, 1998, you may have legal claims in a class action sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart. Learn more!

But guess what? If you join the class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart and you’re still working there, they’ll fire your ass.

Blogger Captain Dyke has been selected to testify before the House committee on Education and Labor this Tuesday. The hearing is entitled ’Strengthening the Middle Class: Ensuring Equal Pay for Women’. It’s the tied-in with the gender discrimination class action against Wal-Mart.  Read more 

From the Nashville Tennessean this morning. Wonder if a trend is underway, or did they just get caught?

A voter registration group with Republican ties has been banished from Wal-Mart stores in Tennessee for failing to meet the retailer’s standards of nonpartisanship and may soon be shut out of stores in California and Nevada, the retailer’s spokesman said Tuesday.

Liberty Consultants wanted to register Wal-Mart shoppers in seven traditionally GOP suburban counties around Nashville. But the request was denied after the firm’s owner, Gary Thompson, acknowledged to Wal-Mart that he had been hired by Tempe, Ariz.-based Sproul & Associates.

Ah, a blast from the past. Remember these “Sproul” folks?”  Read more