Safeway fired my daddy....

[one_voice]

[DFW]

1. May her voice be heard around the country, loudly, and often n/t

[southernyankeebelle]

3. Out of the mouths of babes.

[lunatica]

4. I really don't think she wrote it

It's a very good photograph, but it's also posed and written by someone else. Maybe her daddy.

[southernyankeebelle]

10. It still makes the point. Children understand better then we give them credit for. Losing his job

will effect her and her family. Therefore the point is still understood by the child even if she didn't write it.

[lunatica]

11. I'm not arguing about this at all!

I think it's a very effective photograph. I was just being nit picky. Sorry!

[southernyankeebelle]

25. Forgetaboutit. I agree with you. We are both right.

[Codeine]

6. Or her dad's voice, more accurately.

I'm pretty sure the little one had fuck-all to do with the creation of that paper.

[blackspade]

32. My pre-teen could have easily written this!

The amount of research that they require for middle school students pretty remarkable.

[Cigar11]

9. In the mean time, we’ll have to Vote for her. /eom

[DesertRat]

2. K&R

[seabeyond]

5. her daddy wrote that. male handwriting, not a child. not to mention info. AND

i am ok with it.

but, i am pointing out the outrage when the right does this with their kids. i dont have an issue when the right, left or any other group encourage social conscious from children, be it left or right.

i prefer a parent not brainwash and condition but allow children to think out and through these issues and arrive at their conclusions. but that is just a wish.

i am into children participating in all ways.

[msongs]

13. male hand writing? how can you tell its "male" handwriting. details please :-) nt

[seabeyond]

14. yes, i think there is a norm for male handwriting. not gonna google.

not gonna stand on fact. tis an opinion. do what you want with it.

if you want to be offended by post.... it is all yours.

[Occulus]

16. Porn harms my wrist.

[seabeyond]

18. watching porn hurts your wrist? wow. hm.

i could get you making that really stupid comment about masturbating while watching porn. but simply watching porn hurts your wrist is about as stupid as it gets.

whatevah

[Occulus]

24. Fine. I didn't think you would 'get it' anyway, so I'm perfectly willing to spell it out.

On the "Pornography harms" thread,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2278376

you were shrilly hysterical regarding supposed, rampant exploitation of nearly every woman involved in nearly every porn film made anywhere ever. You made repeated unfounded accusations, multiple proclamations which were often completely lacking any reasonable connection to the topic, and you coated it all with the slick, oily sheen of presumed female victimhood (not to mention, apparently, inherent moral superiority) by any man that has ever watched any porno ever.

Everyone who reads that thread will observe what I've described.

[font size="4"]Yet here you are, on this thread,[/font]

making what is essentially a needless sexist prejudgment (not to say, insulting to the child's ability to write so clerarly if she did in fact write it, which you can't know in the first place), the prejudgment being 'that looks male' (there being no true "male" or "female" handwriting). This leads me to the observation that some women who are "concerned" about sexism against women are, to a degree, sexist themselves.

Ironic, isn't it?

[seabeyond]

38. then again, i see yawl in a panic at people with differing opinions.

talk about hysteria? yawl are all over yourselves demanding porn that no one says you cannot have

though, really, that has nothing to do with the OP of this thread and just a bunch of gibberish from you i am not interested in reading.

grow up

[Occulus]

40. Did you ever wonder if you were 'being played' by the people who you argue with?

You're as entitled to your opinion as you are to your asshole. Considering that is quite literally what you did, in your post that started this subthread, it would appear you pulled your 'male handwriting' comment right out from your ass.

The irony of your post and my response is that you'll apply a gender to something that has none on the one hand and screech about sexism (against one sex, of course) on the other.

What you're not addressing with your comment is that, in any case, the girl's father lost his job. Casting FUD and 'smelling a lie' by making unfounded assumptions doesn't help. At all. Yet, that's exactly what you did and you went and displayed the exact same hypocrisy on sexism you did in the thread I linked to.

Like I said. Ironic.

[seabeyond]

41. it is not an insult or anything else, stating their is a style to male and female handwriting.

and again, for the rest of you post.... ya, lmfao, right.

[Occulus]

43. Except that the statement simply isn't true.

The handwriting is very readable, but the gender of the writer cannot be known from the handwriting (and I happen to be in an expert position to know that). Applying gender to the sexless- the handwriting- and using that to support any kind of statement that she couldn't have written because that's not how men write is a sexist argument (the very which you yourself screeched yourself hoarse over before, very famously). If she did in fact write it herself, your argument that it's "male handwriting"- I'd like you to define that for the rest of the class, by the way- amounts to a trivial dismissal.

A sexist, trivial dismissal.

Busted. Again.

[seabeyond]

45. are you assuming i am referring to neatness? wasnt even a consideration.

and shame on you for making such a sexist assumption. rollin eyes. i see that men tend to use capitalized letter in print rather than the lower case for letters when printing. not, it is not a long and hard and fast rule. but generally, when i see this type of print it is men. i do it cause i took a mechanical drawing class and learned to make all y letter capital. then teaching kids i had to force myself to use little letters.

NOTHING about neat

and not a hard and fast guess. and guess is all it is.

and no, it does not look like kids writing of either gender. i have been around that forever....

done, with you. i wasted way to much fuckin time over your petty bullshit posts...

[CakeGrrl]

39. My first thought was seeing a pic of a Pro-Lifer with

their infant kid in a stroller wearing a jumper that read "Thank you, Mommy."

Granted, this girl is an active and aware participant, but it's still an adult milking sympathy by using a child (or sometimes a pet).

[Hissyspit]

64. Oh good grief

So what?

She KNOWS what's happening in her family.

[abelenkpe]

50. I dunno my handwriting is similar

but yeah.

My kids understand there's something up with the economic inequality but they wouldn't be able to vocalize it well.

[zappaman]

57. "male handwriting"

[Robb]

7. Och. You know

... You'll be hard put to find a more pro-workers rights poster than me. And I'm three generations a union man.

But I don't like bringing kids to these fights. The bad guys do this a lot, and rightly we excoriate them for it.

Perhaps she's old enough to get it, though. Still makes me uncomfortable.

[CanSocDem]

8. It's good to see...

...an industrialized food industry player like Safeway coming under the microscope. As a long time 'contract' worker for this player and industry, I have long felt its' time was coming.

Eating preferences, like religious preferences are the last bastions of American freedom. Be careful what you wish for....

.

[EC]

12. Gee, SAFEWAY

fires someone for pointing out they're not so SAFE.

[MedicalAdmin]

21. Safeway ain't alone in this.

That mine company from hell comes to mind immediately. As does every other corporation I can think of.

Complain about them not being safe = fired or worse.

[EC]

23. I know that....

I was pointing out the irony of the company's name.

[MedicalAdmin]

26. Oh .... (slaps head)

Whoops. I'll go set my irony detector to a higher setting right away. It seems my outrage meter needs recalibrating too....

[maggiesfarmer]

15. does anyone know the details of the story? who is the dad, what was the actual reason he got fired

how does his version differ from Safeway's?

I'm not trying to suggest that I consider a picture of a handwritten note held up by a pre-pubescent child without any citations to be anything less than credible mind you....

[one_voice]

19. ....

[maggiesfarmer]

35. not sure what your response means "..."

from my experience, an ellipses usually means "more to come" -- are you telling me that you'll explain later? do you know the story? can you share the source from which you received the photo?

[one_voice]

42. Did you miss this?

They are self explanatory.

'...' in the subject line did indicate more to come....

[maggiesfarmer]

66. ahh "eye rolling."

thanks for clearing that up. didn't realize that requesting a citation warranted an eye roll.

are you telling me you can't cite your source?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

17. Sounds like someone needs to get an attorney and own Safeway.

They cannot fire someone for speaking up about safety violations.

[MedicalAdmin]

27. They didn't fire him for that.

At least not on paper. There isn't a lawyer in this country who would touch this case.

[surrealAmerican]

47. ... and even if there is a paper trail conclusive enough to prove him right ...

... the most he would get would be legal fees and back salary. It's not the kind of suit that would shut down a company, or lead to a big settlement for the plaintiff.

[MedicalAdmin]

48. minus 40% for the lawyer.

Still it is more than he got. I'd hire any shark interested and set them lose.

But honestly they didn't document firing him for complaints about safety. They fired him for being 30 seconds late one morning or some other BS.

[treestar]

62. +1

There is an exception to the at will rule.

[Evasporque]

20. Unsafeway....nt

[Puzzledtraveller]

22. Watched an episode of Glee

with my girlfriend other night, had never watched before. Jane Lynch's character towards the end decries children being used to make statements in the arguments and affairs of adults. I agree.

[LanternWaste]

28. Television is quite a bit better in making arguments for us?

Television is quite a bit better in making arguments for us than children?

That aside, precisely what is the ethical or moral rule being broken or bent in the use of children to make arguments for adults?

[MedicalAdmin]

30. Do you think that her dad getting fired

won't have any effect on this child?

We are all connected.

[newspeak]

49. well, if my daddy had written it, I would had held it

she is directly impacted by daddy losing his job. Also, at her age, I was going door to door speaking to people as to why they should vote for LBJ.

[Mosby]

29. Safeway did not make 41.1 billion dollars last year

Last edited Tue Dec 27, 2011, 06:03 PM - Edit history (1)

They GROSSED 42.84 billion and made a net profit of 529 million.

That is a net margin of 1.24%

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SWY+Key+Statistics

Some other companies for comparison:

Apple net margin: 23.95%
Microsoft net margin: 33.01%
Colgate palmolive net margin: 14.9%
Glaxo net margin: 12%
Revlon net margin: 22.5%
Lorillard net margin: 24.5%

Think about that margin for a sec, for every dollar spend at the register Safeway nets 1.24 cents.

There must be more to the story that what is in the pic, if Safeway was fined in the past by OSHA then the system must be working to some extent.

[LanternWaste]

33. I believe that in this context "making" is applicable.

I believe that in this context "making" is applicable.

Much like I "made" X amount last year, but grossed Y after utilities, payments, obligations, rents, etc.


A story about one "big target" does not in any way deny another story about any other "big targets"

[Mosby]

36. imho it's misleading

Especially so because safeway actually makes a tiny fraction of a profit from it's gross sales.

The comment I made about retail being a big target isn't really relevent to the OP as you note, but it's something I've noticed through the years. I suppose its due to the visibility of the industry.

[maggiesfarmer]

34. very good point n/t

[JDPriestly]

37. When you "go after" a company, it is because the company discriminates

or refuses to provide a safe workplace. The profit margin of the company is only relevant to the amount of damages the company can and should pay.

Regardless of the company, regardless of its profitability, if a court determines that it violated VERY IMPORTANT, (not minor) safety regulations, in my opinion, it deserves a haircut big enough to either force it either to bring in new management or to change its safety policies.

[blackspade]

31. +1000

[Mosby]

44. More info, the guy is upset with Safeway and the union

My name is Mary VanGorder. I am Emily’s mom. This is the story of why Emily’s dad, Mike, got fired from Safeway.

Mike VanGorder began working for Safeway’s Distribution Center in Tracy, CA in 1995. The biggest issue at the facility has always been safety. They went on strike in 2000 over safety issues. Safeway has been practicing unsafe working habits for years. Cal Osha recently went through the warehouse again and fined Safeway almost $200,000 for violations. Safeway was obviously aware they were breaking the laws, as they made Osha get a warrant and bring the sheriff to be able to set foot on Safeway’s property. In the United States of America we have the right to a safe working environment. Safeway is not providing their workforce with this. Despite some serious accidents over the years, it’s business as usual for Safeway. Since Cal Osha has walked through, Safeway has done nothing to fix the violations, preferring to play their case out in court instead of putting safety first for their employees. Not only is the union unorganized and divided, they also have done nothing to solve these unsafe conditions.

Mike has been out there since 1995 without being disciplined for not making the production standards. As a matter of fact, Mike is such a model employee Safeway tracked him down to use him in their company powerpoint presentation about the warehouse. Frustrated with everything going on, Mike decided to silently protest at his job. For 3 weeks he went to work wearing a t-shirt speaking out against Safeway and Teamsters. It said “Slaveway & Teamsters, working together to break down working conditions.” On October 13th he was called into the office and told to remove his shirt by his supervisors. He refused, believing Safeway had no right to do so since he was speaking out against unsafe working conditions. At no time was he told he would be fired if he didn’t, they just took his badge and walked him out telling him he was suspended pending an investigation. On October 20 he was notified he had been terminated for insubordination for refusing to take his shirt off.

On October 1st Mike had his meeting with the Union and Safeway. Before the meeting started Safeway offered Mike his job back with conditions-no backpay, he’d be on a final warning (6 months they could fire him for any reason) and he sign an agreement that he would never do anything like this again. Mike declined the offer, he just wants to be made whole, and they wouldn’t have offered him his job back without a discussion if they didn’t know they were in the wrong here. He met with them again on October 8th with no change.

We’re now awaiting arbitration, and the case has been filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/support-safeway-teamsters/emilys-dads-story/321075611236625

I think he can forget about getting his job back and compensation is completely out of the question. For those that might not know, OSHA has a tip line that any employee can call. The number is posted in every worksite.

.

[MADem]

51. I think you might be right.

I have a bit of a problem with people using their children to push political agendas, even when they're sincerely held beliefs or positions. Let kids be kids.

That OSHA number is easy to remember, too... 1 800 321 OSHA.

[BOHICA12]

58. He decided that was the hill he was prepared to risk his employment on ...

by poking the eye of Safeway & the Teamsters at the same time. Good initiative - but - poor judgement.

[bertman]

46. Great sign! REC. I'm sorry about her dad losing his job. nt

[Justice wanted]

52. POWERFUL

[Riley18]

53. Sorry about her dad's job. Hope he finds

another one soon.

[IamK]

54. No help from the Teamsters it appears.....

[Lucky Luciano]

55. Safeway did not make $40B.

They could have revenues that high on razor thin margins giving a few hundred million in profit.

Exxon MADE $40B. SWY is no XOM.

[BootinUp]

59. Rat bastards! nt

[unkachuck]

60. K&R....n/t

[DonCoquixote]

61. This little girl

Does a better job of explaining our cause then 90% off the twits at huffPO, 50% of people on MSNBC, and I think even keith and Cenk would yield this girl some airtime.

[lonestarnot]

63. What, Safeway is union, why no grievance?

[DeSwiss]

65. K&R n/t

[Javaman]

67. Unsafeway. nt