Brenda R. Scott, veteran activist and president of the Mississippi state employees union, got the state AFL-CIO's four-day annual legislative conference off to a rousing start Monday with a fiery rendition of the old labor song, We're Gonna Roll the Union On!
"I'm tired of the haves taking advantage of the have-nots!" Scott told the crowd at the Edison-Walthall hotel in downtown Jackson after the song. "We need to stand up and fight back!"
Scott, nearly as good a singer as she is a grassroots organizer, said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is trying to do away with job protection for veteran state workers by eliminating a clause requiring that "just cause" be proven before a firing. The governor is also trying to raise the cost of state employees' health premiums by 15 percent over each of the next four years.
"When you don't say anything, you are telling Haley Barbour to go ahead," she said. "My state workers are afraid."
A new militancy is needed, she said. Union leaders across the state need to stand up for their members and for all working people.
Scott said she hopes Barbour, frequently touted as a possible future Republican presidential candidate, does run for president so the rest of the nation sees what he's doing in Mississippi. Barbour, in Oxford today for a meeting with the press, declined to dismiss the possibility of a future run.
Scott, herself an unsuccessful candidate for Jackson mayor last year, organized 3,000 members for her union, CWA (Communications Workers of America) Local 3570. "Brenda has done this is a state where there are no collective bargaining laws for public workers and no legal right to have dues check-off for public workers," CWA District 3 Vice President Beverly Hicks said. "She has been successful over the years against all odds."
Another speaker urging unity and activism at Monday's opening day ceremonies for the conference was John W. Graves, president of IBEW Local 2164 and also of the Mississippi chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
"We all need to pull together," Graves said. "We all have the same common goal--the ACLU, the AFL, the APR. Think of it as a chain. The chain is no stronger than its weakest link. We've been fighting for a long time, but we don't have victory yet."
Yours truly also spoke at the conference, and I'll do something very unusual for me: quote myself! "You are at the forefront of a major movement for social justice," I told the crowd. "The enemy is formidable, just like it was in the 1920s, just before labor grew to its greatest strength.
"President Obama needs to realize--and I think he does--there's not going to be bipartisanship in Congress. Republicans only want his defeat and failure. So he needs to push ahead, use the rules of Congress to ram health care reform through on a simple majority, and punish those Democrats who aren't on board. He's the president. He has the power to do it. We need what the Germans call Realpolitik. We need militancy. And after he does it on health care, he needs to do the same on EFCA (the Employee Free Choice Act)."
The real work is done after all the speeches, however. Let's hope Brenda Scott's fighting spirit proves contagious.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Is the "Toyota Way" behind the recalls?
A century ago, Frederick W. Taylor, a mechanical engineer whose book The Principles of Scientific Management influenced generations of business owners and managers, had this to say about American working people:
“Underworking … constitutes the greatest evil with which the working people are now afflicted. … Instead of using every effort to turn out the largest possible amount of work, (a worker) deliberately plans to do as little as he safely can, to turn out far less work than he is well able to do; in many instances to do not more than one-third to one-half of a proper day’s work.”
With that contemptuous attitude at a time of sweatshop abuse and rampant child labor, Taylor proceeded to propose that every second and every movement at the workplace be monitored and scientifically managed to eliminate waste, inefficiency, and labor costs in the cause of high productivity and company profits.
Proponents of the so-called “Toyota Way”—the production philosophy employed by the same Japanese giant now reeling from the recall of 8.5 million cars since November—say it’s a “democratic Taylorism” that values workers even as it pushes them constantly toward “continuous improvement,” known in Toyota-speak as kaizen.
What role did the “Toyota Way” play in the current recall? It’s the kind of question you’re never going to hear Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour ask, nor the governors and members of Congress from Kentucky, Texas, West Virginia, and other states where Toyota has built plants. All you’re going to hear from them is a resounding “The Toyota Way Is Okay!”
Indeed, the “Toyota Way” of kaizen and so-called “lean management” is now taught in the public schools at Scott County, Ky., where the company built its first solely owned U.S. plant in 1986—at a cost of nearly $150 million to Kentucky taxpayers.
Even Kindergarteners now learn Toyota-think in Scott County, Ky. With Toyota-trained managers overseeing the process, students learn, for example, to be creative in determining what jobs can be eliminated at a work site without negatively affecting production. What they don’t learn is whether they should question the “Toyota Way”.
Expect public schools in and near Blue Springs, Miss., where the company plans to build a $1.3 billion, 2,000-worker assembly plant, to be incorporating the “Toyota Way” into their future curricula. The University of Mississippi is already there. Earlier this month, the university’s Undergraduate Council approved program and course changes in the School of Engineering that, in cooperation with the newly established Center for Manufacturing Excellence, will teach “lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System.”
Yet, all is not rosy for Toyota or its way these days. With millions of its cars on recall for pedal, floormat, and brake problems, Toyota president Akio Toyoda has apologized to Congress, television's Larry King, and the nation of Japan, which the New York Times recently called practically a “one-company town.” No company more symbolizes Japanese economic might than Toyota.
Yet sales are dropping. The U.S. Congress is investigating. Even the Prius hybrid, the pride of Toyota, Japan’s best-selling car last year, and the car that is to be built at the Blue Springs plant, is in recall. Toyota has had eight major recalls since September 2007. Lawsuits were filed in February relating vehicle deaths to Toyota deficiencies.
Certified auditor Katy Cameron is probably nodding her head at the irony. After working more than two decades at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., (NUMMI) plant in Alameda County, Calif. she filed a lawsuit in 2007 claiming the jointly run General Motors-Toyota operation took revenge on her after she complained of shoddy practices that allowed cars to be put on the market with bad brakes, faulty seat belts, and a host of other problems. It was her job to spot such problems. The company apparently didn't like what she reported.
More than a year ago, a 65-page report by the New York-based National Labor Committee claimed Toyota subcontractors in Japan forced employees to work 16-hour days and seven days a week at sub-minimum wages to build the same Prius planned for Blue Springs. The report also claimed that migrant workers at Toyota faced a constant threat of deportation if they complained about sweatshop-like conditions.
To Frederick W. Taylor, workers were merely objects to be scientifically managed into little more than highly productive automatons. The “democratic Taylorism” of the Toyota Way is supposed to be an improvement in that philosophy. The company’s current troubles are hardly proof.
“Underworking … constitutes the greatest evil with which the working people are now afflicted. … Instead of using every effort to turn out the largest possible amount of work, (a worker) deliberately plans to do as little as he safely can, to turn out far less work than he is well able to do; in many instances to do not more than one-third to one-half of a proper day’s work.”
With that contemptuous attitude at a time of sweatshop abuse and rampant child labor, Taylor proceeded to propose that every second and every movement at the workplace be monitored and scientifically managed to eliminate waste, inefficiency, and labor costs in the cause of high productivity and company profits.
Proponents of the so-called “Toyota Way”—the production philosophy employed by the same Japanese giant now reeling from the recall of 8.5 million cars since November—say it’s a “democratic Taylorism” that values workers even as it pushes them constantly toward “continuous improvement,” known in Toyota-speak as kaizen.
What role did the “Toyota Way” play in the current recall? It’s the kind of question you’re never going to hear Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour ask, nor the governors and members of Congress from Kentucky, Texas, West Virginia, and other states where Toyota has built plants. All you’re going to hear from them is a resounding “The Toyota Way Is Okay!”
Indeed, the “Toyota Way” of kaizen and so-called “lean management” is now taught in the public schools at Scott County, Ky., where the company built its first solely owned U.S. plant in 1986—at a cost of nearly $150 million to Kentucky taxpayers.
Even Kindergarteners now learn Toyota-think in Scott County, Ky. With Toyota-trained managers overseeing the process, students learn, for example, to be creative in determining what jobs can be eliminated at a work site without negatively affecting production. What they don’t learn is whether they should question the “Toyota Way”.
Expect public schools in and near Blue Springs, Miss., where the company plans to build a $1.3 billion, 2,000-worker assembly plant, to be incorporating the “Toyota Way” into their future curricula. The University of Mississippi is already there. Earlier this month, the university’s Undergraduate Council approved program and course changes in the School of Engineering that, in cooperation with the newly established Center for Manufacturing Excellence, will teach “lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System.”
Yet, all is not rosy for Toyota or its way these days. With millions of its cars on recall for pedal, floormat, and brake problems, Toyota president Akio Toyoda has apologized to Congress, television's Larry King, and the nation of Japan, which the New York Times recently called practically a “one-company town.” No company more symbolizes Japanese economic might than Toyota.
Yet sales are dropping. The U.S. Congress is investigating. Even the Prius hybrid, the pride of Toyota, Japan’s best-selling car last year, and the car that is to be built at the Blue Springs plant, is in recall. Toyota has had eight major recalls since September 2007. Lawsuits were filed in February relating vehicle deaths to Toyota deficiencies.
Certified auditor Katy Cameron is probably nodding her head at the irony. After working more than two decades at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., (NUMMI) plant in Alameda County, Calif. she filed a lawsuit in 2007 claiming the jointly run General Motors-Toyota operation took revenge on her after she complained of shoddy practices that allowed cars to be put on the market with bad brakes, faulty seat belts, and a host of other problems. It was her job to spot such problems. The company apparently didn't like what she reported.
More than a year ago, a 65-page report by the New York-based National Labor Committee claimed Toyota subcontractors in Japan forced employees to work 16-hour days and seven days a week at sub-minimum wages to build the same Prius planned for Blue Springs. The report also claimed that migrant workers at Toyota faced a constant threat of deportation if they complained about sweatshop-like conditions.
To Frederick W. Taylor, workers were merely objects to be scientifically managed into little more than highly productive automatons. The “democratic Taylorism” of the Toyota Way is supposed to be an improvement in that philosophy. The company’s current troubles are hardly proof.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Latest round-up of labor activity in the South: A Charleston celebration, a guilty plea in immigrant raid, and a contract for Memphis teachers
To the left is Ken Riley, president of the International Longshoremen's Association Local 1422 in Charleston, S.C.
Let's take a look at some recent labor activity around the South:
CHARLESTON, S.C. - A two-day celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the International Longshoremen's Association victory over an anti-union attorney general and union-busting Danish shipping line will be held Feb. 25 and 26.
Called the "first major labor battle of the 21st century"--in a right-to-work state, no less--the dramatic January 2000 labor action pitted ILA Local 1422 against state troopers and local police who used helicopters, armed vehicles, patrol boats, and attack dogs to squash a picket line. The dockworkers were protesting a decision by the Nordana Shipping Line to break a 22-year-old relationship with the local by hiring nonunion workers. Why pay union workers $16.50 to $25 an hour when nonunion workers will do the job for $8 an hour?
Law enforcement authorities arrested several union members on riot charges that were later tossed. Enter then-South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon, a politician cut from the same cloth as "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, Cole Blease, Cotton Ed Smith, and Strom Thurmond. Vowing "jail, jail, and more jail," Condon got a grand jury to go along with felony indictments against five longshoremen--who came to be known as the "Charleston Five". The five eventually served 18 months under house arrest before agreeing to misdemeanor rioting charges.
The union won its standoff with Nordana after a show of unity by fellow longshoremen in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. The "battle" became a showcase of how international solidarity can be used to win victories for workers' rights. Local 1422 president Ken Riley emerged as not only a hero in Charleston but also a major reform figure in the ILA, a union long tainted by a history of corruption and ties to organized crime.
The Feb. 25/26 celebration will include the launching of a new organizing initiative in the South under the banner "Jobs With Rights Now!"
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - More than a year after the largest workplace raid by federal officials on undocumented workers in U.S. history, we're still waiting to see just how much the federal government is going hold Howard Industries to account for its role in the circumstances that led to the raid.
In December, company executive Jose Humberto Gonzalez pleaded guilty to a charge that he knowingly hired undocumented workers at the company's plant in Laurel.
As a result of the raid, federal agents sent hundreds of immigrant workers to the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, La., where they were held for weeks without formal charges or the ability to see an attorney. Female immigrant workers arrested at the plant--many of them mothers with young children--were forced to wear monitoring devices on their ankles and forbidden to leave Mississippi.
Their crime? Working without proper documentation at a company that had already been fined for 54 safety violations. They helped make power transformers and voltage regulators, reportedly at wages much less than other workers, and many of them living in substandard conditions as a result.
Gonzales faced a 12-count indictment and pleaded guilty to one of the counts. That could put him in prison for up to five years. He has been the only company official charged with any crime. What about other Howard Industries officials who perhaps don't have Spanish surnames? What did they know and when did they know it? Who looked the other way? I'm not holding my breath for fresh indictments. This is a company known for its owners' gifts to politicians and that was so beloved by Mississippi lawmakers that they awarded it $31.5 million in taxpayer money in 2002 as incentive to expand its operations.
In fact, the state of Mississippi has a new law that penalizes companies using undocumented workers if those companies have public contracts. Whether Howard has faces such penalties or even has such contracts is uncertain, but one of the law's sponsors, state Sen. Lee Yancy, R-Brandon, says he has full confidence that Howard is doing everything it can to abide by the law.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Members of the Memphis Education Association have agreed to a new contract with city schools that won them a 2 percent pay raise with the guarantee of another 1 percent pay raise next year.
With the agreement, Memphis City Schools now has signed contracts with all seven of its workers' unions. The pay raise is smaller than in years past, but, given the hard economic times, Memphis Education Association leaders said they were happy to get it. Union membership totals more than 6,000.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wal-Mart & Toyota, two giants in trouble
Wanna stay busy? Become a Wal-Mart lawyer.
Ten West African immmigrants have filed complaints against the Arkansas-based retailer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying they were unjustly fired by the company although they had worked for years without any complaints until new managers took over stores in Avon and several other Colorado towns. The men feel they were fired because they're foreigners, and because they're black.
Wal-Mart says the firings were simply part of large-scale layoffs and firings at the company. However, the complaints come on the heels of other legal problems. As reported recently in the New York Times, it recently reached a $17.5 million settlement in a class-action case regarding claims it discriminated against African-Americans seeking truck-driving jobs.
Another class-action suit claims Wal-Mart discriminated against 1.6 million former and current female employees in pay raises and promotions. That one has been pending since 2004.
Another giant of interest to Southerners is Toyota, which has a huge plant in Kentucky as well as other plants and operations in West Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi (that plant remains yet-to-be-built). With millions of its cars on recall for pedal, floormat, brake, and other problems, the world's largest automaker is reeling from a certain kind of publicity it has rarely seen in the usually fawning press--bad publicity.
Company president Akio Toyoda has apologized to the nation of Japan. Sales are dropping. The U.S. Congress is investigating--although don't expect a lot of aggressive scrutiny from West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and Mississippi politicians. They'd just as soon close the book on this matter with the next announcement from Tokyo that everything's quite hunky-dory.
Toyota has had eight major recalls since September 2007.
Somewhere in California there's a certified auditor nodding her head at the irony of it all. Katy Cameron, who worked more than two decades at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., (NUMMI) plant in Alameda County, filed a lawsuit in 2007 claiming the jointly run General Motors-Toyota operation took revenge on her after she complained of shoddy practices that allowed cars to be put on the market with bad brakes, faulty seat belts, and a host of other problems. It was her job to spot such problems. The company didn't like what she reported.
The recalls and lawsuits like Cameron's call into question the much-touted "Toyota Way" with its philosophy of "kaizen" (continuous improvement), its "just-in-time" production, the much-heralded "andon cord" that allows a single worker to stop an entire assembly line if a problem emerges. Not sure what happens to the worker--oops, I'm sorry, I should have said "team member"--after he pulls that cord.
Now the cord has been pulled on the entire Toyota corporation. What's going to happen to it?
Ten West African immmigrants have filed complaints against the Arkansas-based retailer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying they were unjustly fired by the company although they had worked for years without any complaints until new managers took over stores in Avon and several other Colorado towns. The men feel they were fired because they're foreigners, and because they're black.
Wal-Mart says the firings were simply part of large-scale layoffs and firings at the company. However, the complaints come on the heels of other legal problems. As reported recently in the New York Times, it recently reached a $17.5 million settlement in a class-action case regarding claims it discriminated against African-Americans seeking truck-driving jobs.
Another class-action suit claims Wal-Mart discriminated against 1.6 million former and current female employees in pay raises and promotions. That one has been pending since 2004.
Another giant of interest to Southerners is Toyota, which has a huge plant in Kentucky as well as other plants and operations in West Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi (that plant remains yet-to-be-built). With millions of its cars on recall for pedal, floormat, brake, and other problems, the world's largest automaker is reeling from a certain kind of publicity it has rarely seen in the usually fawning press--bad publicity.
Company president Akio Toyoda has apologized to the nation of Japan. Sales are dropping. The U.S. Congress is investigating--although don't expect a lot of aggressive scrutiny from West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and Mississippi politicians. They'd just as soon close the book on this matter with the next announcement from Tokyo that everything's quite hunky-dory.
Toyota has had eight major recalls since September 2007.
Somewhere in California there's a certified auditor nodding her head at the irony of it all. Katy Cameron, who worked more than two decades at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., (NUMMI) plant in Alameda County, filed a lawsuit in 2007 claiming the jointly run General Motors-Toyota operation took revenge on her after she complained of shoddy practices that allowed cars to be put on the market with bad brakes, faulty seat belts, and a host of other problems. It was her job to spot such problems. The company didn't like what she reported.
The recalls and lawsuits like Cameron's call into question the much-touted "Toyota Way" with its philosophy of "kaizen" (continuous improvement), its "just-in-time" production, the much-heralded "andon cord" that allows a single worker to stop an entire assembly line if a problem emerges. Not sure what happens to the worker--oops, I'm sorry, I should have said "team member"--after he pulls that cord.
Now the cord has been pulled on the entire Toyota corporation. What's going to happen to it?
Sunday, January 31, 2010
An Editorial: Bipartisanship, Filibustering & the Ghosts of Thurmond and Helms
In calling for a bipartisan spirit on Capitol Hill--issued in his State of the Union address and later to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore--President Obama is a voice crying in the wilderness.
Surely he knows by now that the spirits of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms are what drives today's Republican Party. Yes, the Senate's champion filibuster and its "No" master. Thurmond, the ol' Dixiecrat seg from South Carolina who led the charge to change the South from solid Democrat to solid Republican, and Helms, the raging North Carolina ex-TV exec who earned the moniker "Senator No" for opposing practically everything that a South American dictator wouldn't want for his country.
Obama's trying to be above it all, a leader of all the people--that's what presidents are supposed to do--but he's also got to practice realpolitik. He needs a dose of manhandling Lyndon Baines Johnson to deal with Republicans, none of whom have any desire or intention to work with him or any Democrat for that matter. Why would they do anything that might remotely score a victory for the White House?
That's why Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's claim today on Face the Nation was disingenuous at best. He had the temerity to say that Republicans are willing to work with Democrats as long as they can find common ground on the issues. Barbour knows this is untrue, host Bob Schieffer knows this, and so does anyone else with any feel for American politics today.
This is an election year, and Republicans sense they might have a shot at regaining a lot of lost ground in Congress. They want Obama to fail, regardless of what that means to the nation. They don't care. That's the reality. Rush Limbaugh was the first to admit it, and he essentially is the leader of the Republican Party today.
What Democrats this past year should have done--here employing my 20-20 hindsight vision--is push as many bills to the Senate floor--health care, Employee Free Choice Act, jobs bills, etc.--that they could muster together. Let the Republicans filibuster, and let the nation see it. Let the nation see firsthand their self-serving obstructionism, that they're willing to let the nation go to hell in a hand basket if that's what it takes to score points for their side.
Thurmond, still the Senate's filibustering record-holder, and Helms are smiling from their graves, enjoying their one true, lasting legacy: the modern-day Republican Party.
Surely he knows by now that the spirits of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms are what drives today's Republican Party. Yes, the Senate's champion filibuster and its "No" master. Thurmond, the ol' Dixiecrat seg from South Carolina who led the charge to change the South from solid Democrat to solid Republican, and Helms, the raging North Carolina ex-TV exec who earned the moniker "Senator No" for opposing practically everything that a South American dictator wouldn't want for his country.
Obama's trying to be above it all, a leader of all the people--that's what presidents are supposed to do--but he's also got to practice realpolitik. He needs a dose of manhandling Lyndon Baines Johnson to deal with Republicans, none of whom have any desire or intention to work with him or any Democrat for that matter. Why would they do anything that might remotely score a victory for the White House?
That's why Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's claim today on Face the Nation was disingenuous at best. He had the temerity to say that Republicans are willing to work with Democrats as long as they can find common ground on the issues. Barbour knows this is untrue, host Bob Schieffer knows this, and so does anyone else with any feel for American politics today.
This is an election year, and Republicans sense they might have a shot at regaining a lot of lost ground in Congress. They want Obama to fail, regardless of what that means to the nation. They don't care. That's the reality. Rush Limbaugh was the first to admit it, and he essentially is the leader of the Republican Party today.
What Democrats this past year should have done--here employing my 20-20 hindsight vision--is push as many bills to the Senate floor--health care, Employee Free Choice Act, jobs bills, etc.--that they could muster together. Let the Republicans filibuster, and let the nation see it. Let the nation see firsthand their self-serving obstructionism, that they're willing to let the nation go to hell in a hand basket if that's what it takes to score points for their side.
Thurmond, still the Senate's filibustering record-holder, and Helms are smiling from their graves, enjoying their one true, lasting legacy: the modern-day Republican Party.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wal-Mart fires 11,000, puts condition on severance pay
Wal-Mart's "Happy New Year!" to 11,000 of its workers this week was an announcement that they are all losing their jobs. The announcement came just two weeks after the company revealed plans to close 10 Sam's Club stores across the country (none in the South). The leopard doesn't change its spots, and Arkansas-based Wal-Mart is still Wal-Mart, which is to say something other than the bogus imagery of Mr. Sam, the Wal-Mart cheer, and the smiling, happy "associates" who, company PR insists, work there.
The real Wal-Mart is the miserly, union-busting,sweatshop-coddling mom-and-pop bankrupter that is telling those 11,000 "associates" they will get no severance pay unless they agree to waive any right to sue the company for discrimination, whether for age, race, or gender, according to today's Huffington Post. As a consolation prize, company officials have told these workers they can now apply for jobs at the company's new product sampling partner, Shopper Events (also Arkansas-based), which is hiring as many as 10,000 new workers. Hey, what do you think the chances are of a non-waiver-signing former "associate" landing a job with Shopper Events?
What is the subtext here? What sort of lawsuit is Wal-Mart worried about? I devoted a chapter to Wal-Mart in my book, Covering for the Bosses, and I learned a lot about this outfit. The company was hit with a class-action lawsuit in 2004 that claimed sex discrimination on behalf of 1.6 million former and current female employees. An internal audit that same year revealed thousands of labor violations, including the employment of minors during school hours and the working of employees through breaks and lunches.
Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, once lamented the following: "I was so obsessed with turning in a profit margin of 6 percent or higher that I ignored some of the basic needs of our people, and I feel bad about it."
It's too late for Walton's crocodile tears. His successors aren't even shedding them.
The real Wal-Mart is the miserly, union-busting,sweatshop-coddling mom-and-pop bankrupter that is telling those 11,000 "associates" they will get no severance pay unless they agree to waive any right to sue the company for discrimination, whether for age, race, or gender, according to today's Huffington Post. As a consolation prize, company officials have told these workers they can now apply for jobs at the company's new product sampling partner, Shopper Events (also Arkansas-based), which is hiring as many as 10,000 new workers. Hey, what do you think the chances are of a non-waiver-signing former "associate" landing a job with Shopper Events?
What is the subtext here? What sort of lawsuit is Wal-Mart worried about? I devoted a chapter to Wal-Mart in my book, Covering for the Bosses, and I learned a lot about this outfit. The company was hit with a class-action lawsuit in 2004 that claimed sex discrimination on behalf of 1.6 million former and current female employees. An internal audit that same year revealed thousands of labor violations, including the employment of minors during school hours and the working of employees through breaks and lunches.
Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, once lamented the following: "I was so obsessed with turning in a profit margin of 6 percent or higher that I ignored some of the basic needs of our people, and I feel bad about it."
It's too late for Walton's crocodile tears. His successors aren't even shedding them.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Memphis composer's a piano player for hire ... in a tux
Happy 2010 to followers and readers! This first entry of the new year is a feature column about a Memphis composer who's also a regular working stiff--a piano player for hire ... in a tux. It's a little different from your typical labor story, but that's okay. This blog aspires to be a little different even as it pursues its central mission (for that, see the Manifesto, one of the blog's earliest entries). In the photograph, taken recently by my wife Suzanne at The Majestic, my favorite downtown haunt in Memphis, you see Boatner (to the right) and yours truly.
MEMPHIS – The new year is still a quarter-hour away, and our small group has gathered around the piano at Judd Grisanti’s Trattoria to hear John Boatner play As Time Goes By one more time. I’m a hopeless Casablanca fan, and, in my mind, Boatner is every bit as good as Sam was that night he played it for Rick.
As the clock ticks on to 11:57 or so, we all know what we want to hear next. Just as Boatner strikes the first notes of Auld Lang Syne, however, some philistine flips on the sound system and out comes Mylie Cyrus. We’re not to be deterred.
“Play it, John,” I demand. “Just play it.”
And he does, and we all enjoy our champagne and sing in 2010 with Auld Lang Syne.
The next time I see John Boatner is at The Majestic, a wonderful downtown haunt that offers diners silent films on a giant screen as well as great steaks and Sazeracs. He’s wearing a black coat with a red plaid scarf, drinking black coffee, and answering my questions about his long career as a pianist, composer, conductor, and teacher.
“Life would be hell without music,” he says. “You need three things in life: music, humor and laughter, and children.”
He’s the father of two grown sons, he’s got a hearty laugh, and he’s devoted to music.
You may have heard him if you’ve been in the famous lobby of The Peabody Hotel. He played the ivories there for 28 years as well as nine years at one of the city’s premier French restaurants, Paulette’s. He’s often in my hometown of Oxford, Miss., usually performing at the Downtown Grill on Homecoming Weekend.
“That’s support for the artistic things that don’t provide income,” the 70-year-old Memphis native says.
Trained in classical and sacred music at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, Boatner spent years in New York working in ballet studios and churches before returning to the South, where he has produced and directed dozens of concerts, including the first public concerts of black and female composers presented in Memphis.
He has composed 20 published works—from cantatas and ballets to experimental music and theater pieces such as his Toot Sweet Trilogy. His Easter Cantata For An Unbeliever, performed at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Cordova, Tenn., in June 2009, incorporated rock rhythms on percussion as well as guitar folk music. Ever lyrical and deeply spiritual, he can also be as experimental as an Edgar Varèse or John Cage.
But classical composition rarely keeps food on the table—even if your works have been performed as far away as Germany, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. So Boatner is also a working stiff , piano player for hire—in a tuxedo. “Erik Satie is kind of my mentor,” he says. “He had to make a living playing piano.”
I ponder Boatner’s mustache and goatee. He even looks a little like the turn-of-the-century French composer, who also had a penchant for giving strange titles to his compositions, titles like Next-to-Last Thoughts and Pieces in the Form of a Pear. Satie kept food on his table by banging on the ivories in a Montmartre cabaret.
But years at the public piano can produce a bottomless well of stories. Boatner has played for Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, and President Clinton. He probably played for my wife Suzanne and me the evening I proposed to her at the Peabody lobby. “People come up to you and ask you for anything and everything, and you have to be ready.”
One evening after taking a break at the Peabody, Boatner returned to find one of the hotel guests picking out a tune at his piano. He went up to the man and said, “I think I look better than you do here.” When the man stood up to move out of the way, Boatner realized who he was. “By god, you’re Jon Voigt!” he said to the Academy Award-winning actor. Voigt wasn’t angry. “He was as nice as he could be,” Boatner recalls.
And after the exchange, Boatner sat down to play while Voigt listened.
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