Conservatives Go Ballistic: Tyson Allows Workers (Even Muslim Workers) to Choose Day Off

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



Conservatives Go Ballistic: Tyson Allows Workers (Even Muslim Workers) to Choose Day Off

Posted by D. Aristophanes, Sadly, No! at 10:42 AM on August 5, 2008.

"And so, in conclusion: Fuck you, chicken. Fuck you for tasting so good and then betraying us to our enemies."




Well, Tyson Foods and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) have gone and done it now. They've agreed to a new labor contract at Tyson's Shelbyville, Tennessee poultry processing plant that replaces Labor Day with the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, bringing the total of paid vacation days that cater specifically to the plant's majority Muslim workforce to a staggering one in eight.

Observers on the right are quite naturally alarmed. Rhetorical boycotts of Tyson products are gaining pixelated steam and some disinterested interlocuters have even been forced to reluctantly conclude that it's all Barack Obama's fault.

A closer inspection of the wingnutosphere reveals more selective outrage:

Hoosier Army Mom is hard put to name an activity more un-American than allowing low-paid factory workers some small say in the scheduling of their thinly distributed respites from minimum-wage drudgery amidst dangerous machinery and bloody avian viscera.

And no wonder! The ingrates who loiter about at Tyson production facilities in her home state already take home a king's ransom for their insolence, when by all accounts they ought to fall down on their knees and thank God each day that their betters banned indentured servitude in a long-ago moment of weakness.

Debbie Schlussel asks whether Tyson Foods -- in making a financially neutral non-concession to a tiny portion of the bottom rung of economic society -- may have ushered in "the beginning (or maybe the middle) of the end of America as we know it." She also finds the whole affair 'ironic,' and concludes: "The United Dhimmi States of America. Tyson Foods is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we're gonna see."

The National Review's Mark Krikorian, like Schlussel, is bemused by "the irony of a labor union dispensing with Labor Day." Indeed, there are few things more ironic than labor successfully securing what it wants from management thanks in part to the existence of a holiday commemorating labor's past successes at securing what it wanted from management.

Krikorian also bears bad tidings. In this particular instance, he cautions, "just complaining about illegal immigration won't do." And double drat to that, though it really rather won't, seeing as how the Tyson workers in question are legal immigrants. Still, if 'just complaining' remains attractive, we would advise doing it more broadly about Muslims or labor unions or people with shitty jobs who want trivial things that will make them moderately happier and not affect you in the slightest.

Or better yet, chicken in general.

On the other hand, as Krikorian suggests, you could just complain about 'elites.' It seems that "in this case, we see modern elites' unwillingness to require newcomers to conform to our ways, and instead conforming to theirs." Sounds vaguely sinister, doesn't it?

To be fair, it's difficult to determine precisely whom Krikorian has in mind when he describes 'modern elites' and their reluctance to do what it takes to put Somali refugees in their place -- though it can be presumed he refers to a larger subset than just those people who employ the affected locution 'won't do.' Perhaps he's suggesting that tenured professors start breaking up union meetings ... it's hard to tell.

Krikorian's main point, we guess, is that our ancestors were enlightened enough to whip the savages when they wouldn't speak English, and goddamit, we ought to be, too.

And so, in conclusion: Fuck you, chicken. Fuck you for tasting so good and then betraying us to our enemies.


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/93983/conservatives_go_ballistic%3A_tyson_allows_workers_%28even_muslim_workers%29_to_choose_day_off/

[Tempest]

1. If the rightwingnuts knew the real history of Labor Day

They would collectively jump off a cliff.

[fascisthunter]

2. no kidding

[truthisfreedom]

4. Here it is:

http://www.dol.gov/OPA/ABOUTDOL/LABORDAY.HTM

The History of Labor Day

Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means

"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Founder of Labor Day

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold."

But Peter McGuire's place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

Labor Day Legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

A Nationwide Holiday

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.

[ret5hd]

5. You mean the part about it being a fake holiday so we would forget May Day?

The day the rest of the world celebrates international workers day? The day we remember true heroes of labor history in commemoration of the people involved in the 1886 Haymarket affair?

[psychmommy]

3. i am from a small town

everything used to shut down at christmas time. with muslims working some businesses stay open. in return why shouldn't they have their holy days off. it is an awesome trade off for me. good going tyson foods.

[onethatcares]

7. total agreement with your thoughts here.

some people will never understand the reasons for the 40 hour work week, or, horrors, an employer contributed health care insurance option, or even days off. Some people want only for themselves, hopefully they wake up in hell.

[hfojvt]

6. I read that the plant is not majority Muslim

there are 250 muslims, Somali refugees, in a workforce of 1200. Their starting pay is $9.35 an hour, after paying for the mandatory insurance. A far cry from minimum wage.

[marmar]

9. I don't know where you got your info:

from a story in the Nashville Tennessean:



SPRINGFIELD, Va. -- English First today denounced as "multiculturalism run amok" a decision by a Tennessee Tyson Foods poultry plant to eliminate Labor Day as a paid holiday for employees and replace it with a paid observance of a Muslim holy day.

The Tyson plant which will no longer observe Labor Day is located in Shelbyville. About 700 of its 1,200 employees are Muslim.

"Already we have been told by Barack Obama that it is the duty of our children to learn Spanish," said Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First. "Now, an American holiday has been replaced by a Muslim religious festival." ....... http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080805/NEWS/80805016

[hfojvt]

13. hard to tell

http://www.t-g.com/story/1449487.html

"The press release stated there are approximatly 700 Muslims working at Tyson, but Mickelson said that Somalis only represent approximately 250 of the 1,200 employed at the plant, a little over 20 percent of the workforce."

From the Shelbyville paper, it sounds like there are 700 muslims working at Tyson, which would include all 119 of their plants, but 250 at the Shelbyville plant.

[donco6]

8. Eat Mor Chikin

I always say.

[Dogtown]

14. Love the irony!

Good one, donco6!

[anonymous171]

10. Here that pop? That's Michelle Malkin's head exploding.

It was mostly hot air anyways, so no loss there.

[zbdent]

11. I was thinking about this ... this has to be the fault of the tyson company ...

let's face it ... Repugs/conservatives get really uppity when people are actually getting PAID DAYS OFF ...

So, when a union is renegotiating a contract, the company tries to take stuff away.

(These days, all unions seem to be allowed to do, in the eyes of the "liberal media", is make concessions ... it's only after the contract is ratified that you find out that the CEO is getting his million-dollar bonus and the company has another very profitable year ...)

So, the union is told ... "Okay, you can have X paid days off ... but you have to choose which days you want off."

I wonder ... did the negotiations also ask for "Good Friday" off?

So, the union is asked to vote for how they want their days off ... and some are told "you can have the Muslim day off, just like the Catholics/Christians can have Good Friday off ... but the UNION HAS TO APPROVE IT ..."

[Sanctified]

12. I think replacing Labor Day is pretty offensive, I could understand replacing any other Holiday but

Labor Day it's for the working man and replacing it is just wrong. They should have replaced Christmas, 4th of July, MLK or any of the other days.

[meow2u3]

15. My household is BOYCOTTING Tyson Chicken!

My roomie and I will not buy, eat, or even receive gifts of Tyson chicken. That chicken is not allowed in my house! Nor will we allow anyone who stays there to bring or buy Tyson!

[Marrah_G]

16. If the union voted for it, it is their choice.

[Brewman_Jax]

17. Neocons would be funny if

they weren't total hypocrites. If they don't like the fact that "those people" negotiated a favorable contract, they could always take those jobs.

Sorry neocon asses like work--they can watch other people, preferably "those people", do it for hours. :silly:

[gratuitous]

18. Why aren't them damn immigrants assimilating?

They can celebrate the holidays all good Americans celebrate. That should be good enough for them! They're not assimilating, and that means that our whole culture is in danger. Danger, I tell you! Can't they just be happy with St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo and Columbus Day? It's the end of America to have them furriners celebrating their own holidays!

[riverdeep]

19. A real stew of things Republicans hate.

Muslims, unions, and poor people trying to get some crumbs. If the management and workers don't care, who else should? How's it different from Jews working Christmas and taking another day off?

[DailyGrind51]

20. If my memory serves me, I believe the Tyson's were big supporters

of Bill Clinton's campaign's "back in the day".