Wednesday Talk Radio on 02/08/23

https://perfectunion.us/exclusive-kroger-memo-workers-poverty/
Exclusive: Leaked Memo Reveals Kroger Executives Knew For Years That Most Workers Live In Poverty

“I literally work at a grocery store and can't afford to eat regularly.”

(While tax payers paid Kroger workers who numbered the highest percentage of corporate work force in US to qualify for federal SNAP food stamp program; Tax payers among US paid the tab for feeding this PROFIT PAYING, DIVIDEND ACCRUING TO SHAREHOLDERS PUBLICLY LISTED CORPORATION not to lack nutrition or continue to suffer injuries with costs not covered by high cost to workers' company insurance plan)

Voila! Externalization of costs from classical E-CON illustrated in action.

All due to "efficient Kroger\Fred Meyer business model of de-professionalization\financialization\privatization\centralization of human necessity resources. The Marketing Industry derived "Big Box" bid-net model, like the Ghost Malls emptied out of retail options long before Pandemic In Perpetuity showed up, in fact the Ghost Strip malls anchored by Big Box stores like Kroger or WalMart only use Groceries as the lure. Groceries such as Fresh Produce almost always are positioned at the front of the store cuz that is what brings the customers in. They also have tended to be home-grown in-country or from cheap southern neighbors like Mexico or Canadian hot-house grown produce that is a high tech, yet resource-intensive variation on factory-farming.

Mind you, the Processed\Packaged\Factory-farmed Food Industry is itself a heavily government subsidized business model. Austerity Programs, as Paul Roland cited on the air in today's terrific KBOO Wednesday Morn Chat, is not something US citizens are entitled to according to Reagan\Thatcher and Corporate Capture of Media & Unions Neo-Lib or Neo-Con Continuity E-CON conventional wisdom.

Only government subsidy keeps these massive monopolized or UniLevered Retail Food giants affordable. Look at public money given away to the dairy industry and MEAT MONOPOLIES which number only a couple-three actual factory farming livestock conglomerates all UniLevered into vertically integrated corporate holding companies.

Real profits at Kroger Empire like those at "competitor" or "cartel mate" WalMart are actually made by cheap imports and off-shoring of U.S. apparel, consumer tech, retail chemical. textile and life-sciences industries in those sections of the store that have profit margins to satisfy shareholder demand. All environmental costs of shipping, labor, fuel, geography and energy\computing consumption at industrial levels are "externalized" in the Golden Passport dba MBA diploma mill cost of doin' bid-net... Paid for by the Public Interest to Privatize Profits while Socializing Costs....Nifty trick. Works best as Madoff proved by trying it out on the most developed parts of our hamster wheel driven food chain of life world of ours.

More of the 'winning' food chain of life bid-net model includes: Understaffing\Just In Time Supply lines profits taken by shareholders including execs who bought back stock as compensation\Undercutting union negotiation by outsourcing via de-professionalization the labor once done by Fred Meyer Family employees to outside contractors. That is one of MORE PERFECT UNION's critiques of the hard labor unions (except for Teamsters and Longshorepersons who have gotten as good results as the Law Enforcement and Property Protection unions) that their salaried union staffs have contributed to half a century of Piketty and Saez\Zucman quantified Hourly\Day Labor Wage Stag-Nation with Wealth Concentration into the bank secrecy accounts and Wealth Management Portfolios around the developed and financializing off-shored or gated community world. Done in by allowing the bosses across the negotiating table to allow their bosses (dba "Negotiating Partners") to de-professionalize not only their work force, but educational\administrative staffs and entire trades like Produce Persons. Thereby keeping the churn on shifting to after-school or in-lieu of higher education youth to comprise the customer-facing low-level staff. All restructuring of Human Resources done so that no employee stays long enough to expect any benefits at all.

Any thought or factoring in of what is given up to the Human Experience Drain in the anti-social shift to Artificial Intel (aka AI) which is just a fancy term for mechanization and elimination of employer-paid Sick Leave? Or our sacrifice truly costed in the name of Public Health as our Pandemic In Perpetuity keeps showing us? Especially US the Slow Learners of the world?

Ironically that is now losing Kroger money via the more expensive "Specialized" contractors who cost the shareholder more than a loyal and stable not to mention experienced and professionalized with training work force....

Some other study group resources from within other bellies of other beasts: Some who are flirting quite openly and shamelessly with the "F" word (fascism) from an Ivy League part-time professor in his own native tongue with English sub-titles worth reading, imprinting and noting for future reference and study group sharing, dark as that future may be if we don't work better together in the Public Interest....:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la5l1GBgTlU
1 of 3 one-hour segments from the last of Israel's Public Interest television investigative reports back in 2015 called Magash Hakesef\The Silver Platter by Guy Rolnick trying to awaken his neighbors who back when this aired in autumn of 2015 across nationalistic, religious, linguistic, political and ethnic divides had taken to the streets in round-the-clock protests of the largest cities in the country to protest and hold teach-ins on the PROBLEM shared by all: Institutional Corruption.
5,815 views Nov 6, 2016
The first episode of Magash Hakesef (Silver Platter) features editor of financial newspaper The Marker, Guy Rolnik. In the episode, Rolnik discusses the impact that financial and media concentration has on Israel’s economy, as well as how a number of interest groups are limiting the growth of the middle class.

** Watch all three episodes at www.nif.org.au/silverplatter **

Some questions for you to consider:

1. Despite the average monthly wage being only $2,713 in Israel compared to $3,874 in Australia, Israelis pay more for everything from eating out and housing costs to basic utilities and clothes. Why is it so hard to introduce more competitive pricing to the Israeli market?

2. Why do you think the technology start-up sector has been one of the big exceptions and success story in the Israeli economy?

Now here is our situ from a different kind of big D Democratic Party activist trying to work from within the system not to weaken unions, but to turn them back to the Public Interest from our own institutionally corrupted Private Interests:

Faiz Shakir, More Perfect Union
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To:ulpanaylaylo@yahoo.com
Sun, Feb 5 at 10:46 AM
More Perfect Union Logo

Mitch ,

The Kroger-Albertsons merger is a looming disaster for nearly 1 million low-wage workers. If it's approved, the companies could carry out the largest lay-off in industry history.

The $25 billion dollar deal, one of the biggest mergers ever, would create a retail behemoth second in size only to Walmart, combining 5,000 supermarket locations and incorporating over 25 brands -- including Safeway, Ralphs, Vons, Harris Teeter, and Pavillions -- into one mega company.

The new Kroger-Albertsons would be the largest private unionized employer in America and, if history is any guide, it will use that power against workers.

The Federal Trade Commission must step in to stop the creation of a grocery empire. Watch our latest report and then sign and send your message to the FTC now.
Text: Mega-Merger Coming For Your Town
WATCH, SIGN, & SEND

This merger will almost certainly impact benefits like pensions and health insurance for everyone, but make no mistake about it, when it comes time for them to close stores, they’ll choose to close union stores over non-union stores almost every time.

A Kroger-owned mega company would also get away with paying workers even less than it already does -- because fewer competitors means less jobs, too. Already, according to a survey by Business Insider, 75% of Kroger workers were food insecure and 14% have experienced homelessness. In fact, one out of every five Kroger workers has relied on government aid to survive.

This is no secret to Kroger execs, either. Recently leaked internal documents reveal that the company has known about the plight of its workers for years.

Hear directly from workers who would be impacted by this merger in our exclusive report and then sign and send a direct message to the FTC demanding they stop the mega-merger now.

In solidarity,

-Faiz

Faiz Shakir, Co-Founder
More Perfect Union

Thanks again Paul and crew left at da 'BOO for fighting a worthy fight
and struggling as we must.

Health and balance through our Pandemic In Perpetuity and beyond
Keep on doing

Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
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