Working Life Podcast: Fred Meyer Boycott Is On!; California Clips The Wings Of The UBER-Corporate Mentality

Episode 149: A few weeks ago, I talked about the vast pay discrimination against women who work for supermarket chain Fred Meyer: 2/3 of women are paid $3.70 less than men doing essentially the same job. The union representing the workers—UFCW Local 555—is in hard, brass knuckles bargaining with Fred Meyer to end this. But in the meantime, just this past Sunday, because of the company’s recalcitrance, the union has called for a boycott of all Fred Meyer stores. I talk about the gender pay discrimination and the boycott with Jeff Anderson, the secretary treasurer of Local 555.

Then, there is no difference between the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies of the last century and their corporate cousins, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or those folks who run Uber: companies just do everything possible to exploit workers, rip them off, take more and more profits made by the hard work of millions of workers and use those profits to make a few people rich. California leaders are trying to reign in some abuse: it just passed a landmark bill that clamps down on the rampant classification of people as independent contractors. I talk about this with Rebecca Smith, the Director of Work Structures with the National Employment Law Center.

-- Jonathan Tasini

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