Union!

I woke up this morning and checked my Twitter feed (@mattfrank if you would like to follow) and came across this story on the Boston Hyatt's laying off their workers so they could hire people to do their jobs for half the pay. What is even worse with the story in the Globe was that the workers were asked to train their replacements having been told they were training temporary workers who would work during vacation periods and when the work load required more workers, they were "fill ins". It turns out they were replacements and the workers had unwittingly saved Hyatt a fortune by training these new workers for the hotel before receiving their pink slips. As a City Councilor in Chelsea I am sure that many of these workers could have been residents of my city commuting to Hyatt for job with a reasonable pay.

I must have had a psychic connection today because in short order I found out some of the people and organizations I respect most had come out in support of these workers. Boston City Council President Mike Ross was on Twitter pushing the event and spoke, Congressman Capuano was in attendance and the Teamsters apparently showed up in full force. I have yet to meet Mike Ross but from what I read and hear he seems like a class act who genuinely cares about people. I actually sat in for a few minutes on a panel he was giving at State Convention that the Young Democrats helped organize and was impressed. I have always liked Congressman, and with any luck future Senator, Capuano and was very happy to see him standing up for the workers. What I like about Congressman Capuano is that he stands up for what he believes in, it does not matter if he is the Selectman, Mayor, Congressman or running for Senate he will do what he thinks is right.

Finally there are the unions that organized the event and those that showed up. Teamsters Local 25 did not organize the event but I recognized them instantly from the pictures I saw online. Local 25 is my fathers union, I have had the pleasure of being under their protective umbrella in the past. When I was younger my father job hopped, something that continued for quite a few years, which is not uncommon among many in the workforce. Then he got a job, a union job, that he has held for a very long time (he has moved around within the organization but has stayed put.) Even through the eyes of a kid I could see the differences. For starters we were eligible for eye glasses with the healthplan which meant we were able to get them replaced more often. There was better medical care, dental care and they all extended through to children until they leave college. My father seemed happier, workers stayed in their jobs longer which I would imagine makes it easier on management in a way if workers are not coming and going so fast. On a regular basis the union sponsors a blood drive and on one occasion I visited with my father (after I was 18 of course) and we even made it into the Union newsletter which may still be one of the widest circulated photos of me around. I realize unions have their problems but what I've seen from Local 25 has convinced me that workers in most unprotected fields need some sort of union coverage.

Getting back to the workers who were layed off from the Hyatt... They were not part of a union and never have been. The unions decided to get involved themselves. On one hand it is a kind gesture, defending workers. On the other hand it is self preservation, after all if Hyatt manages to get away with this the practice could spread to unionized hotels and other unionized fields. This is about more then just these workers, a line must be drawn to stop the spread of this practice to other companies.

The new employees will not receive benefits or health insurance. These laid off workers are now going to get some sort of government help. If that was not bad enough these new imported workers make so little that they too will be qualified for government assistance in some form. We are now responsible for the OLD and the NEW workers in this deal. How is this fair? Is Hyatt really in that much trouble? If you look at the numbers, I do not think so.

This has happened before. If you have been to the doctors recently chances are some operator in India knows your whole medical history from the medical transcription service your doctor probably uses, being carried across multiple countries by wire. Try getting a local on the phone when you call any major help line. Tax companies are now working on wiring up offices in other countries to process your tax return. Now when you check into a hotel someone making minimum wage with no real connection to the hotel is going to be alone with your stuff while your gone. If you had a hard time trusting the cleaning crew BEFORE wait until you meet the new crew who doesn't know where the pool is and who turn over every 3 months.

Hyatt is what is wrong with this country. By taking these people out of the work force and slashing their pay they are reducing the overall economy so they can pad their own pockets. Most other major hotel chains have come out against the practice and Hyatt is having a rough time publicity wise out on Twitter and other services. It is important that we keep on this company to show them this is not OK and will not be tolerated by the American consumer. What they did was legal... that does not make it right.

Boycott, boycott, boycott

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY?

I have always been a fan of books on dystopian futures and alternate history. As someone who also tends to be knowledgeable on the first wave of technology (generally joining on the second wave after the kinks get flushed out but before it becomes very popular) it takes some maneuvering to settle these two interests. I feel that technology can be of great use to people if used properly. Research that would normally take months or even years can be done in weeks and even days. People can communicate instantly in multiple ways with all sorts of different people. On the other hand any casual observer of dystopian future novels (think 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World) or movies (Terminator, Idiocracy, Matrix) can tell you that the future is bleak because of technology. I will approach my concerns one by one in the following paragraphs.

As ironic as it seems modern day Americans are more concerned about our privacy and safety from our own government then if others are out to harm us. While government privacy should be a major concern many of us forget about the censorship that can be exhibited by the massive corporations that we buy goods and services from. Walmart, for instance, has been known to ban books that it finds mildly offensive. Amazon, acting as a witless giant, not only took 1984 titles off the shelves of its store (they were unauthorized) they struck them out of people Kindles. In many rural areas Walmart IS THE local book store, a fact many of us who live in a city that is still griping to many of it's book stores forget. If Walmart chooses to ban a book, then it is not available in large swaths of the country and puts people in rural areas at the mercy of the giant retailer (mind you pulling a book due to low sales is quite different then pulling a book because you do not like what is inside the covers.) On the other side of the seesaw is Amazon which is just as powerful as Walmart in many areas, if not more so. In an amazing move , even more so considering it involved the book 1984, Amazon deleted every copy of 1984 on every Kindle reader in the world. Within seconds 1984 ceased to exist in its electronic form. While Amazon was acting in a logical manner, after all it was a mistake the book was sold at all due to distribution rights AND they refunded all the buyers, it still shows how insecure information is when it is trusted to corporations.

Trusting the corporations we do business with everyday is important as Web 2.0 becomes increasingly mainstream. The question is should we trust these companies? After all many of them were all to willing to hand over information without a fight when the Government came knocking . Also let's face it while all these companies claim to be morally above the fray on many occasions they have been known to toss citizens to the wolves when it got in the way of their business plans, like this story from 2005 detailing how Yahoo China helped the Chinese government arrest of a pro democracy blogger. Even our own government has gotten in on the action, and I'm not talking about Bush, Obama at one point was trying to collect information about users that visited Government websites and created his own misinformation collection center .

Even when companies are attempting to be altruistic they can be brought down thereby causing issues for anyone who depends on their services for life or work. Blackberry has been known to go through black outs on occasion, cell phones were blocked after 9/11 (proving the government is capable of shutting down cell service if needed), in China and Iran it is common place to shut down cell phones and social networking sites if they sense trouble. Of course there are also common black outs like the one that hit the Northeast in 2003 and I am sure New Orleans was without the Internet during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Twitter has shown it is susceptible to attacks from foreign countries when the world went blank for a few hours as the Russians tried to silence one blogger. Twitter was also the epicenter of a controversy when it was found out that Twitters files , which were residing on Googles "information cloud" were hacked , rather easily I may add, by hackers thereby proving that the Google Cloud concept is not all that safe , and becomes less stable as more people join your circle.

In a world overrun by technology and failing newspapers it is important that we retain some vestige to the past. Technology is too easily changed, too easily controlled , too easily corrupted to be trusted 100 percent. In 1984 the protagonist had to change all the newspaper clippings by hand to reflect the new reality, in our future world that can be done with one click from the Amazon offices. Our technology has finally made 1984 possible, from web cams to flat tvs to citizens collecting information for the government. While we are not in that situation now we must remain vigilant to protect ourselves from the incremental increases that could ultimately lead us down that road. Books in their paper form, in their classic form are timeless creations. Newspapers are easily archived and hard to change. Printed pictures can be socked away for generations and found later on.

Even in the realm of the printed page we are allowing ourselves to be dumbed down. It is a sad day when Fahrenheit 451 comes out in comic form, FAHRENHEIT 451 IN COMIC FORM and this was seemingly done without any sense of irony.

Who will stand up for our rights even if we do not do it ourselves. Do you think that webmasters will defy government orders in the same way that librarians did in the face of the Patriot Act? How will you even know the change has been made? If done right there is no clear link to the former past because after all we have "always been at war with Eastasia" right or was it , no it has to be right that's what the web log says.

Mentioned by my friend
http://highlyopinionatedmomof2.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-dont-generally-do-this.html

BTW I am not all that scared of security cameras as they require more man power then is worth it in most countries to track people.