Golddigger

That's how a new Sealy Posturepedic ad introduces a woman who's married to an older rich man.



And then there's the one about the heiress. Not only does she get more than six hours of sleep, she's heiress to a potato-chip fortune--she's better off than you because of evuhl junk food!!!!



There's one about a guy, too, to cut back on fussage from women like me, but he's not a golddigger or a junk food heiress.

The gist of the commercials is that these idle rich people get to sleep as much as they want, while unlucky stiffs like us have to deal with an average of six hours. But these commercials say so much more, though "Golddigger" requires no elaboration, I suppose.

Everyone in the commercials is white. They live off the wealth of industrious white men--we know this because they are referred to as "golddigger," "daddy's little girl," and "trust-fund baby... always on daddy's couch." Now, white husband/daddy is nowhere (aside from one portrait) to be seen in these commercials--he's off making the money.

So, Sealy Posturepedic, you fail. Rather than appealing to a heterogeneous working class in some novel way, you're recycling and reinforcing stereotypes of the working white man who supports unworthy, unambitious leeches. Way to turn welfare stereotypes on their heads!! **snort**

P.S. Just so you know, Sealy, historically, it's not white women's choice to stay at home that bothers most Americans. Hell, it's practically expected of them. To get your desired results, choose a black woman as golddigger next time--your commercial might run at the Republican National Convention.

HELP!!

It might not be smart to post stuff like this but I really need help. A few months ago, I pulled my Equifax/CSC credit report and there was a collection account on there with an Asset Acceptance LLC. I didn't know anything about the account. I called Asset Acceptance and I wasn't in their system. So, I disputed it and eventually, it dropped off. I didn't worry a lot because it was a one time occurrence. I did wonder if it was someone else's account, but I let it go.

Fast forward to Saturday. I pull my credit report because we're getting ready to apply for apartments. There are seven (7) SEVEN accounts that don't belong to me, all past due, two of them credit cards with balances of more than $5300 and more than $10000 respectively. I'm able to call two of the creditors, First Premier Bank and Capital One, right then. They can't find me by SSN or my very distinctive name. Of course, all they can tell me to do is call the credit bureau. I dispute all the stuff online through CSC, then I call Equifax to get a human being to see if they can help me because there is very obviously a problem.

They give me an automated number for CSC. So I decide not to fume too much (even though my impatience makes the wait til Tuesday excruciating).

This morning I begin calling at the ungodly hour of 10 AM (y'all know I'm a night owl!). I have an old CSC number that used to connect me to a human but it keeps disconnecting me. I call the Equifax CARE number and tell them I need to talk with a person at CSC. I make the Equifax guy hold the line while I call the CSC number he gave me. A woman answered and I said (with my country ass), "OK, I'ma call you right back." So I disconnect with the Equifax guy and call the CSC woman back. She gives me another number, again a human, so that's cool. She gives me another number, and still I'm fine. The guy at the third number of course tells me to dispute.

Now, I did that. But I kept pointing out, this is seven (7) SEVEN accounts. This isn't just a coincidence. He asks me, "Well, ma'am, when was the last time you checked your credit report?" I tell him until March, I'd had a credit monitoring program. So, once a month for the last few years. All of these seven (7) SEVEN accounts have popped up in the last couple of months. "Sir, don't you think this is strange?" I ask.

So he looks at some stuff and tells me that he doesn't see where my account could've been combined with someone else's, but since some of the stuff is old (one of the accounts was opened in 11/1995 and has been delinquent since 2002), maybe I should put a fraud alert.

I agree to do that, but y'all, how can it be fraud when no one has my SSN? It's not like these accounts are listed under my name and SSN. These creditors have no record of me. And isn't this just going to keep happening? And two of the accounts had "Consumer disputes; Reinvestigation in process at the bottom," so shit, they were probably erroneously on someone else's report a month ago.

Should I write the FTC? Does Equifax have to help me since this is their affiliate? Is it possible that other people's stuff can be on your credit file?

I really, really need to be pointed in the right direction.

Instilling Fear in Poultry Processing Workers

It's one of the most effective tools poultry processors have used over the past 6 decades or so to keep workers "docile," willing to accept less, afraid to ask for more. One such scenario is playing out with the Pilgrim's Pride Plant in El Dorado, Arkansas right now. It seems a textbook case. How it's unfolding from my perspective:

Step One: While suffering from the closure of seven sites, realize that the silver lining in this cloud might be newfound leverage to use over historically vulnerable black employees and newly vulnerable Latin@ employees who are afraid of losing their jobs.

Step Two: Further intimidate your immigrant employees, who's labor you rely upon heavily, by turning many of them into ICE.

Step Three: Go to your employees, tell them that their jobs are in danger because their work is substandard and that the plant might close... unless, of course, they improve immediately. Use phrases like,"There isn't much time" and "We have to see significant and immediate changes,"* to heighten anxiety and the sense of urgency. In simple terms, you tell them work harder, produce more, and you might keep your jobs--this, in an industry in which work speed is already inhumane.**

Step Four: Plan to have "discussions" with the United Food and Commercial Workers local, a local for which many employees express distrust and the sense that the union is on the side of the company.

Step Five: Hold a meeting at which you have employees sign a blank piece of paper that is to serve as a loyalty oath of some kind. Have supervisors walk around collecting the papers, while talking about faxing them to corporate headquarters. Leave employees to wonder what the ramifications are if their names are not on that paper. (Recently, employees of the plant told me that their supervisors asked them if they were dedicated to their jobs. If they were, they could indicate that by signing a blank piece of paper. Some employees refused, uncomfortable with placing their signature on a page with nothing else.)

Step Six: Cut an hour of the work day, an ominous sign.

Step Seven: And now that other plants have been closed, employees have been arrested, and hours have been cut, have the union present the first set of results of the "discussions" to your worried workforce (Keep in mind that the Union and the plant only recently negotiated a new agreement):

1. Elimination of paid rest periods. Employees currently have two 10-minute and one 45-minute break, for which they are paid. They are being asked to agree to two 30-minute non-paid rest periods.
2. Holiday Pay. Employees currently are paid double-time if they work on a holiday. They are being asked to accept time-and-a-half instead.
3. Insurance Costs. Currently, Employee insurance contribution is 20 percent of total cost. On 1 January 2009, that would go up to 25 percent.
   

And of course, once they refused to accept these terms, they were warned over and over that the alternative was no job at all. I talked to my mom about it and she's sick of the worry and fear. Tonight she told me she wished, "if they're going to close it, they'd just close it, or stop talking about it!" ***
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*There was a much more detailed article in the Houston Chronicle but it's no longer available. I even searched the archives. I'd saved a copy to MS Word, but dang, I wish it still existed.
**Plus, the onus is upon the employees--if the plant closes it becomes primarily "their fault" for not working harder, instead of the result of all the other factors (feed and fuel costs) that Pilgrim's Pride cites.
***I recognize that times are difficult right now, but you have to understand my skepticism as someone who's watched family members work in this plant for over two decades and has heard the threat of closure over and over.

Looking for a Word...

**See this, too.**

What do you call companies who make a practice of hiring immigrants, knowing full well some are undocumented, depend on their labor, subject them to brutal, crippling work, pay them low wages, set them in opposition to other exploited workers, and aggressively combat the workers' efforts to organize for better conditions, then turn them in to ICE?

Me, myself, I'm sitting here saying, "Them motherf*ckers!" From the AP:

Nearly 300 people were arrested Wednesday in immigration and identity theft raids at Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants in five states. … "We knew in advance and cooperated fully," said Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for the Pittsburg, Texas, company. ...The raids were part of a long-term investigation, officials said. Plants were raided in Mount Pleasant, Texas, Batesville, Ark., Live Oak, Fla., Chattanooga, Tenn. and Moorefield, W.Va., authorities said.

Atkinson said the company went to ICE agents with information about identity theft at the Arkansas plant. (emphasis mine)

If you think anyone is pulling the wool over poultry companies' eyes, that they are unwittingly hiring undocumented immigrants, please allow me to disabuse you of that notion. Let me point you to two newspapers series: The Chicken Trail, a 2006 Los Angeles Times series (abstracts free, articles cost), and The Cruelest Cuts, a 2008 Charlotte Observer series. An excerpt:

Of 52 current and former Latino workers at House of Raeford who spoke to the Observer about their legal status, 42 said they were in the country illegally.

Company officials say they hire mostly Latino workers but don't knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

But five current and former House of Raeford supervisors and human resource administrators, including two who were involved in hiring, said some of the company's managers know they employ undocumented workers.

"If immigration came and looked at our files, they'd take half the plant," said Caitlyn Davis, a former Greenville, S.C., plant human resources employee.

Former Greenville supervisors said the plant prefers undocumented workers because they are less likely to question working conditions for fear of losing their jobs or being deported.(emphasis mine)

Also, Russell Cobb's The Chicken Hangers, much of which is part of a paper he wrote for a series of occasional papers sponsored by UT-Austin's Inter-American Policy Studies Program about poultry workers.* Cobb recounts the story of Esteban, an immigrant poultry processing worker:

[A]fter a year on the job, Julio Gordo, a manager at Peco Foods, called Esteban into his office. (To protect his identity, Julio Gordo is a pseudonym.) According to Esteban, Gordo told him that the Social Security Administration had notified Peco Foods that Esteban’s Social Security Number had repeated as a number for another worker.
At first, Esteban feared he would be fired by the plant and deported for document fraud — a fate not uncommon among undocumented workers. “Gordo told me he could have the cops here in five minutes if I didn’t cooperate with him,” Esteban confided to me later.

After Gordo allegedly threatened to deport Esteban, he reassured him that he could stay on at the plant if he could get a new ID and Social Security Number. Esteban knew this would be difficult; fake documents cost hundreds of dollars and were sold by only a handful of people in southern Mississippi on the black market. Furthermore, Esteban knew he would run the risk of being fired or deported if he bought a new Social Security Number, since he would be admitting his old one was false. Even with a new I.D., his seniority — including the two raises he had received for a year’s work — would be revoked. Esteban would be starting over from scratch.

Then, according to Esteban, Gordo told him he was willing to do him a “favor”: Esteban could buy a new Social Security Card from Gordo for $700. This was a favor Gordo had done for many other Mexicans in the same situation, he claimed.

So, given the current employee makeup, poultry processors depend heavily upon the labor of immigrants, including undocumented immigrants. In order to obtain work, these immigrants often become involved in a "fake document" black market,** risky actions that can see them deported or land in jail. Employers are well aware of the risk immigrants take. Federal prosecutors certainly believed so when they charged Tyson "of conspiring to smuggle immigrants to work at the company's poultry processing plants."***

Yet, despite the fact that "immigrant labor" has become a necessity to the poultry industry, immigrants have not. Poultry processors are used to high turnover--the UFCW suggests that annual turnover is well over 100%--and treat their workers as interchangeable, a disposable workforce. They themselves incur no risk. The article on Pilgrim's Pride lists a number of charges that immigrant workers will face then states succinctly, "Pilgrim's Pride faces no charges." Tyson beat the federal case by disavowing claims that they recruited and smuggled immigrant workers, blaming those actions not on company policies but on a few "rogue" employees.

And the immigrant workers who are fired, jailed, deported with little recourse will simply be replaced.
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*Anita Grabowski was an author of one of those papers and has gone on to produce Mississippi Chicken. From the film's synopsis:

In the 1990s, poultry companies in Mississippi and throughout the American South began to heavily recruit Latin American immigrants, most of them undocumented, to work in the poultry plants. A decade later, there are now large immigrant communities in poultry towns all over the South, and the immigrants find themselves in an extremely vulnerable situation, where they are frequent victims of abuse by employers, police officers, landlords, neighbors and even other immigrants.

**For more, see House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims, Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act of 2005: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims. 109^th Congress, 1^st Session, 12 May 2005 (Washington: GPO, 2005).

***The INS accused Tyson of cultivating a culture “in which the hiring of illegal alien workers was condoned in order to meet production goals and cut costs to maximize profits.” The indictments alleged that Tyson aided and abetted these workers in obtaining fake documents.