The “Parable of the CEO and the 12 Cookies” offered by Jackie Endsley in the ADN Jan. 17 pretty much sums up the struggle which workers must face in our country and others whose fortunes are tightly linked to the multinational corporate economy.
I appreciated her consequent analysis of the strongly biased workings of this economic model and the clarity with which she exposed the practical and psychological mechanisms utilized to discourage workers from organizing.During the 1970s, I lived in one of the five most successfully industrialized countries of the world.
At the time, trash collection by the department of sanitation in its capital city was still organized on a virtually medieval basis, using wheeled handcarts and men on foot in the narrow cobbled streets of the city center.
The work was partly compensated on a piece-work basis, which caused the men to literally race up and down the stairs of the old apartment buildings they were servicing. It was grueling, stinky and nasty work which paid practically nothing in wages or benefits to the workers. It was only after a long series of organized strikes by these workers, who earned nothing during the sometimes monthslong strikes, that the sanitation system was finally reorganized and the workers obtained more humane working conditions. Today, even the smallest villages strive to develop effective recycling and collection services for residents.
I will never forget the growing heaps of trash collecting in the streets, the smell and the demoralizing sensation of living in a garbage dump, fighting back nausea, as I hurried down the street with my two small sons to attend to shopping and school obligations.
It was only thanks to the collective efforts of these workers that change was finally brought about, to the benefit not only of the working category, but obviously also to the benefit of the residents of these areas and the health of the general population. Whenever I read of corporate and governmental resistance to the unionization of workers, I recall this experience.
I applaud Jackie Endsley’s analysis of the arrogance of some parts of corporate America in the manipulation and exploitation of workers, and thank her for reminding me that the battle for equality and dignity in the workplace is still ongoing for millions worldwide and in our own very wealthy, well-blessed nation.
— Carol R. Dee
Homer
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