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Ellen L

US: Wal-Mart Denies Workers Basic Rights | Human Rights Watch - 0 views

  • Human Rights Watch found that while many American companies use weak US laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus.
  • Wal-Mart workers have virtually no chance to organize because they’re up against unfair US labor laws and a giant company that will do just about anything to keep unions out,” said Carol Pier, senior researcher on labor rights and trade for Human Rights Watch. “That one-two punch devastates workers’ right to form and join unions.”
  • Wal-Mart’s relentless anti-union drumbeat creates a climate of fear at its US stores. Many workers are convinced that they will suffer dire consequences if they form a union, in part because they do not hear pro-union views. Many are also afraid that if they defy their powerful employer by organizing, they could face retaliation, even firing.
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  • Managers receive explicit instructions on keeping out unions, many of which are found in the company’s “Manager’s Toolbox,” a self-described guide to managers on “how to remain union free in the event union organizers choose your facility as their next target.”
  • Penalties under US labor law are so minimal that they have little deterrent effect, and Wal-Mart only receives a slap on the wrist when found guilty of illegal conduct.
  • “Wal-Mart should change its anti-union behavior,” said Pier. “When companies like Wal-Mart can regularly violate US workers’ right to organize, they threaten a fundamental right and one that the government is duty-bound to uphold.”
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    Human Rights Watch attacks Wal-Mart for their unfair treatment of their workers. While supressing unions, illegaly firing employees, and evesdropping on conversations, causing employees to be at a severe disadvantage, the corporation faces few legal consequences.
Ellen L

The Role of Education in Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right - Dhillon - 2010 - Educa... - 0 views

  • Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms
  • Taking rights and obligations to be intimately tied within a full human rights educational regime, I argue for the role of education in establishing and realizing freedom from poverty as a human right.
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    This discusses the importance of education in strengthening one's rights and realizing freedom from poverty. This connects to how Malcolm X and IM are increasingly able to exercise rights and control, as they become more educated. 
Evan G

Matthew Lynch, Ed.D.: Are African Americans Losing the Race? Part I - 0 views

  • somewhere along the way, our voices were silenced and our vitality was diffused in the process of attempting to obtain our piece of the American apple pie.
  • African Americans remain oppressed and controlled by our own misrepresented realities.
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    Discusses the loss of African American culture and unity over time; while being Americanized, many Afro-Americans simply gave up on their common ties, making it much harder during the civil rights movement for blacks to rise up and take their rights.
Sydney C

History of America's Meat Packing Industry - 0 views

  • Over the next 40 years, unions such as the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) were able to improve both the pay and working conditions of meat packing employees in the U.S. The UPWA was also known for its progressive ideals and its support of the civil rights movement during the 1960s.
  • Developments such as improved distribution channels allowed meat packing companies to move out of urban, union-dominated centers and relocate to rural areas closer to livestock feedlots.
  • By the late 1990s, the meat packing industry had consolidated such that the top four firms accounted for approximately 50 percent of all U.S. poultry and pork production and 80 percent of all beef production.
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  • Governor Michael Johanns (currently U.S. Secretary of Agriculture) issued the "Nebraska Meatpacking Industry Workers Bill of Rights" in June of 2000. Though only a voluntary set of guidelines, the bill recognized the rights of meat packing employees to organize, work in safe conditions, and to seek help from the state.
  • The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there was an average of 12.6 injuries or illnesses per 100 full-time meat packing plant employees in 2005, a number twice as high as the average for all U.S. manufacturing jobs. Some experts maintain that this number is actually too low as many workers' injuries go unreported due to employee misinformation or intimidation.
  • According to REAP, a union-affiliated group, union membership among meat packing employees has plunged from 80 percent in 1980 to less than 50 percent today.
  • the number of immigrant laborers in meat packing plants—and in the Midwestern areas in which they are primarily located—has increased dramatically. According to the USDA, the percentage of Hispanic meat-processing workers rose from less than 10 percent in 1980 to nearly 30 percent in 2000.
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    This article by PBS chronicles the evolution of the workers in the meat packing industry. The article tells of the meat packing industry revealed by Sinclair to present conditions. The average hourly wage for meat packing workers has fallen since the 1970's. The article also tells of the poor working conditions "Fast Food Nation" describes and how meat packing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America.
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    Detailed timeline of the meat packing indusrty from the 1930s-present; discusses the evolution of unions, steps taken by the government, and internal changes of the industry.
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    Shows how little things have changed
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    Schlosser says in his book how he feels that little has changed since the times of the chicago meat packing trusts, and this pbs article speaks in support of that claim. It gives examples of how conditions in 2005 are "that the working conditions in America's meat packing plants were so bad they violated basic human and worker rights"
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    Meatpacking industry through the years. This article highlights the way that the meatpacking industry and its ethics/conditions have changed (or not) throughout the years. It argues that things are pretty much as bad as the times of The Jungle.
Emily S

Timeline of women's rights. - 1 views

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    Virginia wolf demonstrates her frustration about the slow progress of women's rights. This document specifically showcases exactly how slow this progress is. Like the reform movements of other cases of social injustice, change is hard to come about. In the Grapes of Wrath, the migrant workers wait forever for change to occur in their awful lives.
Evan G

shsaplit - How Racism Prevents the Invisible Man from Attaining Goals and his Identity - 1 views

  • the Invisible Man felt that in order to reach his goals he had to have a white lifestyle and was insecure within his true culture. This hindered his goals because he was trying too hard, and once he accepted who he was and where he came from, including his culture and the foods that came with it, he could begin to grow and become the person he once wished to be.
  • He never realized that the brotherhood was bound for nowhere and they were just averting him from achieveing something greater. They treated him unequally such as any other negro in the civil rights movement or the Jews in the holocaust, he was an unheard voice.
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    Discusses direct correlations between quotes from IM and the racist impact they have upon him. As seen in the case of the yams, it is only after IM decides to accept his own culture and past that he can have his own identity. Until then, he is still trying to live white. Also, back to the theme of oppression, the Brotherhood was acting in the name of blacks, yet truly just held IM back, hovering inches from success, in order to ensure that he never gets his fully deserved recognition or rights.
Brian C

Alienation as Narrative Strategy - 0 views

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    shows alienation used by Ellison as a strategy in the invisible man, connecting it to slavery, Frederick Douglass, the postwar attitude of the 1940s, and the civil rights movement, all of which can be connected to Malcolm X.
Zaji Z

Abuses Against Workers Taint U.S. Meat and Poultry | Human Rights Watch - 2 views

  • In meat and poultry plants across the United States, Human Rights Watch found that many workers face a real danger of losing a limb, or even their lives, in unsafe work conditions.
  • “A century after Upton Sinclair wrote ‘The Jungle,’ workers in the meatpacking industry still face serious injuries,” said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch.
  • “When workers try to defend themselves by forming unions, employers use fear and intimidation to stop them,”
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  • “The meatpacking companies hire immigrant workers because they are often the only ones who will work under such terrible conditions,”
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    Reports are out: modern day meatpacking is still considered to be one imposing extreme hazard to the worker. This is only one of the many modern instances of ethical injustice as employers continue to intimidate their workers from creating unions, as described with Fast Food Nation and McDonald's. It is a marriage of Sinclair's eye-opening description of the meatpacking industry and Schlosser's depiction of contemporary business ethics. 
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    This is a great source and annotation showing how the horrors of the meatpacking industry first brought up in the Jungle, and later in Fast Food Nation are still going on today. The terrible ethics of these big businesses are still a problem to this day.
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    You guys bring up valid points. Honestly it gets frustrating hearing the same topic being incessantly repeated, but it still is a good source about these novels and the poor treatment of the workers. I like how your second quote even relates it to modern times, just like FFN
David D

Book Review: The Grapes of Wrath | Do Something - 0 views

  • It's also a clear call to action for labor rights, unions, and other causes that still affect people today.
  • You can compare the migration from Oklahoma to today's immigration. Much like in Steinbeck's novel, today some Americans hold contempt for immigrants coming to California and other agricultural areas to labor as migrant workers. However, the food industry depends on this cheap labor, and goes through great pains to make sure that it remains cheap. Today, half of all migrant farm workers make less than $20 per day.
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    This review discusses the plight of the Joads and other Oklahomians to that of today's immigrants. The food industry of today, like that of the 1930s, depends on cheap, replacable laborers.
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    Great review of the Grapes of Wrath with specific topics brought out by the book.
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    The review talks about the specific angles of poverty, labor rights, unemployment, and discrimination. It also compares the plight of the "Okies" to the treatment of today's immigrants. Just as current immigrants have derogatory names, the "immigrant Okies" were hated by residents of California where they eventually resided. The fight for labor rights was a strong interest of Jim Casy, and later Tom's, who began organizing people soon after coming to California.
Travis F

Getting It Right/Bruccoli - 0 views

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    Getting It Right The Publishing Process and the Correction of Factual Errors – with Reference to The Great Gatsby by Matthew J. Bruccoli A sense of the fundamental textual decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. Editors who are otherwise sound oppose the correction of factual errors in critical editions.
Evan G

Books of the Times - 1 views

  • befuddled hero's adventures among the "brothers" area fine demonstration of thought control, party discipline, duplicity and treachery.
  • But his role as a man acted upon more often than acting, as a symbol of doubt, perplexity, betrayal and defeat, robs him of the individual identity of the people who play a part in his life.
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    Discusses the Brotherhood's effects upon IM. Although supposedly designed to boost visibility and rights of black men, the party really only bends the thoughts, discipline, and lives of its followers to its own gain. Like Bledsoe, the Brotherhood bleeds the black men dry in order to keep them oppressed, while the top Brothers, white brothers, profit and thrive.
Sarah Sch

(3) Civil Rights Movement - 0 views

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    "However, the migrants were no longer obsequiously dependent on agriculture or domestic service for livelihood, nor were their lives and limbs endangered because of political agitation. They were free to support racial uplift organizations and programs."
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    " Blacks were becoming less rural and more urban and aggressive. The social energies that fueled postwar activism had been built virtually out of sight of mainstream America."
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    This article provides historical background for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and 1960's. The article explains the influence of the postwar era and other factors that engender and affected the movement. The article provides additional insight into the society dictated position of blacks in American culture and racism throughout the society. This article puts the autobiography, Malcolm X, into greater historical context. The article would be beneficial for an essay discussing oppression and the black's fight to attain equality.
Connor P

Gale Power Search - Document - 0 views

  • As long as Malcolm stayed in the Black Muslim movement, he was not free to speak his own mind. He had to represent the "Messenger," Elijah Muhammad, who was the sole and absolute authority in the Nation of Islam.
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    This quote shows the betrayal of Elijah Muhamma and the theme of appearance vs. reality. This moment is the second rebirth just as IM has to rebirths. Here he sees that the Nation does not stand for the right beliefs and knows he has to move on
Sydney C

BRIA 24 1 b Upton Sinclairs The Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry - Constitu... - 0 views

  • The progressives revealed how these companies eliminated competition, set high prices, and treated workers as "wage slaves."
    • Vivas T
       
      This article reveals this lack of business ethics during this time period through the cooperation of large industries in order to reduce competition. As a result, they are able to drive prices up, which depicts their cruelty towards customers as well as the treatment of workers as "wage slaves" in order to gain more profits.
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    This article gives historical information on the meat packing industry of the early 1900's. The article tells of the progressive movement of the age which supported reforms. The article tells of the response to "The Jungle" and the innovative aspects of the new processing regulations. The article also gives a short biography about Sinclair's childhood to his death.
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    speaks to alot of the conditions Jurgis and his family went though
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    "Unskilled immigrant men did the backbreaking and often dangerous work, laboring in dark and unventilated rooms, hot in summer and unheated in winter." The article shows how cruel the conditions of the factory worker were. And since the work force was unskilled and immigrants, they were often taken advantage of because they knew no better
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    The ethical issues addressed in The Jungle and how they relate to the bills passed after the publication. It talks about how Roosevelt responded to the book and passed many new restrictions on the Chicago meatpacking district, as well as businesses all over the country.
Sydney C

Literary Reference Center - powered by EBSCOhost: Down and out in America - 0 views

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    "But one of the big shocks for me, almost from the beginning, was how little privacy or rights you have in the workplace. Very early, the first or second flay of my life as a waitress, I was warned by a coworker that my purse could be searched at any time. I just didn't believe that could be legal. But I have since, of course, checked with labor lawyers, and it's true. At work, you have no privacy as to your personal effects, purse or backpack, in any state that I know of." In the workplace, you have no privacy. Instead, you're just another machine who's under the control of the bigger business. Privacy, a right we often take for granted, is almost always denied to minimum wage workers.
Zaji Z

1929: NY TImes Review - 0 views

  • What Mrs. Woolf has traced, of course, are the reasons for the very limited achievements among women novelists through the centuries. Why did they fail? They failed because they were not financially independent; they failed because they were not intellectually free; they failed because they were denied the fullest worldly experience.
  • Mrs. Woolf sometimes partly evades an issue. We cannot tell how much better Dickens would have written had he not struggled, or Meredith had he not wearily read manuscript for Chapman & Hall, or Balzac had he not sought feverishly to discharge heavy debts; but we do know that lacking means and intellectual freedom these men succeeded where women failed.
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    The site points out that Woolf points out that women were inhibited from success, and typically doomed to failure as a result of the restrictions placed upon them from society. They couldn't be financially independent, so they never had time to learn and experience the world, so they weren't intellectually free, etc.
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    The Times brings up an interesting point. Men struggled and still succeeded. Women struggled and got nowhere. Part of it must be the culture, where women often did not usually exert themselves to something ambitious, whereas men are expected to. For most of the women's rights movement, perhaps the goal wasn't to force the institution to create laws for equality, but in the bigger picture, sense that it was to show women had initiative, motivation and a purpose. 
Ellen L

The Great Gatsby And The American Dream - Discuss Anything - 0 views

  • On the surface of The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald portrays a romantic love between a man and a woman, but inside the real meaning is much deeper. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as a time of decay social and moral values, evidence of this is the greed and the pursuit of pleasure. Jay Gatsby’s constant parties epitomized the corruption of the American Dream as the desire for money and worldly pleasures overshadowed the true values of the American Dream.
  • It’s written in the American Constitution that every individual has the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. This right it seems has taken a twisted turn in the early 1920’s.
  • . These materialistic values consequently led the decay of the American Dream. The new American Dream described by Fitzgerald portrays a world where greed, the pursuit of money and pleasure are above all else. Fitzgerald portrays a world that has lost its way in the corruption of the American Dream.
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    "The pursuit of happiness soon turned into the pursuit of wealth and ultimately to greed" This relates to the capitalist business model seen in FFN, GOW, TJ and NaD in which all the business owners work to gain a profit, despite the situation they place their employees. Material wealth is seen taking over the ideals of society, a concept that the members of the Eggs exhibit through their ostentatious parties and affluence. 
Ellen L

The Psychological Effects of Child Relocation - 0 views

  • Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration."
  • The prevailing rule of thumb used to be that the older the child, the more difficult the moving experience will be.
  • Moving does not have to be traumatic for your children, however; there are many things that you can do as a parent to help reduce the impact for them, right from the moment you share the news with them.
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    This article discusses the detriments that moving has on a child's psyche, and the steps a parent should take to comfort their child in times of such great change. Neither Perry, nor Vardaman's father comforts them during their travels and the psychological effects the change has on them is evident.
David D

Some oppose teaching 'In Cold Blood' at Glendale High School - 0 views

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    While In Cold Blood is a widely praised nonfiction novel and is read by students across America, it is also highly controversial. Some parents and teachers disagree with letting students read the gory details of the Clutter murders. High school-aged students should have the right to read the piece.
Evan G

What makes Ellison's Invisible Man Invisible? // ErichMusick.com - 1 views

  • The white people of the nation, especially in the South, see the narrator as subhuman - to them, the narrator is a worthless piece of trash
  • What will a black child think if, while growing up, the slogan, "If you're white, you're right" becomes embedded in his mind?
  • At the same time, though, Jack sees the narrator as little more than a tool and cares only that he can assist his organization, the Brotherhood.
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  • Indeed, the narrator is becoming someone else – the man the Brotherhood wants him to be
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    This source discusses the dehumanization of IM. Constantly, people use IM for their own benefit, and manipulate him to do their will. He is seen as an asset, even by the Brotherhood, the very organization which is supposed to be fighting invisibility. Over time, his identity is so manipulated and bent to the will of others that by the epilogue, IM has lost track of who he himself is supposed to be.
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