[Antiracism] [Workers Rights] Big Y/Grinch Article in Advocate

[WMass Jobs With Justice]

Saturday's the last day to vote for Don D'Amour for Massachusetts Grinch of
the Year at http://www.unionvoice.org/massjwj/ma_grinch_07.html. Winner
announced Monday, December 10, International Human Rights Day.


Valley Advocate - Thursday, December 6, 2007
Local Boy Makes Bad - Will Big Y's Don D'Amour score this year's Grinch
honors?
By Maureen Turner — mturner at valleyadvocate.com

That will a certain local supermarket executive get in his stocking this
Christmas? Local union activists hope it’s a big switch.

Don D’Amour, CEO of Big Y supermarkets, has achieved the dubious honor of
being one of four nominees to be Mass. Jobs with Justice’s 2007 Grinch of
the Year. The labor group gives out the award each year to highlight
particularly egregious anti-worker behavior in the corporate and political
world. As you might imagine, the competition’s fierce.

D’Amour’s rivals include Paul Levy, CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess
Hospital, whose management has led to clashes with the Service Employees
International Union (JWJ smacks Levy for “attack[ing] workers’ rights and
[fighting] patient safety measures”). There’s also Sandra Moose, a member of
the board of Verizon (and, JWJ snarkily adds, a “Boston socialite”), which
has had its own high-profile clashes with labor. The game’s heavy hitter, of
course, is former governor and (God forbid) presidential hopeful Mitt
Romney, nominated for his “'family values’ platform of union-busting,
immigrant-baiting, homophobia, and corporate-controlled health care.”

But local election watchers are working hard to put their hometown candidate
over the top. “Why should you vote for Don? Not just because Western Mass.
is the perennial underdog in contests with the rest of the state,” Jon
Weissman, coordinator of Western Mass. Jobs with Justice, wrote recently in
a message to labor supporters.

D’Amour deserves the award, according to WMJWJ, in honor of Big Y’s refusal
to meet with JWJ about—or even acknowledge—concerns relating to one of their
meat suppliers, Smithfield Foods. Smithfield, a major pork producer, has
been the focus of a national campaign by labor activists, who charge the
company with horrific abuses and labor rights violations at its gigantic Tar
Heel, N.C., processing plant. In October, Smithfield filed a civil RICO
lawsuit against the United Food and Commercial Workers, charging the union
with “malicious” attempts to damage its business. (For more on the labor
campaign, see www.smithfieldjustice.com; for the corporation’s side of the
story, see www.smithfieldfacts.com. See also “Bacon Battle,” Oct. 4, 2007,
at www.valleyadvocate.com.)

As a sign of solidarity, Mass. Jobs with Justice has lobbied supermarkets in
the region to stop carrying Smithfield products; they say both Stop and Shop
and Atkins Farms readily agreed. But officials at the Springfield-based Big
Y won’t even meet with the labor group, whose supporters include a host of
local community groups, religious leaders and elected officials, including
state Rep. Ben Swan, the Springfield City Council and Mayor Charlie Ryan.

This isn’t Big Y’s first clash with organized labor. The company has managed
to keep its 55 stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut free of unions, and
the Pioneer Valley AFL-CIO has long urged a boycott of Big Y for “its
strong-armed commitment to operating non-union.”

While local labor supporters are working hard to win D’Amour the Grinch
award (voting is taking place at www.massjwj.net), Big Y, apparently, is
playing it cool. Its corporate office hasn’t returned calls from the
Advocate about the Smithfield campaign.


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