This article is cross-posted from In These Times

In These Times has exclusively obtained a leaked internal Honeywell document outlining an anti-union strategy that includes leveraging Obama administration connections. The documents suggest that the megacorporation is deeply concerned about recent union activity at its factories and the bad press that has resulted (one example cited is a Working In These Times op-ed).

The PowerPoint presentation, downloadable here, was leaked to In These Times by unionized Honeywell workers who downloaded them from company’s internal database. Titled “DRAFT Honeywell Readiness Plan for Corporate Union Campaigns” and marked “Honeywell – Confidential,” the slideshow was authored by four Honeywell interns (see correction at bottom). Though the document is undated, it appears to be relatively recent, relying on 2011 data. Its stated objective is “to develop a framework that can be used by Honeywell with the resources required to prevent or react to a nationwide corporate union campaign and dissipate any problems as quickly as possible.”

“Honeywell is at significant risk of becoming the target of a national union corporate campaign and has no readiness plan in place to deal with this possibility,” warns the document. A graphic identifies a number of unions and workers’ organizations as potential sources of such a campaign, including SEIU, Warehouse Workers United, the AFL-CIO’s Change to Win, UNITE HERE! and the United Steelworkers. Honeywell notes in particular the dangers of negative publicity, citing as one example an August 4, 2011 Working In These Times op-ed by Metropolis Honeywell employee and USW Local 7-699 leader John Paul Smith titled “What the Honeywell Lockout Taught Me About International Labor Solidarity.”

Tip: Hit pause to read individual slides…

The PowerPoint then presents a five-part prevention plan broken down into “1.) Labor Employee Relations 2.) Communications 3.) Government Relations 4.) Legal and 5.) Global Security.”

The third section, on Government Relations (GR), reveals Honeywell’s hopes that its influence with the Obama administration can be leveraged to help combat union activity. Slide 18 of the confidential document states that Honeywell (HON) should “continue to grow positive relationships with elected officials, with federal agencies, focusing on local branches.” These relationships, the document explains, “can be directed at union activity, if needed.” The plan suggests that Honeywell’s Government Relations division can be used to “break up union cohesion across the country.” A picture of President Obama speaking at a Honeywell plant is included (see above), with a caption reading “HON has great relationships with Federal officials, focus is needed at the State and local levels.”

Indeed, President Obama and Honeywell CEO Dave E. Cote have a very close relationship. Cote visited with Obama at the White House this past Wednesday to push him to cut budget spending. Cote is considered one of Obama’s closest allies in the business community. In January of 2009, Cote introduced Obama’s stimulus package in a White House speech. Cote was subsequently appointed by Obama to serve on the Deficit Commission. President Obama even flew with Cote to India while a lockout at Honeywell’s Metropolis, Ill. uranium plant was ongoing. Cote returned the favor by giving heavily to the Democratic Party. In the 2010 election cycle when the Met, Honeywell was the top corporate PAC contributor to the Democratic Party.

Union activists believe that Honeywell’s federal ties have already enabled the company to call in government help when suppressing unions. In 2009, Honeywell threatened to use Marines to replace 500 United Steelworkers members in Blount Island, Fla. if the military contractors went out on strike. Honeywell had the military security clearances pulled on several of the union leaders, leading them to lose their jobs. In 2010, I exposed evidence that Honeywell cheated on qualification tests for scab replacement workers during the lockout at its Metropolis uranium facility; during the lag between my report and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission taking action, the scab replacement workers caused a number of accidents. In 2011, International Association of Machinists Lodge 778, employed as nuclear weapons workers at Honeywell’s Kansas City, accused the Department of Energy of abandoning its legal mandate by not stepping into to stop a concessionary contract Honeywell was pushing on the union. (Note: I have written over two dozen articles on this issue since 2009; for more details on the federal government enabling Honeywell anti-union strategy, see my November 2011 piece, “Is the Federal Government Helping to Bust Unions?”)

The recent leaked documents raises serious questions about whether Honeywell benefited from its relationships with the Obama administration as part of its anti-union maneuvers. The White House did not respond to request for comment.

It’s not uncommon for corporations to invest this level of planning into combating organized labor. As I reported for Working In These Times, corporate executives from a number of companies attended a conference in Arizona in May on how to lock out workers and bust unions–headlined, oddly, by Henry Winkler, a.k.a. the Fonz.

Another section of the confidential documents lays out a comprehensive plan to bust union organizing. First, the document suggests a company-wide “Corporate Campaign Risk Assessment System” that “would be a tool used to identify those sites that are at a greater risk of becoming involved in a corporate campaign and to then prioritize the sites for preventive and counter measuring planning. … The Corporate Campaign Risk Assessment Survey would give the LER (Labor Relations) team scores on the high risk areas to determine whether or not these sites could be the local campaigns that acts as a ‘toe hold’ for unions to launch a corporate campaign against Honeywell.”

Then, as soon as there are union rumblings at a non-union Honeywell plant, managers are instructed to inform Honeywell’s HR Department, which then informs Honeywell’s Labor Relations Department (LER), which “puts plan in place on the ground and immediately visits the site.” The LER is told to dispatch one or two representatives from the Burke Group, a notorious anti-union firm that was used by Honeywell during the 14-month long Metropolis lockout. Next, an official boardroom is “set up on site to implement daily operations,” including “employees paid to sit and listen to anti-union campaigns.” Honeywell supervisors are advised to obtain the proper legal assistance in struggle with unions, to secure Honeywell property and to train local security personnel in “warning signs of union activity.”

“These documents reinforce what we have believed all along that this is a company that isn’t interested in getting along with their labor groups. This also proves that they see us as a threat,” says USW Local 7-669 President Stephen Lech, whose photo is included in the document’s description of the Metropolis lockout. “As far as us being mentioned so much in these documents, I am kind of honored that our union had that kind of impact. I am flattered that the company is going to fashion a whole plan based on the labor struggle at Metropolis. They learned a lot during that process and we learned a lot to, but we can change our labor strategy a whole lot quicker than theirs.”

UPDATE: In an statement emailed to In These Times after a mutually agreed deadline, Honeywell spokesperson Victoria Ann Streitfeld wrote:

This document was prepared by summer interns, not full-time Honeywell employees, and as such should not be considered to reflect Honeywell’s positions or policies.

Honeywell’s preference is to work directly with its global work force, but also respects the rights that employees have to form unions or acquire union representation when they choose to do so.

Honeywell works closely with a wide range of constituents that are important to making our businesses successful, including employees, and where appropriate the unions that represent them, our communities, and their elected officials.

It’s unclear from the document (which In These Times has made available for download here), whether the interns were proposing new policy or summarizing existing policy. What’s clear is that they had access to an enormous amount of internal information. The 61-page PowerPoint presentation, marked “Honeywell – Confidential,” contains indications that Honeywell had been tracking union activity at a dozen plants across the United States, complex metrics for analyzing the threat posed by unions, and a note about Honeywell’s deployment of the Burke Group, an anti-union consulting organization.

In response to the Honeywell statement, USW 7-669 President Stephen Lech said:

It surprises me that they are denying that this is their company policy, because this is exactly what we saw in Metropolis. [The authors] are mentioning things in this PowerPoint that show they know exactly what Honeywell is doing. They knew about Metropolis, the Burke Group, they had pictures of our pickets lines, detailed information about company structure and union activity. This doesn’t sound like the kind of information mere interns would have. And what they say about working with government officials is exactly what they did during the Honeywell lockout.

This article is cross-posted from In These Times

Cross-posted from Frying Pan News

It’s an unreasonably warm October day, and I’m milling about awkwardly with a handful of suits at a mixer in a small banquet hall at Newport Beach’s Pacific Club—which, according to its website, is the gathering place of choice for the “distinctive life-style of Orange County’s business and professional leaders.”

An incredible thirst suddenly overwhelms me, as I look down and see I’ve practically sweated through my cheap suit. I try my best to keep control of my decorum, but when a busser passes by with a lone Arnold Palmer on his tray, I snatch it greedily from the outstretched hands of another guest and suck the saccharine concoction down in one gulp. (more…)

This article was first published at The Daily Banter

Progressive intellectuals have been acting very bipolar towards labor lately, characterized by wild mood swings ranging from the “We’re sorry we abandoned labor, how could we!” sentiment during last year’s Wisconsin uprising against Koch waterboy Scott Walker, to the recent “labor is dead/it’s all labor’s fault” snarling after the recall vote against Gov. Walker failed. (more…)

By now I’m assuming you’ve seen Prometheus, and we can talk freely. If not, beat it, because I’m telling all, plot-wise.

Prometheus starts out gangbusters, so beautiful and ambitious that you have to wonder how Ridley Scott is going to manage to screw it up. He does screw it up, of course, but the thing is, I don’t know why he does. He had it; it was all right there in the first scenes, all he had to do was play out the implications.

(more…)

Lotta critics reviewing Men in Black 3 have wondered what was the necessity for it. Who was really craving Men in Black 3? As garrulous A.O Scott puts it, “Can you think of a new movie with less reason for existing than Men in Black 3?”

Why, yes, yes I can, as a matter of fact. But A.O. immediately realizes his question is stupid and answers it himself:

What? “Battleship”? Yes, O.K. Good point. Hadn’t thought of that. “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”? Fair enough. But still. “The Avengers”? Let’s not go there. And stop interrupting me when I’m trying to make a serious point.

Can’t help interrupting you, A.O., if you’re going to blather like that.

(more…)

This article was originally published in The Nation.

It began as a fairly straight-forward story about a shareholder lawsuit: The Koch brothers, Charles and David, who together own 50 percent of the libertarian Cato Institute, filed suit to recover a 25 percent stake held by longtime chairman William Niskanen, who died last autumn and whose widow has yet to relinquish those shares. (more…)

“…everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.”

—Arthur Young; 1771

Our popular economic wisdom says that capitalism equals freedom and free societies, right? Well, if you ever suspected that the logic is full of shit, then I’d recommend checking a book called The Invention of Capitalism, written by an economic historian named Michael Perelmen, who’s been exiled to Chico State, a redneck college in rural California, for his lack of freemarket friendliness. And Perelman has been putting his time in exile to damn good use, digging deep into the works and correspondence of Adam Smith and his contemporaries to write a history of the creation of capitalism that goes beyond superficial The Wealth of Nations fairy tale and straight to the source, allowing you to read the early capitalists, economists, philosophers, clergymen and statesmen in their own words. And it ain’t pretty.

(more…)

“Ha-ha! Those suckers will believe anything! “

This article appeared in the October 17, 2011 edition of The Nation

There’s right-wing hypocrisy, and then there’s this: Charles Koch, billionaire patron of free-market libertarianism, privately championed the benefits of Social Security to Friedrich Hayek, the leading laissez-faire economist of the twentieth century. Koch even sent Hayek a government pamphlet to help him take advantage of America’s federal retirement insurance and healthcare programs. (more…)

Well, jeez, I don’t know. I didn’t like Drive, but maybe you will. It’s one of those movies that pushes everybody out into the open, as far as their own biases and personal film hang-ups and all. How you feel about genre film vs. art film, and violence onscreen, and the uses of film noir, and the American vs. the European film traditions, and Ryan Gosling, all those things will decide how you react to Drive.

Take the violence, for example. It didn’t seem like much to me, but critics are really going on about it. There’s a face-stomping death in an elevator, but you don’t really see it so much as hear it, and there are heads exploding with gunshot wounds into aestheticized blood-spray, but nothing to write home about if you’ve ever seen Japanese or Hong Kong action films. There’s a lethal razor cut, and frankly I was surprised how much I didn’t feel that, because razors fill the imagination if you handle them right. Something about the way they lift that little papery top-layer of skin separately and smoothly, and then the thin line of blood starts to appear…only that doesn’t get shown in the film. Just one fast slit in long-shot and it’s done. Plus there’s a fork stuck into an eye that’s just plain silly.

(more…)

Slate’s David Weigel is one of the few libertarian media figures who at least has had the courtesy to disclose, on occasion, his past relationships with Koch-funded outfits (Institute for Humane Studies, Reason Magazine…). But half-disclosures can be deceiving. The record shows that every time the Koch-machine finds itself under media scrutiny, and its unnerving influence on our political and economic culture is exposed, you can count on David Weigel to rush to the scene and declare, “Nothing to see here folks. Boring. Seen it all before. Don’t have a cow.” He did it again yesterday, in reaction to the Mother Jones exclusives on the Koch Brothers’ secretive oligarch-gathering in Vail. Weigel’s response? “No surprise.”

As you’ll see, this “no surprise” yawn is the same response just about every time. (more…)

There’s a British movie directed by John Landis called Burke and Hare coming out soon in America that’s pretty terrible. September 9th it comes out, and it’ll sink without a ripple. Even the publicity images are so lame, they seem to be warning people off. Make sure you miss it!

I’m only telling you about it to address a bizarre sociological phenomenon: apparently the Anglo-American world can’t produce black comedy anymore, just at the time when we should be better at it than ever. We’ve got so much material right in front of us, and our whole blustering histories now seem long build-ups to despicable, whimpering ends. With all that to work with, how can we NOT make great black comedies?

(more…)

This article was first published in Counterpunch.

The political theorists in France and Russia may be correct: Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have enemies that want to end his political career for nefarious agendas. If that is the case, it will certainly be discovered by the legions of former CIA operatives, former Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and private investigators on his or his heiress wife’s payroll. (more…)

American movies are dead, people. I know I’ve hinted before that American movies, collectively, were unwell, maybe even terminally ill, but that was in the still-hopeful past. Now it’s officially over. We can stop checking its pulse in the form of the weekly movie openings to see what’s being offered to us, because nothing’s being offered to us, and nothing’s going to be offered to us. Pull the plug. Hollywood, we hardly knew ye.

It’s the 4^th of July weekend, and that’s when the studio conglomerates used to stake their all on something big. It usually turned out to be something laughable as well as big, but still, ever since Jaws started the summer blockbuster tradition, we’ve been able to count on Hollywood at least attempting a huge Independence Day act of showmanship. But this year, what do we get? Transformers 3—or is it 4?—and Larry Crowne, a tiresome-looking heart-warmer with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Old junkyard action and old scrap-heap stars. It’s like an acknowledgement that Hollywood has nothing left to give, nothing in stock that isn’t long past its sell-by date. It’s all empty shelves back there.

(more…)

This anti-TSA protester coming straight outta Waco!

On Saturday June 4, a dozen or so anti-TSA protesters marched on the Texas State Capitol, demanding that state legislators and Governor Rick Perry stand up to the federal government and pass a bill that would allow cops to arrest and imprison TSA screeners.

As readers of The eXiled know, Mark Ames and I have thoroughly exposed America’s anti-TSA “movement” as a rightwing union-busting PR campaign designed to prevent TSA workers from unionizing, pushed by an alliance of Koch-funded libertarians, warmongering neocons, notorious DC union-busting front-groups and rabid Christian homophobes. Well, the anti-TSA movement in Texas pretty much fits the bill… (more…)

Really?

This is the year that the Republican right-wing, backed by corporate sponsors like the billionaire Koch brothers, have declared all-out war on public sector unions. It’s the culmination of a decades-long crusade against organized labor, which has only hit the national radar screen in recent months. The showdown in Wisconsin between Scott Walker and the unions has changed all that: suddenly, Americans had their eyes opened up to just how ruthlessly and cynically the Republican right was ready to fight to destroy public sector unions because they see it as a way to cripple the Democratic Party by killing off a major source of funding, as well as political muscle and votes. (more…)

An investigation by eXiled Editor Yasha Levine helped The New York Press snag an award in the 2010 Better Newspaper Contest, hosted by the New York Press Association, for “Coverage of Business, Financial & Economic News.”

Levine’s article, “The Making of Manhattan’s Elite Welfare Farmers,” exposed the corruption of our $20-billion a year farm subsidy system, focusing on how wealthy Manhattanites, Wall Street traders and the Rockefellers are allowed to milk taxpayers for billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks just because they are rich and we are not. It was published almost a year ago, but it is no less relevant today. (more…)

So by now you’ve probably heard that Charles and David Koch are really really dedicated to libertarianism. They’re not just interested in screwing Americans with regressive 18th century economic policies, but also support noble positions that even far-leftists should be able to get behind. One of the big ones is: they are opposed to war and empire.

Well, at least that’s what libertarians say.

(more…)

It’s been sort of strange watching America’s sudden, belated discovery of the billionaire Koch brothers, and the shock realization about just how much they’ve been manipulating and managing–and ruining–our country and our lives.

It’s been a long time coming. As eXiled readers know, Yasha Levine and I first broke the story about the Kochs inventing the Tea Party as an Astroturf movement way back in February, 2009, on the eve of the very first Tea Party protests. Readers also will recall how the Kochs—using their tools in the mainstream media—waged a campaign to discredit our article. I’m talking of course about Megan McArdle of the Atlantic Monthly, who led the campaign to discredit our investigative piece, which first ran in Playboy. (more…)

Why are American taxpayers forced to subsidize the billionaire Koch brothers’ massive campaign contributions to Republican Party politicians, the Tea Party movement, and policies that ensure greater subsidies to the Kochs, while cutting more public services to the taxpayers who fund the Kochs’ business and political activities?

It is an important question, but not one you’ll hear discussed much by our political class. Instead, right-wing pundits whinge endlessly about the public sector union bosses’ evil schemes to shake down taxpayers for union dues that eventually flow towards the Democratic Party. (more…)

You know things are dire when I go to a protest rally. It’s one of the signs of the apocalypse, the one right before the seas turn to blood. I hate rallies. You stand out there feeling like a complete ass, while people around you chant “Hey-hey, ho-ho, corporate welfare has got to go.”

Whatever the thing is that’s being protested, see, you say it’s Got to Go.

This event was the insipidly-named “Rally to Save the American Dream” that went on yesterday in various cities across the USA. The intention was to give the thumbs-up to the Wisconsin protesters, encourage them to keep up the battle for collective bargaining rights. Also, presumably, to dig the trenches for the last-ditch fight to save the American working class, in spite of tea-party defectors who have already put out the sign saying “Welcome Corporate Overlords!”

(more…)

Guess I should start this off with Korea, the North hammering that Southern island and the South responding like a big sister dealing with her autistic little brother: “Ow, I wonder what made him hit me in the face that time. Maybe his diaper needs changing.” We knew a family who actually had an autistic son like that, a huge handsome athletic-looking guy whose stereo wires had come unhooked some time around second grade, and if you went over to their house when he was around you definitely wanted to stay out of kicking, biting and punching range. He never telegraphed his bites or punches. Pro fighters could have taken lessons from him. He’s giggling at some private brain-damaged little joke on the sofa next to you and wham! You’re seeing cartoon birdies, and his sister and mom are busy trying to help him relax. “What’s wrong, Kenny? Kenny? Honey?” And you’re lying sideways on the couch like Chuck Liddell after his manager talked him into trying the Rampage Jackson road to the title one more time. They don’t even notice you; all they care about is calming “little” Kenny (who was a head taller than me) down again.

I can understand that kind of behavior—Korea hasn’t had a very cheerful history, they lost God knows how many people in the last war, maybe two million, they have a lot of good reasons not to go to war with themselves again—but excuse me if it doesn’t turn me on much.

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“I will steal your hard-earned money!”

This article was first published on AlterNet.

Meg Whitman has always wanted to be Number One in her field. So although it must rankle Whitman that her $1.3 billion in wealth only ranks her as the fourth richest woman in California, when it comes to ranking “The Most Tight-Fisted Billionaire In The West,” no one comes close to Meg. For all her rosy campaign rhetoric about wanting to help California, unlike most billionaires in her category who go out of their way to make highly public donations to charities and the arts, Whitman has yet to perform a single significant charitable deed for the Golden State, or any state for that matter.

“[C]ompared with other leading Silicon Valley and political figures, Whitman appears to have otherwise invested less time, energy and clout on causes at the state, local and national level,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2010. “In contrast to others who have aspired to political office, however, Whitman does not mention any work on commissions, boards, advisory groups, charities or causes in her book or on her Web site.” (more…)

Maybe what’s happening in America today will seem funny to some other culture in some future time—how it happened that in the depths of America’s decline, Liberals, the great opposition to everything mean and ruthless in this culture, couldn’t muster up a get-together for anything better than a mock-in. Led by a clown.

I confess, I couldn’t hack it. I came to the rally–saw those two pastry chefs from the Mythbusters show get all the Liberal Elites to hold a post-modern human wave, an ironic human wave allowing all the self-conscious Liberal Elites to play like Real America, while salvaging their vanity because it was all ironic and post-modern… And to make sure that everyone knew they were not really human-waving but rather meta-human-waving, the Mythbusters duo deconstructed the human wave. And all the Liberal Elites smiled and laughed knowingly, because all 150,000 were in on the biggest inside-joke wankathon in American history. And that was it for me–I was outta there. (more…)