Please support Powell’s employees May 1 in Portland. At our last bargaining session managment said they would be proposing their final offer in 2 weeks, and that that offer would ABSOLUTELY NOT contain a paid lunch (which we currently have), profit sharing (also status quo), any more $ on the table (many of us start at 6.63 an hour, the median wage of 420 of us is about 8.42) and MOST IMPORTANTLY a union shop!! They then told us they would not budge no matter how much we “went public” on May day or beyond. Please show your support for Powell’s on MAY 1.
Local 5 member
Forbes touts Powell’s profitability as contract talks stall; workers take their case to The Nation
Employee for employee, Powell’s on-line sales beat Amazon.com by $20,000, according to an article in the April 17 issue of Forbes magazine. “At $1.6 billion a year, Amazon has sales of $213,000 per employee – compared with $232,000 for Powell’s online business with a staff of just 43,” wrote author Adam Penenberg. Penenberg placed Powell’s annual sales at $50 million, and noted that if Amazon operated on the same margin as Powell’s.com, it would have ended last year with $80 million in profit rather than its actual $720 million loss.
Reaching out to the far-flung customers of Powell’s. com,263 Powell’s employees signed an ad that appeared in the April 24 issue of The Nation, one of the country’s most literate and widely read progressive magazines. The ad asks readers to support them in their efforts to secure a first contract that will reward their commitment to the store with a living wage, protect their voice in decision-making on the job, and include a “fair share” or union shop clause.
The workers also aimed for on-line customers with a boycott pledge list recently sent out via e-mail, which has already netted numerous signatures. The pledge asks signers to boycott Powell’s if the workers ask them to – and “make Powell’s Books their bookstore of choice” should they sign the union contract.
Negotiations for a first contract between Powell’s and the more than 400 workers represented by ILWU Local 5 began Sept.14. The two sides remain far apart. Management’s latest proposal includes significant take-aways, eliminating the paid lunch and the profit-sharing plan. It does not include a fair share provision or adequate wage increases.
Bargaining sessions are scheduled for Friday, April 21, and all day Monday, April 24, but it seems unlikely that the two sides will reach agreement before the ILWU International Convention comes to Portland May 1.
For more information: ILWU Organizer Michael Cannarella, (+1) 503 223 6057
Looks like that great progressive, Michael Powell is trying to force a strike. He’s offering less then what the workers at his bookstore are getting now. Not to mention an open shop. As one who has lived in open shop states (Georgia and Utah), forget it! I wish I could be in Portland May 1. Best of luck to all of you. You’re not alone.
Ken Morgan
Local 6, San Francisco
As an individual of local 8 that has watched this effort of neglected workers rights and benefits blossom from a core group of individuals wanting a voice, but too timid to afend, to a united work force demanding to be heard and standing face to face to Michael Powell’s attourneys. ( because michael chooses to hide in the corner)
To you all I take my hat off in gratitude. Michael Cannerella and his assistants have done a seemly fabulous job of keeping you in touch of your rights, but without all of you being together on this with them nothing would be possible. Don’t ever think that you are out there by yourselves, ounce you’re in the family you’re always in the family.
Douglas Carey
ILWU #8
Next thing you know, this “progressive” Michael Powell will be asked to serve on the Pacifica Foundation board (the folks who hired goons to shut down KPFA in Berkeley last summer in the middle of a newscast).
With “progressive” friends like these, we don’t need enemies.
Brian Nelson
Local 34
