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On June 15, 1996, the General Manager of the Borders Bookshop in Center City Philadelphia, PA fired Miriam Fried, a member of the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] Union Organizing Committee for challenging the store's rarely enforced check acceptance policy. Less than 72 hours later he changed the policy as she had suggested. Miriam had an outstanding record while working at Borders Bookshop. She worked there for over a year. The lead clerk at the Philadelphia store describes her as "one of the [store's] very finest booksellers." We view her firing as a transparent attempt to break up the IWW's drive to organize a labor union among Borders Bookshop employees in the wake of a narrow defeat in a March 27 National Labor Relations Board-sponsored election. Miriam Fried was one of the most visible and spirited union supporters at the store and is continuing her efforts to build a union for Borders Bookshop employees. Financial analysts have identified Borders Bookshop's well-trained customer-oriented staff as the bookstore chain's chief asset. Despite this, they are paid only $6.50 per hour (a salary few people could hope to live on) and have no say in the conditions of their work. While Borders Bookshop's highly-skilled staff members toiled for $13,000 per year in 1994, the bookstore chain's two top executives were paid a salary of $790,000 each and owned stock worth nearly $28 million (excluding long-term stock options)! Borders Bookshop employees from across the country have approached the IWW and other labor unions asking for assistance in unionizing their fellow employees. Borders Bookshop's Management responded with a slick anti-union mudslinging campaign, hiring a notorious union-busting attorney, captive meetings, misinformation and now by firing pro-union employees. Borders Bookshop tries to market its chain of stores as a champion of progressive political causes. Borders Bookshop could easily afford to pay its employees a living wage, but instead it prefers to violate Federal labor laws by firing those employees brave enough to stand up for their rights and ask for fair and honest working conditions. Borders Bookshop workers need your help. Please let Borders Bookshop's Management know that you won't patronize their stores until they give Miriam Fried her job back and respect the right of their employees to organize a union. Call Borders Bookshop's Corporate Headquarters at 1-800-644-7733, contact their web site at http://www.borders.com or write them at: Borders Bookshop Corporate Headquarters 311 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104
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