One of several things that has emerged is that you clearly post when you are being that total vitriolic cunt that you are.


Why finally you got something right!

But since someone taking food out of 'kids' mouths (I always love that total manipulation about the "children" we must do something about the "children" try not having any for starters and if you do stay employed.. striking.. not employed.. being in an industry with approximately 85% make nothing not a good plan.. oh wait.. how absurd right)

Which brings me to this nice thought on Christmas as you are EATING your food... about the lowest paid workers in our country who bring us our food... read this and let me tell you this is one union I do support.. and I believe in organizing workers who aren't educated, trained and well even legal but for white collar professions.. fuck that. Maybe the Goldman Sachs workers could organize to stop the excessive payments of CEO's or the ridiculous millions in bonuses paid to white men who are traders or how about those golden parachutes when terminated.

I wish unions did have a better role in this country as their contributions historically made this a better place for workers.. but a Writer's union? Bitch please I love TV and all but this is absurd times 10. Sorry but I save my support for those really in need....and this strike somehow just I don't see the reason.
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Penny Foolish

THE migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida have one of the nation's most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.

Florida's tomato growers have long faced pressure to reduce operating costs; one way to do that is to keep migrant wages as low as possible. Although some of the pressure has come from increased competition with Mexican growers, most of it has been forcefully applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes: American fast food chains that want millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads.

In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald's agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny - and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald's.

This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state's growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the surcharge for poor migrants as "pretty much near un-American."

Migrant farm laborers have long been among America's most impoverished workers. Perhaps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse. During the past decade, the United States Justice Department has prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers - a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla. - has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state, investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound surcharge with fast food chains.

Now the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages. The organization claims that such a surcharge would violate "federal and state laws related to antitrust, labor and racketeering." It has not explained how that extra penny would break those laws; nor has it explained why other surcharges routinely imposed by the growers (for things like higher fuel costs) are perfectly legal.

The prominent role that Burger King has played in rescinding the pay raise offers a spectacle of yuletide greed worthy of Charles Dickens. Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. "Florida growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit," a Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times.

Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger King has suggested that if the poor farm workers of southern Florida need more money, they should apply for jobs at its restaurants.

Three private equity firms - Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners - control most of Burger King's stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its Burger King investment within three years.

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn't be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million - more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company's good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.

Eric Schlosser is the author of "Fast Food Nation" and "Reefer Madness.

Bye bye Golden Globes not that I watch them.. but what will Joan Rivers do??

LOS ANGELES - Hollywood's glamour machine is stuck between a promise that the stars will still show up at next month's Golden Globes and a threat that 3,000 picketing writers will chase them away.

Snagged on these conflicting assurances, thousands of party planners, stars, filmmakers, executives, celebrity hand-holders and others over the last few days have watched the industry's deepening labor dispute, now in its eighth week, bring its annual movie awards race to a near halt. Indeed, whether the Globes will be broadcast has come into doubt.

Jorge Camara, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, reassured guests at its Christmas gala in Beverly Hills last Friday that the star power of the Globes, the organization's annual awards ceremony, would not be dimmed, according to several publicity executives who attended.

But Thursday, Jeff Hermanson, strike coordinator for the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East, still promised a showdown on the sidewalks around the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where the Globes ceremony is set to be produced by Dick Clark Productions and broadcast by NBC on Jan. 13.

Mr. Hermanson said in one of several interviews this week, "If the Globes is telecast and it is produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is a struck company, we will picket the show."

Panicked at the prospect of having to confront strikers as they walk up the red carpet, celebrities have sent what Hollywood publicity executives describe as a near-unanimous signal: If striking writers show up, the stars will not.

NBC, so far, is planning to forge ahead with its telecast, according to a person involved with the network's plans, who requested anonymity to avoid further roiling the waters.

Yet people who have dealt with the foreign press association in recent days said it was considering plans to salvage a bit of glow by scratching the telecast in favor of either a Webcast or, more likely, a purely private event. The ceremony, in its 65th year, was last staged without a broadcast in 1979.

The group's goal is to clear the way for Tom Hanks or Keira Knightley or George Clooney to appear without fear of crossing a picket line. That would avoid damaging the Globes' future value with a lackluster broadcast, giving NBC an incentive to step aside.

Spokesmen for NBC and Dick Clark Productions declined to comment, and representatives of the press association did not respond to queries. Mr. Hermanson said the show would be picketed if Dick Clark produced it for the Internet, but not if it were a live event with no broadcast or Webcast. (Continuing attempts to devise a show that would not draw pickets - for instance, by working without writers - have come up short.)

In any case, those caught in the middle already feel the pain.

"Of all the years, it has to happen this year," said Marvin Levy, a spokesman for Steven Spielberg, who is scheduled to receive an award at the Globes ceremony for his overall contribution to entertainment. Mr. Levy said the filmmaker would most likely not decide until after Tuesday whether to attend the event.

Planning for the studio-sponsored events that usually follow the Globes has proceeded, but only on the most tentative basis. "It's simpler to pull plans that are set rather than have to create out of whole cloth at the last second," a spokesman for Universal Pictures said in a e-mail message. That company and its sister unit, Focus Features, have been known in recent years for a rooftop party that would presumably be within earshot of Mr. Hermanson's chanting troops.

In an unusual convergence, NBC Universal has more on the line at the Globes than any other major media company. Its film studios lead the pack this year with a combined 20 Globes nominations, including one for best drama for the year's most nominated film, "Atonement," and a best comedy or musical nomination for "Charlie Wilson's War," which stars Mr. Hanks, also a nominee.

NBC has another six nominations for its various television shows, including the comedy "30 Rock." And, of course, the network usually reaps a one-night advertising bonanza from the broadcast - revenue that would be reduced if the audience switched off a show that delivered shots of guild foot soldiers on Wilshire Boulevard in place of celebrity presenters and the annual fashion parade.

The press association, a nonprofit organization of fewer than 100 international entertainment journalists, last year received net income of about $6 million from the ceremony, according to a statement filed with federal tax authorities.

Among the potential losers are film education programs that have received annual grants from the group. Last August, for instance, the press association gave $1.2 million to 28 recipients, including the Columbia University School of the Arts and the Sundance Institute.

Closer at hand, a dreary showing for the Globes would bode ill for the Oscars, which follow six weeks later on Feb. 24 and are scheduled for broadcast on ABC. The West Coast writers guild has already said it will not consider any request to let its members work on the show, though it stopped short of announcing plans to deploy pickets. The move has put extraordinary pressure on Jon Stewart, the prospective host, who would apparently be forced to ad-lib his way through the three-hour show, to avoid breaking guild rules.

A spokesman for Mr. Stewart did not respond to queries about his plans.

Strike or no, Hollywood's Oscar campaigners have not given up on the writers. The just-mailed issue of Written By, a magazine published by the West Coast writers guild, was fat with studio ads promoting movies like Universal's "American Gangster" and Fox Searchlight's "The Savages" for awards consideration. Also, the guild has said it will allow its writers to work on awards shows sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild, a staunch ally of the writers unions, and by Film Independent, which gives the Spirit awards.

But for the moment, Hollywood's Champagne season has gone flat.

"Officially, we have reserved our space, that's it," said Nancy Lesser, a spokeswoman for HBO, speaking of the network's plans to honor its 18 Golden Globe nominees - including the series "Big Love," "Entourage" and "Extras" - with a soiree at the Beverly Hilton's pool-side steakhouse, Circa 55.

Ms. Lesser added, "Everybody's in the same boat."