Corporate bullying at the Olympics

Corporate sponsors are cracking down on what people wear to the games. If you try to wear a Pepsi T-shirt or Nike sneakers to the Olympics, you might be kicked out.

We're not kidding.

The Daily Record reports,

HEAVY-HANDED security chiefs will ban Olympic spectators for wearing the wrong brand of clothes, it emerged yesterday. 

Games boss Sebation Coe warned anyone wearing a Pepsi T-shirt is likely to be booted out because it would upset sponsors Coca-Cola. 

And he only said spectators in Nike trainers “could probably” be allowed in although Adidas are also backing the event. 

Coe defended the draconian move and said it was to protect corporate sponsors who have paid a fortune to be involved. 

It’s the latest example of a ruthless brand crackdown in the run-up to the London games. 

A cafe manager in London who displayed five bagels in the style of the Olympic rings was ordered to take them down. A butcher in Weymouth, Dorset, also had to take down five rings made from sausages. 

And police have been told to put sandwiches, crisps and chocolate in clear plastic bags to avoid breaking rules on advertising.

wikinut adds:

"Brand Police," some 300 or more, all decked out in purple caps and tops, have been given the right to enter shops and offices in London and bring court actions and levy fines up to $31,000 for the 'misuse' of such words as "gold," "silver," "bronze," "summer," "sponsors," and "London."

According to an article in commondrerams.org...."Bars and pubs have been warned that blackboards advertising live TV coverage must not refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympic deal, while caterers and restaurants have been told not to advertise dishes that could be construed as having an association with the event. 

At the 40 Olympic venues, 800 retailers have been banned from serving french fries to avoid infringing fast-food rights secured by McDonald's." 

Crap like this is why people think corporations have too much power. A poll taken in October by the Pew Research Center showed most people think corporations have too much power. According to the poll, 77 percent of Americans agree with the statement, "A few rich people and corporations have too much power in the U.S."

And at the Olympic Games.

Why privatization is usually a dumb-a** thing to do

Florida and Ohio could learn a thing or two from the Olympics about the minefield that is privatization.

The 2012 Olympic Games used G$S, a private firm, to guard the event. Somehow G4S didn't manage to hire enough staff. So the government called in 3,500 military personnel.

It was a scandal described as a "humiliating shambles."

Writes Peter Holbrook, CEO of Social Enterprise UK, in a letter to The Guardian:

The G4S debacle is a stark warning of what lies ahead. When private companies deliver public services, ultimately they answer to thirsty shareholders, not the taxpayer. It's inescapable: profit maximisation is a legal obligation for such companies.

Now Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants to privatize the Turnpike. And Florida Gov. Rick Scott won't give up his quest to privatize the prisons. Both are dumb-a** ideas. And both would hurt Teamsters, who work as toll collectors on the Ohio Turnpike and as corrections officers in Florida.

Kasich isn't earning much public support for his plan. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday on a hearing about the proposed privatization:

Of the 77 people in attendance Tuesday, 75 raised their hands to say they are against the governor's idea of privatizing the 241-mile toll road that spans Ohio from Indiana to Pennsylvania -- and many made strong statements for keeping the status quo. 

The vast majority in attendance at the Lorain County Transportation and Community Center agreed with the analysis of the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study that concluded the turnpike is an efficiently run, revenue-producing asset and, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Many Ohioans cited the disastrous Indiana Toll Road privatization (though Indiana's failed welfare privatization would have qualified for comment as well).

In Florida, former Department of Corrections Commissioner James McDonough said this week that prison privatization is "a risky business". McDonough was interviewed by the The News Service of Florida:

There are some things government has to do. If you're going to be incarcerating its citizens, that's a state function, not a for-profit function. Right away, you have problems when you take that approach. 

I think Florida became a very lucrative state to market private prison systems and the services that came with it. The medical issue, I think, is tied in with all of that. If the state is going to arrest people and put them behind bars, it picks up the obligation to look after their health – and not market that out to the most attractive bidder, which usually means the lowest bidder.

I'm not surprised Florida became such a target for the private companies. It's a huge market, and became, on the surface, an attractive way to go. 

Now, in my opinion, it's the obligation of the state. I think if it becomes the obligation of the state, it'll be justly met. But if you turn it into an enterprise, with commercial profits involved, it's a risky business.

McDonough also said private companies pay corrections officers the lowest wage possible. That means substandard control of the prisons. And in the end, it isn't cheaper to farm out prison operations to a for-profit company.

Said McDonough:

Clearly there was an effort to send to the privates the easier inmates to handle. That meant that you don’t have the more misbehaving inmates or the more dangerous inmates or the more medically ill inmates going to the privates. So for the privates, that becomes an advantage. If you're not working overtime to take care of all of that, and spending the money, then the overall outcome appears to be less expensive. 

But it's not. When [private prisons] grow and take increasing percentages of the inmates, they get the ill as well as the well. They get the violent as well as the non-violent. They get the dangerous as well as the stable, and so on. So I always thought that the selling point that it could be done at a percent less than it cost the state to care for an inmate was absolutely skewed data.

Unions to Olympics: Don't buy from union-busting supplier

Here's how to inspire a generation: Risk your job to make sure your kids have the same good wages and benefits that you have. 

That's what steelworkers in Alma, Quebec, are doing. They refused to accept a contract that allows their employer to replace retiring union workers with temporary workers at half the pay.

On Jan. 1, the nearly 800 steelworkers were locked out of the Alcan aluminum smelter by their employer, ruthless mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. (That, btw, is what happened on Aug. 1 to Sotheby's Teamsters who stood up for the same principle.) 

Teamsters are supporting the locked-out workers in Alma,  just as we supported locked-out miners at Rio Tinto's borax mine in Boron, Calif., two years ago.

Rio Tinto is the official supplier of 99 percent of all the gold, silver and bronze used in the Olympics medals.Unions throughout the world are asking the International Olympic Committee NOT to buy from Rio Tinto.

An Olympic triathlete, Helen Russell, posted a terrific blog about the dispute. She asked whether the London games will be the "fair play" Olympics:

On 1st January Rio Tinto locked out 780 workers who were campaigning against the company’s contracting-out of jobs. The workers are trying to stop apparent attempts by the company to replace retiring unionised workers with precariously employed contract workers earning half the wages and no pension benefits. 

Workers argue that this is driving down wages and living standards of the community despite the smelter being highly profitable.

The workers in Alma were allegedly locked out of the factory without warning, in the middle of the night on New Year’s Eve. They have since been locked out for five months and the plant has been operating with non-unionised workers at about one-third capacity.

Russell hits a home run with this paragraph:

The workers are not campaigning for a pay rise but rather fighting to protect decent jobs in their community for the next generation. In my opinion, these workers are putting into action the Olympic motto of ‘inspiring a generation.'

Couldn't have said it better ourselves.