That will a certain local supermarket executive get in his stocking this Christmas? Local union activists hope it’s a big switch.
Don D’Amour, CEO of Big Y supermarkets, has achieved the dubious honor of being one of four nominees to be Mass. Jobs with Justice’s 2007 Grinch of the Year. The labor group gives out the award each year to highlight particularly egregious anti-worker behavior in the corporate and political world. As you might imagine, the competition’s fierce.
D’Amour’s rivals include Paul Levy, CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, whose management has led to clashes with the Service Employees International Union (JWJ smacks Levy for “attack[ing] workers’ rights and [fighting] patient safety measures”). There’s also Sandra Moose, a member of the board of Verizon (and, JWJ snarkily adds, a “Boston socialite”), which has had its own high-profile clashes with labor. The game’s heavy hitter, of course, is former governor and (God forbid) presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, nominated for his “'family values’ platform of union-busting, immigrant-baiting, homophobia, and corporate-controlled health care.”
But local election watchers are working hard to put their hometown candidate over the top. “Why should you vote for Don? Not just because Western Mass. is the perennial underdog in contests with the rest of the state,” Jon Weissman, coordinator of Western Mass. Jobs with Justice, wrote recently in a message to labor supporters.
D’Amour deserves the award, according to WMJWJ, in honor of Big Y’s refusal to meet with JWJ about—or even acknowledge—concerns relating to one of their meat suppliers, Smithfield Foods. Smithfield, a major pork producer, has been the focus of a national campaign by labor activists, who charge the company with horrific abuses and labor rights violations at its gigantic Tar Heel, N.C., processing plant. In October, Smithfield filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the United Food and Commercial Workers, charging the union with “malicious” attempts to damage its business. (For more on the labor campaign, see www.smithfieldjustice.com; for the corporation’s side of the story, see www.smithfieldfacts.com. See also “Bacon Battle,” Oct. 4, 2007, at www.valleyadvocate.com.)
As a sign of solidarity, Mass. Jobs with Justice has lobbied supermarkets in the region to stop carrying Smithfield products; they say both Stop and Shop and Atkins Farms readily agreed. But officials at the Springfield-based Big Y won’t even meet with the labor group, whose supporters include a host of local community groups, religious leaders and elected officials, including state Rep. Ben Swan, the Springfield City Council and Mayor Charlie Ryan.
This isn’t Big Y’s first clash with organized labor. The company has managed to keep its 55 stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut free of unions, and the Pioneer Valley AFL-CIO has long urged a boycott of Big Y for “its strong-armed commitment to operating non-union.”
While local labor supporters are working hard to win D’Amour the Grinch award (voting is taking place at www.massjwj.net), Big Y, apparently, is playing it cool. Its corporate office hasn’t returned calls from the Advocate about the Smithfield campaign.
—mturner@valleyadvocate.com
