Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He's also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.

Fashion’s victims

May 092013
 
 Features
JoeFreshBangladesh

Corporate greed makes disasters like the recent Bangladesh factory collapse almost inevitable.

by Jim Hightower

You see the clothes in stores across our country and around the world: colorful and stylish clothing with happy-sounding brand names like Children’s Place, Papaya, Joe Fresh, and Mango. But you don’t see the factories where these cheerful garments are made. Nor are we shown the strained faces of the impoverished workers who make them, paid little more than a dollar a day for long, hard shifts.

We only catch a glimpse of the grim reality sewn into these happy brands when yet another factory is in the news for collapsing or burning down, bringing a grotesque death to hapless workers trapped inside.
Continue reading »

Step away from that desk

Feb 042013
 
 Workplaces
Workers face the corporate theft of the lunch hour.

Don't let your boss steal your lunch break.

by Jim Hightower

Do you eat lunch at your desk? Alone? Continuing to work as you chew?

Welcome to the new wondrous world of work in which employees feel intense pressure from bosses to labor right through lunch. In a survey, 62 percent of people with desk jobs said they grab a snack and keep working during lunch, rather than taking a pause to step outside, clear their heads, socialize with co-workers, and recharge.

By creating a nose-to-the-grindstone climate, companies are able to extract an extra hour of work — unpaid — from every cube captive who foregoes taking that noontime pause.

By creating a nose-to-the-grindstone climate, companies are able to extract an extra hour of work — unpaid — from every cube captive who foregoes taking that noontime pause. This is yet another product of the corporate autocracy’s tightening grip over a union-free workplace. It’s not exactly a morale-builder, for it increases both stress and resentment.

So guess who’s doing something about the corporate usurpation of lunch? Corporations! Not by empowering workers, of course, but by exploiting their resentment. McDonald’s, a notorious union buster in its own workplaces, recently launched a perverse, workers-of-the-world-unite advertising campaign under the slogan, “It’s your lunch. Take it.”

By “take it,” McD’s is saying that distressed desk jockeys should “overthrow the working lunch” by darting out for a calorie-packed Third Pounder Deluxe burger at McDonald’s. Likewise, KFC and Applebee’s have concocted crass PR pitches to divert legitimate worker anger into lunch consumerism in their chain store eateries.

The corporate theft of the lunch hour is not some hokey ad gimmick — it’s a real assault on the basic ethic of workplace fairness. For information and action check out a “Dear Abby”-style column written by AFL-CIO’s organizing director, Dave Wehde. Called “Dear David,” the weekly column addresses problems that people are having in their workplaces.

A newsworthy investment

Jan 072013
 
 Media files

Contarian newspaper beefs up reporting to attract readers.

by Jim Hightower

Let us address the declining fortunes of today’s mainstream mass media.

(Yes, I can hear your pained screams of “Nooooo…we don’t want to!” However, we really must, because it’s not about them, but us — about our ability to be at least quasi-informed about who’s-doing-what-to-whom-and-why, in order for us to be a self-governing people. So buckle up, here we go.)

The honchos of America’s newspaper establishment are quick to blame the Internet for their loss of readers, not noticing that their own product has fallen victim to conventional wisdomitis. This affliction leaves them printing little more than the contrived “wisdom” of the corporate powers. It’s not a big selling point with readers.

Orange County Register Editor Ken Brusic notes that offering less to subscribers and charging more not only is a ripoff and an insult to readers, but a sure path to failure.

Ironically, this narrow perspective not only saps their sense of what’s “news,” but also their business sense. For example, with readership declining, the accepted industry response by owners and publishers is to fire beat reporters, shrink the news hole, reduce reporting to rewrites of wire service articles, and run hokey PR campaigns hyping the shriveled product as “Real News.”

But here’s some real news they might want to consider: the new owners of the Orange County Register are blazing a contrarian path toward reviving their paper’s prosperity. Editor Ken Brusic notes that offering less to subscribers and charging more not only is a ripoff and an insult to readers, but a sure path to failure. “So,” he says, “we’re now offering more,” expanding the Register’s newsroom, its coverage, and the paper’s size.

Gosh — hire real watchdog reporters, dig out real news, and make the paper relevant to local readers — what a novel notion for a news business! Of course, the conventional wisdomites are sneering at this unorthodox approach. “It’s not what most people are doing,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute.

Exactly — and that’s why it’s so promising.

Mother Nature doesn’t quit

Jun 062012
 
 Science matters

Monsanto's poison now so common that weeds are resistant.

by Jim Hightower

Rather than find ways to cooperate with the natural world, America's agribusiness giants reach for the next quick fix in a futile effort to overpower nature. Their attitude is that if brute force isn't working, they're probably not using enough of it.

Monsanto, for example, has banked a fortune by selling a corn seed that it genetically manipulated to produce corn plants that won't die when sprayed with the Roundup toxic weedkiller. Not coincidentally, Monsanto also happens to manufacture Roundup. It profits from the seed and from the huge jump in Roundup sales that the seed generates. Slick.

Continue reading »