Saturday, June 04, 2005

    Blurbs For Your Weekend

    To quote an Al Qaeda training manual (which was captured in the UK), when an Al Qaeda operative is captured "brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security". They have been following their manual well, and Shamnesty International is happy to propagate their deception.
    Italian Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni suggested in the daily Repubblica that Italy -- which had already ratified the EU constitution -- should hold a referendum on whether to quit the euro and go back to using the lira. Is the European model falling as Maroni claims? No country wants to be the last on a sinking ship - but will it recover?
    Tillamook union employees want to continue to receive "free" healthcare coverage but with healthcare costs rising the company is asking they pay 5% of the costs themselves. They have gone on strike and the cheese company continues to operate (good for them). I had heard they might outsource some of this labor - hope so. The striking employees are obviously not happy where they are at so they should just leave and take their super-skills and overpaid buns to another employer that will give them what they think they deserve. No one forces them to work there. Companies have rights too!

    2 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    not related to labor unions, but I have been boycotting Tillamook for a few years now because of their buisness practices. They did a hostile takeover of the Bandon cheese factory and laid off the entire staff. They still sell cheese under the Bandon label, but it is made in Tillamook using a different recipe. One of the best small businesses in Oregon, and one of the best sources of quality cheese, destroyed by a company whose products are no better than Kraft.

    What's worse: Tillamook is lawsuit happy. They seem to think that the can copyright the names of the cities where they have business interests. Businesses that have the words Tillamook and Bandon in their names have been sued, like the Bandon True Value Hardware (do they really think anyone will confuse this with the cheese shop, especially since it is located IN Bandon, where the entire town is intimately aware of the whole thing?). They even tried to sue a cheese maker in Bandon, Ireland (Bandon, Ireland, had been so named for a few millennia longer than Bandon, OR).

    So basically I hate Tillamook.

    JustaDog said...

    First, there is no such thing as a hostile takeover - aside from the movie Wall Street (I like). Someone takes over someone else only if there are people willing to sell off their shares - just business. HOWEVER - I'd really be against the corporation using the name of a town as if it is their property. If anything the town of Tillamook should be suing them - Bandon too.

    I don't buy Tillamook cheese anymore because I did know it was taken over and no longer a true Oregon company - but most of all because, like you said, it's no better than Kraft now. I drove past their facilities in Tillamook, which seems to be a favorite stopping post for the big Motorhome crowd. I'm not in that gang, lol.

    Thanks for your comment!