Sam Clemens, Union man

I know that Twain wrote about the riverboat captains' strike, but I cannot remember what the name of the work was that contained the narrative. Anyhow, what I remember is that, as Twain related the story, the riverboat captains of the Mississippi went on strike for higher pay and the owners of the riverboats finally gave in to the raise. However, the riverboat owners then raised the fares ten times what it would cost to cover the raise and blamed the boat captains' greed as the cause of the steep rise in fares.

This is typical of the duplicitous tactics of management to this very day. That is: to blame the victims of their socially irresponsible practices on the victims themselves!

Congressional report onW-M...

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Each Wal-Mart employee costs you $2,000

According to the KEA Reporter, "the official letter of the Kent Education Association":

"*Wal-Marts anti-union, low wage, low-benefit policies have left its employees in need of hundreds of millions of dollars in public aid for various health-care and social safety net programs such as food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.

* A congressional report estimates that the typical Wal-Mart store costs the federal taxpayers $420,750 a year-- more than $2,000 per employee.

* Many of our students and their families suffer harm as a result of Wal-Mart"s poverty level wages and benefits. The WEA Children's fund is therefore at cross-purposes when members use the fund to shop at Wal-Mart."


The only organization opposing the WEA is the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, an anti-union and anti public school organization that is partially funded by Wal-Mart through the Walton Family Foundation. The Olympia based organization is also partially funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, although the organization claims to be a grass-roots WA organization that is funded by in- state contributions.