| False Advertising? MPG Lays Off Workers While Profits Grow
By Diane Krauthamer ![]()
June 19, 2009
IWW members flier outside of Kmart
On Wednesday, June 17, members of the New York City IWW protested against the callous layoffs at Havas’ Media Planning Group (MPG), a multi-million dollar media agency whose clients include some of the largest corporations in the world.
MPG recently cut 11 percent of its staff, primarily at its headquarters in New York. But the media giant did not anticipate that one of its former employees, Joseph Sanchez, would publicize their anti-worker practices.
“This extremely profitable corporation laid me off just to put extra money in their pockets,” said Sanchez, who worked in the client accounting department. “Instead of making a living wage, I’m surviving off unemployment benefits and food stamps.”
Nearly a dozen IWW members handed out leaflets at a Kmart store in Astor Place in Manhattan's East Village in an attempt to encourage Kmart to stop advertising with MPG until a fair severance package is negotiated. Sears Holdings— the parent company of both Kmart and Sears, and one of MPG’s biggest clients—spent $590 million on ads in 2008.
MPG laid off approximately 50 of its 460 employees in New York, Boston and Chicago on April Fool’s Day. The company said that it needed to free up resources to support growth. According to a report in Media Buyer Planner, CEO for MPG-North American, Shaun Holliday, said the “reductions are not about ‘shrinking the business into a more profitable core—on the contrary, they are about finding and fueling growth.’”
In 2008, MPG's parent company, Havas—the sixth largest communications group worldwide—increased profits by 25 percent. In January 2009, Virgin Mobile agreed to use MPG as its media planning and buying agent. Virgin spends approximately $15-20 million per year on advertising. In February 2009, the recently- formed CBS Films, which plans to spend upwards of $100 million per year on advertising, agreed to use MPG as its media planning and buying account.
Despite the company’s wealth, MPG only gave workers a four-week severance package, which Sanchez says is simply “not enough time to find a new job.”
When Sanchez and his fellow workers were laid off, MPG also required that they sign an “Agreement of Separation & Release” in order to receive their severance pay. Included in this statement was the stipulation that the former employees would not “in any way denigrate any aspect of the company,” yet the agreement made no mention of the company not denigrating any aspect of the employee.
Now former employees are demanding the pay that they are owed, and the IWW is asking Kmart to stop advertising with MPG until they negotiate a fair severance agreement. For more information, please visit http://www.wobblycity.org or email iww-nyc@iww.org.
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Faced with Growing Uproar, Starbucks Settles Sixth Labor Complaint
By Starbucks Workers Union ![]()
June 09, 2009
Mounting Rights Violations Fan the Flames of Escalating Public Outcry
IWW Starbucks Workers Union
June 1, 2009
Minneapolis, MN – The Starbucks Coffee Co. settled a complaint today from the National Labor Relations Board over charges of violating workers’ rights --- the sixth such settlement in three years for the ailing coffee giant. The case comes as a new website (StopStarbucks.com) and viral video calling on CEO Howard Schultz to respect workers’ right to join a labor union spread like wildfire across the Internet. The new media initiative, from Robert Greenwald’s “Brave New Films”, has already been viewed over 60,000 times with a related petition garnering almost 15,000 signatures.
“This settlement proves that Starbucks executives are not above the law and cannot block hard working baristas from making positive change,” said Angel Gardner, a barista and member of the Starbucks Workers Union in the Twin Cities. “How can Starbucks claim that it maintains a positive work environment when one labor case after another exposes its lack of respect for employees?”
Pursuant to the settlement which stems from charges filed by the IWW Starbucks Workers Union, the corporation must cease engaging in a slew of illegal measures including threatening to call security to interfere with protected activity, prohibiting workers from discussing the union, and expelling union sympathizers from company stores. Today’s settlement is the first since a Labor Board judge found Starbucks guilty last December of similar rights violations in the first ever trial between baristas and the coffee chain.
“Howard Schultz needs to create quality jobs for hard working families, not just line the pockets of the fat cats at corporate headquarters,” said Erik Forman, a barista and member of the Starbucks Workers Union. “Our campaign for secure work hours, fair pay, and a voice at work gains momentum every day.”
The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is an organization of over 300 current and former employees at the world's largest coffee chain united for secure work hours, a living wage, and respect on the job. The union has members throughout the United States fighting for positive change at the company and defending baristas treated unfairly by management.
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Starbucks Workers Union- Twin Cities
Industrial Workers of the World
Web: Starbucksunion.org
Blog: Tcsbuxunion.com
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