NEWSpoetry 1999

(The reader should note that Supervalu is a large and profitable grocery wholesaler. They are trying to steal my job and tonight they are trying to ruin my poem. The 1-800 number may no longer work do to the effectiveness of the campaign against these corporate criminals. Would you please consider spending a few cents in solidarity by calling 1-612-828-4000 if it doesn't work and give them hell anyway?)

1-800-531-5421

Call the home office
Let them know that they’re doing
A lousy job
Union busting at the Champaign Distribution Center of
Supervalu
A Fortune 500 company
Which prides itself on a progressive atmosphere
Home office is in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Those folks would be shocked to find this out
They may be conservative
But they’re fair
And hiring an outside contractor to break a union
Is not fair.

Don’t take any guff
They are firing people
Who are good, efficient, and even loyal
But why should they work for less
When it is they who are an intregal part
Of a winning team
Remember
The Bulls laid off
A large part of a winning team
And they are just a bad joke this year
After all those "year-peats."

Its a free call anywhere in the US
And its fun
You could be a rich, but socially conscious investor
Who had all but decided to buy
Supervalu stock
Until you heard about this disgusting habit
Of union busting
Or maybe the brother of a store owner
Who would rather not be identified
Who won’t save a penny on his deliveries
But is sure his service will suffer

Don’t let them switch you to "Customer Service"
You want to speak to Mike Wright
The CEO
Who we are "Sure"
Would be appalled
If he knew what was really
Going on in Urbana
"This doesn’t look good, Mike!"
"It’s sure to tarnish
the Horatio Alger Award
you were given last year."

But perhaps that is just a myth
And Horatio got ahead
By treading over the lives
Of working people
Doing their best
To take care of the people they love most.

No one can make you do
What is only moral and just
You have to decide
Whether YOU choose to act morally and justly
No one should force you to be fair
You should just do it

Call the above number
Help save my job
And 150 others
And sleep better tonight
Cause we are all workers now
In a New World Order
That is just the Same Old Capitalists
Hungry wolves dressed
In the sheep clothes
Of mundane evil
As they kill jobs here
Just as they kill people in the former Yugoslavia
No one wants to take the blame
Its certainly nothing to be
Proud of.

TELL SUPERVALU IT'S WRONG (800) 531 - 5421 SUPERVALU IS ELIMINATING THE JOBS OF OVER 150 WORKERS IN CHAMPAIGN BECAUSE THEY TRIED TO ORGANIZE AS TEAMSTERS. OUTSOURCING ONE OF IT'S MOST EFFICIENT DIVISIONS WAS NEVER CONSIDERED UNTIL SUPERVALU BEGAN TO CUT WAGES AND BENEFITS, AND THE WORKERS ATTEMPTED TO ORGANIZE. PLEASE CALL THE NUMBER AND EXPRESS YOUR DISGUST WITH A COMPANY THAT MADE OVER 191 MILLION DOLLARS IN PROFIT LAST YEAR. - Roger Crisp