Wed, 2 Sep 1998 22:14:52 -0700 (PDT)
	Wed, 2 Sep 1998 22:07:08 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 22:07:08 -0700 (PDT)
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Unequal Pay Calculator on the Web; Safeway Smile No Laughing
  Matter; Protest Notice Website Launched
From: "Local 27, HERE" <l27pswu@sysnet.net
Subject: an absurd amount of money

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 12:52:00 -0500
From: Cuc Vu <cvu@aflcio.org
Sender: Cuc Vu <cvu@aflcio.org
Organization: AFL-CIO

Friends,

Tomorrow at 10 am, check out the AFL-CIO's new equal pay website (a project
I've been working on for the last few months) to get "a greater jolt than
your morning java" (Kansas City Morning Star).  You'll be able to plug in
your age, education and current salary to see how much money you will lose
over your lifetime because of unequal pay.  I tried it on our test site, and
you won't believe how much I'm supposed to lose:  over $1.5 million!  The
figure would have been even higher if I wasn't a union member.

Point your browser to:  www.aflcio.org/women/equalpay.htm

It sounds bad enough when you hear that we're only paid $.74 to every $1
that men earn.  It's even worse when you realize that this wage gap will
compound to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over a lifetime of
work.

Pass the word on. -- Cuc.

================================

Safeway Clerks Object to Smile Rule 

By Kim Curtis
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, September 2, 1998; 5:54 p.m. EDT

MARTINEZ, Calif. (AP) -- Twelve Safeway employees have
filed grievances over the supermarket chain's
smile-and-make-eye-contact rule, complaining that they
are being propositioned by shoppers who mistake
company-required friendliness for flirting. 

Richelle Roberts, a produce clerk, said she is hit on every
day by men who think she is coming on to them. Another
produce worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
she has hidden in a back room to avoid customers who
have harassed her, propositioned her and followed her to
her car. 

``Let ME decide who I am going to say hello to with a big
smile,'' Ms. Roberts said. She added: ``A woman knows
where and when not to open that door for certain men.'' 

Safeway spokeswoman Debra Lambert acknowledged that
``sometimes customers get out of line,'' but said, ``We
don't see it as a direct result of our initiative.'' 

Under Safeway's ``Superior Service'' policy, employees are
expected to anticipate customers' needs, take them to
items they cannot find, make selling suggestions, thank
them by name if they pay by check or credit card and
offer to carry out their groceries. 

Safeway, which is based in Pleasanton and is North
America's second-largest supermarket chain, with 1,378
stores in the United States and Canada, began phasing in
the policy five years ago. 

But it was not until January that it began enforcing it by
using undercover shoppers and warning that negative
evaluations can lead to remedial training, disciplinary
letters and termination. 

A group of 12 women aired their grievances to Safeway
executives in August after refusing to meet individually,
and a male who said he'd been bothered by a female
customer joined the effort this week. The union also filed
charges in May with the National Labor Relations Board,
alleging that the ``superior service'' policy was illegally
imposed. 

``They've got battalions of MBAs who are coming up with
these policies who don't take into account the real-life
implications,'' said their lawyer, Matthew Ross. 

The union wants workers, especially women, to have more
freedom to choose not to make eye contact with a
potentially threatening customer or to refuse to carry
groceries out to a man's car at night. 

None of Safeway's 150,000 employees have been fired for
failing to be friendly enough, but 100 have been sent to a
daylong class, a sort of Smile School. 

``It's not about discipline. It's about treating customers
well and training employees to do that,'' Ms. Lambert
said. 

Ms. Lambert said that the complaints are coming only
from the two San Francisco Bay-area union chapters in
Martinez and Vallejo and that a survey of workers in
Northern California found them generally happy with the
policy. 

Outside a San Francisco Safeway on Wednesday, shopper
John Kruse said that the service is so uniformly smiling
and attentive, ``you'd have to be very narcissistic or stupid
to believe that the flattery was personally directed at
you.'' 

``I think if the women are being professional, I think it's a
problem with the male customers, not the employer,'' said
Brad Becker, who recently moved here from New York. ``I
think it's a shame that someone would interpret
courteous as flirtatious. It's not the same thing.'' 

``I didn't feel like anyone was coming on to me,'' added
41-year-old Daniel Woods. Still, he said, the results of
Safeway's policy can be unsettling. 

``It's strange. It doesn't feel normal,'' he said. ``I'm used to
shoving and pushing my way through the aisles. It was
really funny to have someone walk me to the plastic fork
section.'' 

      © Copyright 1998 The Associated Press

======================================

September 2, 1998


Protest Portal Unites Activists Under One URL

By BOB TEDESCHI 

   Like countless others, political organizers hailed the Internet as a
potential savior: a cheap, easy way to disseminate information, get
   people into the streets and change the world. Then came the grim reality
-- that you can't find an audience if you don't have a catchy
URL, a fat publicity budget or a major Web site to carry your link. 

What leftists have needed is a central source of information about current
issues and upcoming events --
a protest portal, as it were. And that is precisely what Evan Henshaw-Plath
has created. His site,
Protest.Net, offers worldwide protest schedules and links, free of charge,
under the umbrella of an easily
memorized URL. And while it may not be enough to save the summer of '98 from
drifting into activist
obscurity, it could bring new volume to civil disobedience in the future. 

"It's like finding the protest du jour," said David Ronfeldt, senior social
scientist at RAND. "Folks across the
conflict spectrum are resorting to network strategy and technology to help
dispersed individuals link up
and act jointly. This Web site fits that model." 

Other sites, like the Association for Progressive Communications and the
Institute for Global
Communications offer links to left-leaning activist networks such as
PeaceNet and EcoNet, but they don't
offer quick access to information about protests. With Protest.Net, not only
can a prospective protester
find out about an upcoming action in their region, they can also click on
different nations and find out
where similar efforts are underway. 

Although the site's creator goes by the e-mail moniker "rabble rouser," he
is more entrepreneur than
political dissenter. Henshaw-Plath, 21, created an Internet calendar
software program in college, and
recently received venture capital financing to develop it. 

"I was talking to some of my friends who are activists about how difficult
it is -- how, if you don't happen to see a flyer or if you're not in the
right circle, it's hard to know what's going on," he said. "So I took this
calendar software and started the site." 

   Since the June 1 launch date, Henshaw-Plath says "about 700" actions have
been posted on his site, "whether it's
   a 10-year-old kid in Australia who wants more humane treatment for wild
animals or union organizers who are
   conducting outreach sessions," he said. "With this, I can simultaneously
test my software and give something
   back to the activists." 

   And for publicity-hungry organizations, "it's definitely a big help,"
said Brett Wycker, co-founder of the
   Philadelphia chapter of the Coalition Against the Fur Trade and the Vegan
Resistance for Liberation. "It's too
   early to say what kind of impact it's had on our protests, but our name
for the vegan group isn't catchy, and the
   URL is a mile long, so to have our information in one condensed area is
great." 

   Henshaw-Plath said the site "hasn't been up long enough to see trends,"
but noted that "there was definitely a
   jump after the recent bombings" in Afghanistan and the Sudan. 

Indeed, the next protracted United States military operation should be a
watershed for protest sites and Internet-generated activism,
academics said. According to Jerry M. Lewis, professor of sociology at Kent
State University and one of two faculty members present at the
May 4, 1970 shootings, "With the Internet, the communication is immediate,
and the analysis starts immediately. If we'd had the Internet
back then, the reaction to May 4 would've been huge. It would've solidified
the anti-war movement." 

On the other hand, the sheer number of possibilities for information
gathering may paralyze potential activists, said Jack
Levin, director of the Program for the Study of Violence and Conflict at
Northeastern University. "Because you can find
seven or eight sides of an issue, it creates a cyber-environment in which
one form of protest has to complete against
another," he said. "People move faster when they hear one compelling
argument, and slower when they're confronted with
many sides of an issue. The question is whether someone would take the time
and effort to find out all sides, and that
remains to be seen." 

Another open question is what exactly qualifies as a protest worthy of
inclusion on the Protest.Net site. "It's really open to anything, unless
it's really offensive like the KKK," Henshaw-Plath said, noting that he has
not had to pull any protests from the site. "If it was a pro-life
protest, I'd probably suggest other ways to promote the cause. This just
isn't the right forum." 

Ronfeldt, of RAND, said another potential pitfall that could slow widescale
acceptance of Protest.Net and sites like it is that it may have
trouble attracting committed participants. "It sort of invites a lot of
revolutionary tourists, and happy-go-lucky activists who want to jump in
briefly," he said. "I wonder how the true activists will receive this." 

So far, the activists are happy to accept anyone who would have them. "If
anything, it's good, because it gets all types of audiences
interested -- people other than just young college kids," said Wycker of the
Coalition Against the Fur Trade and the Vegan Resistance for
Liberation. "We definitely want anyone to come out." 

     Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company