BOYCOTT BORDERS!


BORDERS BUSTS UNIONS
The IWW is engaged in a nationwide campaign to educate Borders customers about how the company harasses, threatens, and intimidates Borders employees who have attempted to unionize.

AN EXCELLENT BOOKSELLER IS FIRED
Miriam Fried, a Borders employee in Philadelphia, was fired by the company in 1996 in retaliation for her organizing activities. Reacting to a desire among its retail workers for representation by a union to protect their rights, Borders waged a strong anti-union campaign to discourage employees from unionizing. Following the union's narrow defeat in an NLRB election (the union lost by three votes) Miriam was fired on the pretext of refusing to follow company policy. She was really fired for her efforts to win a union for Borders workers.

ILLEGAL UNION-BUSTING
Borders has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on union-busting, flying top executives around the country, individually interrogating workers suspected of supporting the union, and prohibiting workers from speaking with union supporters even on their own time! The company published a manual for its stores instructing managers on how to recognize the "early signs of union activity" and stop workers from organizing. In July 1996, Borders disciplined IWW supporter Geri Harkin-Tucker (Boston) for discussing the need for a union with other workers on her own time in a break room. When workers at Borders' Lincoln Park (Chicago) store went union, Borders spokesman Jon Karvett said the chain keeps "open lines of communication from the CEO to the employees," going on to threaten workers' jobs: "I think that the store in Lincoln Park will recognize that the union won't work. I think in a year you'll see the Lincoln Park store close."

$13,000 A YEAR
Borders Inc. is the second largest bookstore chain in the country, taking in more than $1.7 billion a year from its 1,100 stores operating under the Borders, Brentano's, Planet Music and Waldenbooks names. Financial analysts point to Borders' well trained, customer-oriented staff as the chain's chief asset. But Borders' workers start at just $6.25 an hour (some stores pay only $5.50) and have no say in the conditions of their work. Borders workers across the country have approached the IWW and other unions to organize for better conditions. Borders management responded with captive meetings, a notorious union-busting attorney, intimidation, and firing union supporters. But while Borders' highly skilled workers toil for $13,000 a year, in 1995 Borders' two top executives were paid $790,000 each, and held stock worth nearly $28 million (excluding long-term stock options). Borders could easily afford to pay its workers a living wage, but it would rather illegally fire those workers brave enough to stand up for their rights.

BANNED BY BORDERS
Best-selling author Michael Moore was banned from future appearances at Borders after he spoke out in support of Borders workers' right to organize and demanded that Miriam Fried be reinstated. When Moore spoke in Iowa, Borders prohibited workers from attending. Borders also cancelled an order for hundreds of books from III Publishing, a small California publisher, after learning that it supported Borders workers' rights. Borders managers have threatened people across the country with arrest (and in some cases, with physical attack) for distributing information about its illegal union busting.

BOYCOTT BORDERS!
Borders workers need your help. No class-conscious person should patronize Borders or its subsidiaries (Brentano's, Planet Music, Waldenbooks) so long as this union busting continues. Please let Borders Inc. know you won't shop at their stores until they respect workers' right to organize. Phone Borders at (800) 644-7733, e-mail spokesman Peter Blackshear at pblacksh@borders.com or write Borders President Richard Flanagan at 311 Maynard St., Ann Arbor MI 48104.


Industrial Workers of the World
103 West Michigan Avenue
Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197
734-483-3548
iww@provide.net
http://parsons.iww.org/~borders

For More information: www.bari.iww.org/homesites/boycott.html

MPLU Note

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