TELL THE FDA WHAT YOU THINK!
Would you like your eggs poached, fried, boiled … or irradiated?
If the Bushites get their way, producers of some eggs, fruits, veggies, and spices will be allowed to zap their products with a high dose of ionizing radiation – without bothering to tell us consumers about it. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed a new rule okaying the use of radiation treatment to help extend the shelf life of the foods. This is a technological fix that can fatten the profits of the corporations, even though it can also do unpleasant things to the food’s taste, smell, and texture – as well as raise the price.
Oh, and one more bit of unpleasantness. The health and safety impacts of dosing our edibles with a level of radiation that’s the equivalent of 33 million chest X-rays is, to say the least, problematic. So, the irradiators are making you part of a grand health experiment! Good luck!
Even when the FDA determines that a certain irradiated food should be labeled, Bush and Company propose to let them use the more benign phrase “pasteurized” rather than “irradiated.” This is because lobbyists for the big food processors complain that irradiation is a word that “has such a negative impact on the consumer that it acts as a warning label.”
Well, duh … yes! We should be warned that the food we buy and feed to our families has been zapped with radiation. If this process is perfectly safe, as the industry shills insist it is, why don’t they want us to know about it? If it’s a great consumer benefit, as the food processors claim, they should want to plaster the product with a big, bright label bragging, “Now Irradiated!”
Why should we buy a process that corporations are afraid to put on their labels? FDA’s public comment period runs until July 5. To tell ’em what you think, call Food & Water Watch: 202/797-6550.
CIRCUIT CITY’S ‘WAGE MANAGEMENT’ SCAM
Corporations keep inventing Orwellian words of newspeak to disguise the nastiness of their continuous job cuts. For example, instead of using the honest term, “fired,” the latest fad is for companies to say they have “eliminated redundancies in the human resources area.” No doubt that makes the fired workers feel much better.
Circuit City, however, has taken the firing game to a new level of absurdity by figuring out a whole new way to eliminate those “redundancies.” The giant electronics retailer says that it is simply doing away with the jobs of 3,400 of its most-experienced, highest-paid hourly workers. Are they fired? Technically, no. Circuit City says that those jobs no longer exist, so the jobs were eliminated, not the employees. However, Circuit City says 3,400 new jobs will be created – for doing the exact same work. Only, at lower pay. Those out-of-work salesclerks will be allowed to apply for the new low-paying jobs.
Wouldn’t that be a demotion? Tut-tut, corporate America no longer uses such a tacky word, preferring to substitute the term, “negative advancement.” In other words, down is up – though it pays less.
Continuing its descent into the hell of corporate-speak, Circuit City coldly referred to the offing of its top workers as a “wage management initiative.” Let’s take a peek at the genius managing this backward initiative, shall we? CEO Philip Schoonover’s salary, bonus, and other compensation added up to $8.5 million last year. That’s more than double the pay that the CEO of Circuit City’s top competitor received. And – get this – Schoonover’s hefty sum came as he presided over a 21% drop in his corporation’s stock price. Circuit City’s Web site continues to profess loyalty to the rank and file, declaring: “Our associates are our greatest assets.” Uh … wouldn’t those be the assets you just kicked out the door?
This article appears in April 20 • 2007.