Vol. 75/No. 19      May 16, 2011

Blood money is a good description of the one-off payments employers hand out as bribes to try to fool workers into believing the boss is their friend or at least their benefactor. Management hopes these payments will keep workers quiet in the face of speedup, benefit cuts, and its daily trampling on workers’ dignity. Refusing to be drawn in, communist workers take the money and put it to good use by contributing it to the Capital Fund.

The Grossmont Union High School District in San Diego gave a $170 check to school employees earlier in the year. The district “reduced its costs of health care for workers by increasing copays and payments and then claims to ‘gift’ the $170,” wrote Gary Willhite, who works for the district. He sent the check to the fund. “The blood money from the bosses is a bribe to suppress the fight back that is necessary to win,” he added.

The bosses are “attempting to tie workers to the company as if we have a ‘human’ relationship,” wrote Natalie Morrison, when sending in the $30 from a gift card she was handed by bosses where she works in Twin Cities in Minnesota. “We are working forced overtime and are bribed through ‘safety programs’ that encourage us to not report injuries, while being pushed to meet higher production levels.”

Mike Galati sent in $100 from Virginia, “the total of two bribes the bosses have given out to rail workers at my job over the last few months,” he said.

“The company where I work invented a shaggy-dog story to explain why we deserve a bonus,” noted Tom Fiske in the Twin Cities. “The real reason they gave is to defuse our anger at not getting a new contract and receiving an insulting and paltry $10 holiday bonus.” Fiske sent $140 to the fund.

Ted Leonard in Boston sent in $290. “At work they gave us a lump sum in lieu of a larger raise,” he said.

“A number of my coworkers commented that this gift card was no ‘gift’—we pay for it every day,” wrote Alyson Kennedy, about a Walmart card workers at Stampede Meatpacking received after the company laid off 40 temporary workers, and increased the workload for others. Kennedy sent in $25 to the fund.

Workers who want to contribute blood-money bonuses can write or call Militant distributors listed on page 8.  
 
 
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