Union Creates Jobs for Paul Saber's Panera in Western Michigan

A year or so ago, when bakers in Southwest Michigan voted to unionize, Bread of Life had one BMM running their Michigan holdings. After the National Labor Relations Board determined that the I-94 Corridor constituted a viable bargaining unit, Paul Saber directed his managers to madly scramble and reorganize in an attempt to look as if Grand Rapids, the Lakeshore, and the I-94 Corridor were one market, snuggly held together by two BMMs and a BTS web descending from GR. How nice. Just so Paul Saber knows, the 6th Circuit Court will not hear new evidence. We know . . . We tried, too!

So here we are. Since our union vote, we’ve seen the creation of one new BMM and an increase in the BTS stable by three, giving us a total of five. No part of bakery management came from the Kalamazoo area–all but one came from the Grand Rapids Market. No surprises there. They worry about that infection known as workers’ rights. They want to bounce their BTSs around so they don’t get attached to individual bakers or cafes; in this way, they can focus on strictly enforcing ‘specs’ in calibrations. Dating is critical, too . . . And paperwork. Only God knows how much administrative work Bread of Life foists on these poor souls. We can’t count the number of times we’ve looked up from our ovens to see two managers working hard at their computers. You’d think the BMMs would be handling all the administrative work, but, obviously, this isn’t so. Now we understand why we never saw our managers before: they had too much paperwork!

We have to know how Bread of Life can afford such a surge in in low-level bakery management. We learned part of the answer just the other night, after one of the never-ending calibrations. They’re still living through split shifts in Grand Rapids. Yep. Our sisters and brothers still have splits in GR. With all the increases in productivity and responsibility, we have to wonder how they manage. And how they feel. The Kalamazoo bakeries are cleaner, we’re told, but Bread of Life holds Grand Rapids to lower standards because of the splits. So Grand Rapids, how do you feel knowing how Bread of Life squeezes you so they can pay for absurd calibrations in Kalamazoo? Kalamazoo, do you see what Bread of Life has in store for you if they can crush our union?

We’ll close with some Boleslaus Biegas. He knew what was really going on behind the scenes. Evil is a real, personal force, and it wants to suck you dry. Proverbs 30: 15-16: The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is not enough. Can simple greed, a burning passion for acquisition, be enough to warrant treating human beings as Paul Saber’s Panera treats them?

 

 

About these ads