 |
Current mood:  angry Category: Music
Are you a musician who cares about the community?
Want to stand up for workers rights?
Join us in fighting a Real Monster!!
The Chinese Progressive Association calls all musicians with social
consciousness to join us in supporting the laid-off workers of Monster
Cable. Monster Cable, as you may know, is a Bay Area company producing high-end audio cables and other AV accessories which are popular with musicians.
Last October, Monster Cable laid off over 120 Asian and Latino
immigrant workers from their Brisbane, CA factory. Their jobs were
outsourced to low-wage workers overseas to increase company profits.
Laid-off workers had worked for up to 20 years at Monster Cable, producing the wealth which the company's executives enjoy today. Now most workers are in their 40s and 50s, the hardest age to find a new job, let alone change careers in a declining manufacturing industry. Monster Cable broke with past practice, offering a drastically reduced severance of just four weeks pay, and empty promises of help in re-employment.
Founder and self-titled "Head Monster" Noel Lee is an "entrepreneurial
success story" who made his wealth by selling expensive cables ($40 -
$400+) while paying Asian and Latino immigrant workers an average of just $11 an hour. He is trying to play the good local employer who cares about the community, while in reality he has joined the rest of the corporate bandwagon to exploit low-wage workers overseas.
Lee spent $6 million to name "Monster Park" (aka Candlestick Park in San Francisco), has annual sales of up to $1 billion, and is famous for his love of expensive toys;including a luxury car fleet valued at $5.5 million. Think
about how workers feel when they know that just one or two of the "Head Monster"'s 40+ fancy sports cars could resolve their demands.
Laid-off workers are demanding that the company pay a fair severance and contribute to the community which has been so severely impacted by mass unemployment. The company's response has been to ignore workers and manipulate the media. Too many corporations cut and run, depressing wages across the world and leaving unemployed families behind them.
Don't let Monster Cable get away with it.
3 EASY WAYS to HELP:
1. Join "In Tune with Justice!", the Musicians Solidarity Committee, by
signing onto a declaration endorsing the workers campaign with potential
boycott to come
2. Call and email the company and tell them you/your band supports the
workers demands. E-mail the CEO at headmonster@ monstercable. com, or try
calling him at 415-508-0000 (cell), or Tel: (415) 840-2000 Executive
assistant ext. 4387.
3. Hook us up with any and all other musicians! Monster Cable has a number
of musicians who officially endorse their products—so any connections to
these folks or assessment of who might be sympathetic, would be very
helpful as well. (see list below)
In solidarity,
OMNESIA
and
Shaw San Liu
Community Organizer, Chinese Progressive Association's Worker Organizing
Center.
415-391-6986 ext. 313
415-577-0628 cell
http://monstercable workers.blogspot .com
Musicians Who Endorse Monster Cable aka "Famous Monsters"
Aerosmith
Barenaked Ladies
Blink 182
Cheap Trick
Earth, Wind & Fire
Filter
George Benson
Gregg Rolie
Herbie Hancock
Hiram Bullock
J Mascis
Joe Perry
Kerry King
Korn
Lee Ritenour
Limp Bizkit
Linkin Park
Matchbox 20
Paul Jackson
DJ Qbert
Flea
Sammy Hagar
Slash
Tower of Power
Zakk Wylde
12:31 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|