Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Birthday Greeting By Maxine
The barbarian hordes
gently rocked,
with lullabies from my
lack of imagination,
thought reveals escape routes
unexplored.
trails must
to escape the media invasion,
new descent of the barbarian hordes.
arrive in places where we can
reorganize the resistance. 
gently rocked, with lullabies from my
lack of imagination,
thought reveals escape routes
unexplored.
trails must
to escape the media invasion,
new descent of the barbarian hordes.
arrive in places where we can
reorganize the resistance.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Why Does My Ovary Hurt
along precarious time pre-election Reflections
I read just today of the abuse suffered by a cashier chain Esselunga ( Mobbing, a cashier in tears "Humiliated, I thought I would die" - The Republic March 1, 2008). Unfortunately I do not think that such incidents should be regarded only as isolated cases in this country democratically now in disarray.
The capital fact, allying with the organic political class has managed to impose the implementation of Economic and Financial Policies which provide for the subordination of individual rights and labor market needs (Law 30, Article attempts at suppression. 18 of the Statute of Workers, social security reform, etc. ...).
The owners of this country have justified these policies, anyway, sacralization and calling them inevitable (inevitable when there is only death). Then, when it could be time to redistribute the wealth, have opposed those justifying chosen and international economic difficulties.
obviously suffering from dementia: strange that not ever remember that thanks to these economic difficulties have continued to enrich their international (perhaps exploiting the poor getting poorer).
unions how they react to this? Introduced into the organic market have no real interest in defending workers' rights. If for example Esselunga protest actions more egregious consisted in the proclamation of a one-day strike and a garrison of solidarity with the worker. seems to me a little 'bit as a gesture of solidarity with a person who is not only been harassed employers unacceptable but which has also been physically assaulted.
For fear of being considered the usual left-wing extremist who raves against the master class I searched on google the words harassment and essex. Surprise of the surprises of the pages found there was one of Diario.it .
The article is dated August 1, 2002 and I thought I'd mention it in its entirety.
Esselunga, short shorts rights
Sandro Gilioli ( Diario.it - August 1, 2002)
Esselunga supermarket chain has spread to the Centre-North. The first store was opened in 1957 in Milan. Today the group has over one hundred offices, located in Lombardy, Tuscany, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Veneto. The turnover of the company, which employs approximately 13 000 people, more than 3.36 billion euro a year.
MILAN
anyone notices Berlusconi and Tremonti that their model of free trade already exists in Italy. It is experienced every day, in company with 13 000 employees and only one master. A company where the union does not exist, or almost, and even working on May 1. A company where modern theories of motivation are mixed to the old authoritarian factory. A business 'total', it has been called, because it tends to abolish the individual identity by crushing all the single objective of quality and profit. A company that fires without any problems (few) people who denounce the indoor climate. A company that wants to be highlight of the new capitalism, yet shun the stock market because its owner does not intend to share the management, it gives interviews and takes pictures as possible.
In this company you've probably come sometimes you, especially if you live in the North. Esselunga is called, is one of the giants of Italian distribution. And it is there, between the cheese counters and shelves of canned goods, you discover where they want bring Berlusconi and Tremonti.
Behind the model of aggressive neo-capitalism embodied by Esselunga is an old man named Bernardo Caprotti. Opened in 1957, with the help of American billionaire Nelson Rockefeller, the first Italian supermarket: it was - and still is - in Viale Regina Giovanna, Milan. The group was called "Italian Spa Supermarkets," but then they start (designed by Max Huber chart with a long tail) came to give it its current name. So most of the feedback was negative, if not ironic, but the Italians are accustomed to shop from home, they said, will never do shopping in a huge warehouse where they are not icy not served.
Then we saw what happened. Today the chain bill nearly three and a half billion euro per year and the stores are a hundred, mostly concentrated in Lombardy and Tuscany.
Since its inception, Esselunga played - or perhaps even anticipated - the zeitgeist. In the early sixties, for example, those American-style stores were the symbol of modernization and were soon imitated by others (including cooperatives red). Later, while around the world spreading the youth protest movement, in Esselunga coined the slogan "Do the shopping, not war." In 1979, with inflation flying more than 20 percent, the slogan became: "Esselunga, prices courts." In the nineties and 2000, the Zeitgeist did prevail irony, and here are the award-winning campaigns Armando Testa agency as "Mickey Mouse or radish?", "Bunny or kiwi?" Until the recent 'John Lemon' and 'Sitting Porro " .
Esselunga The paradox is that officially is a company model, politically correct and open minded. In its website, for example, ensures to provide a "fair wage" to all, prides itself not to sell GM foods and that it has entered into agreements with the associations for fair trade. The Press Office adds that the agreement is supplementary to the highest levels of pay and the actual working time is 36 hours per week, compared with the 38 other chains. In short, an idyllic picture. But clashes terribly with the reality that is emerging from a few months ago, when - little by little - some employees and former employees have started to come out about the overturning of Caprotti an impressive amount of accusations, they speak - in letters to local newspapers and e-mail sent to various sites chainworkers - continues to blackmail, bullying diffuse, visual inspection of forced part-time workers to full-time, anti-union activity and harassment inspectors.
But the bubble has really exploded in recent months, in Lombardy when the company fired and sued (with request millionaire damage) two of its employees - and Massimo Brunetti Cosmi Panza - who had on a website called "mafia" the company's attitude towards staff. This act of force has proved to be half boomerang, because the dispute has finally persuaded the union to open the file Esselunga, by coming to the surface (and no longer anonymous) dozens of complaints about working conditions, the climate of fear inside and the great arbitrariness - the limit of absolute power - with which the leaders manage shifts and duties, Sundays and overtime, permits and penalties. John Gazzo, the secretary of Uil-TuCs Lombard, use a lexicon about a bit 'harder: it speaks of "a company where there is a strict system of control of the sacred canon, a system where all controllers are controlled, a world totalitarian regime in fact, a case of denial of freedom and psychophysical person, a place where a process of annihilation of the rights of workers and those who do not delivery to be inserted in the black book. " According to Gazzo, to talk about bullying all'Esselunga is an understatement, because "the enforcement mechanism is larger and applies to all employees: it is a structural and occasional bullying, which is inherent in the organizational culture of the company, which means the removal of rights such as flexibility, according to an ideology of extremism business. " Gazzo inspectors and heads of states that have a habit of "encircle the individual employees in isolated corners of the workplace to intimidate with reproaches and pressures." And he concludes: "In Esselunga there is a relationship between the extraordinary gains and extraordinary absence of rights."
Chainworkers. Words seem heavy, but if you go to hear some other trade unionist who has had to deal with Esselunga, one realizes that Gazzo is actually a moderate. Bruno Rastelli, Filcams of the CGIL, the company Caprotti compared to a polluting factory. Alex Foti, one of the young employees of retail chains that have created the site chainworkers.org, proposes a "unified campaign against Esselunga with pickets in front of supermarkets, mass boycott of the critical inputs and products." Just search chainworkers, moreover, appear more testimonies of workers and former workers Esselunga who speak of 'fierce controls, "" despotic relations' and' flexibility wild ", so" you know when you start the round but you never know when you finish '. Request to provide a response to these accusations, responds with Esselunga these four words: "It is correct."
And you get the same reply, the same, once the company a few questions about events that took place in Florence, at the supermarket on Via De Amicis, a few months ago where an employee died suddenly during opening hours: the colleagues, shocked, they asked the management to suspend sales for at least half an hour as a sign of respect, but the ideology of the market has prevailed and Esselunga did not close even for a minute. Similarly, no explanation is given in relation to another complaint that comes from mass, where the company would use young people on short term contracts (and thus more open to blackmail) to replace permanent employees participating in strikes. The case ended up in Parliament (by a search of MEP Elena DS cords), but Esselunga refuses to enter into the merits merely a curt: "It's all false." It is certain, however, that training contracts are used in abundance throughout the company Caprotti, because they create power relations rather unfavorable to the worker, desperately looking for confirmation at the end of twenty months and therefore willing to do anything in terms of time and tasks.
More silence by the leadership on the big supermarket in San Donato Milanese where employees have revealed to the local weekly paper L'Eco di can not even go to pee: in fact the supervisors are out the door and knock a few minutes. With a lot of business confidentiality even when you are up against when we ask for explanations on Jasmine, a Somali worker who was serving 23 years all'Esselunga Casalecchio (Emilia), but depended on a cooperative external cleaning on the first day of Ramadan, the girl of Islamic belief, has aroused the ire of the supermarket manager for having presented it with a veil on her head, and was fired. "They told me: either the work or the veil," says Jasmine. He adds: "Truly, mine was not even a chador, but a simple red scarf decorated that left his face uncovered."
Caprotti The company is called out, "We have outsourced the cleaning of Casalecchio to a company with its own staff, which carries out the service independently. There is therefore no relationship between Esselunga and staff of the contractor: the lady in question was an employee of that company. In short Esselunga is unrelated to the facts. " Yeah. Sin to complain that the veil was not cooperative, but the direction of the local department store. And pity that after being sent away from the supermarket, the employee has been summarized by the cooperative to do the cleaning in another place, a nursing home, where no one has objected to the handkerchief. What
outsourcing, namely the use of outside staff, moreover, is another aspect of the new capitalism of which you willingly Esselunga interpreter. The union complains that the basic principal of the company, in Pioltello, near Milan, "internal and external work side by side," but "the latter are forced to workload almost doubled, with long shifts day and decided, often in the absence of safety measures. " The local health authorities, according to the trade union base, found an incidence of accidents among worker-members of ten times higher than that of employees 'direct' in supermarkets. Also in Pioltello emerged some time ago, story of a thirty Filipinos (including their employees of a cooperative) fired for trying to trade unions. Esselunga, of course, says he does not have anything to do: Asians were of another company, "we have won all the cases that we have done."
yet to explain Filcams Cgil Milan, one can not simplistically Caprotti paint like a master of the ironworks and Esselunga as a concentration camp where all the workers would rebel. The real situation is more jagged and company policy as well. Sure, there are strict controls and inspections continue the organization, sometimes bullying and harassment, but employees - especially the pictures - also are encouraged with awards and promotions to an extent wider than the competition. The philosophy of high quality products, a true ball of Caprotti, is used to engage staff and make him feel part of a project to serve the consumer. And who shows to adapt to the business model, those who accept the ritual hierarchy, who offers the highest availability, who avoids the spread of auditors, who offers coffee to his superior, who is interested in a good display of goods and cleaning of the corridors, those who ask for news on receipts of the day, in other words those who agree to live as a family business is not abused at all. Or rather, get promises of career and shifts better. Even so, perhaps, explains the difficulties that the union met in many supermarkets, "those that do not fit" at the end represent a minority and their anger is not easily or solidarity or representation. Even more so in a company that 'accepting the union in the factory is like taking the whores in the house, "as he elegantly argued Esselunga a director in Milan, created some embarrassment at the same Caprotti.
By contrast, the incentive policy, especially at the highest levels, gives a reputation for Esselunga the myth-in supermarkets. In particular, there are buyers (the buyers of those goods Esselunga which then resells it to retail) that with time there's a net gain of around 6-7000 € per month. Their creation myth is an old business model and, of course Guaitamacchi, speaking half Italian and half in Milan has grown over the decades, the current generation of buyers, also accustomed to working 14 hours a day, sending them in the morning at six markets General chicken and meat.
social research. This mix of authoritarianism and awards - a model to many aspiring entrepreneurs who see their idol Caprotti - convinced the UIL-TuCs Lombard sull'Esselunga start a sociological study, in collaboration with the cooperative Sensitive the leaves, one created by Renato Curcio. The result is a newly published book titled just that the company total (Sensitive to the leaves, 104 pages, 12 €). The theoretical field of research is all retail, but the union has no difficulty in explaining that "the imaginary company 'appears in the book is nothing but a group of Caprotti. "The title," said Curcio, "refers to the fact that, as a prison or mental hospital, sometimes the company became an institution encompassing, that totally takes the life of a person, an individual whose identity has not nothing because it is embedded in the identity business. " To tell Esselunga and other similar companies, Curcio a long way: from a Japanese Zen monaco, Sotetsu, who was educated from an early age to the discipline, obedience and submission to his order, which must be loyal to the death. In short, it grows in the cult of self-sacrifice in the name of a great cause. Throughout his life, however, sees Sotetsu change (twice) before the eyes of the great cause to which all offer: the first is the monastic order, then (during World War II) is the emperor, and finally (after the war) is the company. In fact, in the fifties and sixties Sotetsu discovers that the same Zen master who had taught him everything is passed to the service of the corporation and that the same principles (of the collective intake and elimination of personal identity) are applied within organizations to create more involvement and more productivity. Sotetsu committed suicide in 1983, but the dynamics exhibited by him will spread quickly outside of Japan, to combine with the demands of the new capitalism. "And the retailers," said Curcio, "now applies the same personal denial of personal identity borrowed from Japanese culture." Schemes, where the key word is 'availability' to the company, both in terms of hours membership is as ideological. Curcio calls it "a ipermobbing" because it requires the employee to conform his person to the interests of the company from day one that takes service. And the suffering it causes, the suffering caused by the suppression of the ego, eventually finding an outlet in medicalization, that is, in drugs, consumption of which in Italy is growing geometrically.
so clear, in a rather violent, another aspect in which Esselunga best represents the worst of modernity, that is, the absolute prevalence of the consumer on the manufacturer. A 'side effect' of neo-capitalism that the quality of the product offered the consumer is sacrificed the quality of life imposed on the manufacturer. "Customer satisfaction is the main business value," read the brochure of the group: what is concealed is the human cost, existential, behind the idolatry of customer service. "Sooner or later," says Gianni Rodilosso, national secretary of Uil-TuCs Esselunga and former employee, "you will notice that the consumer is nothing but a producer who has finished his shift. This is true for large retailers such as call centers, for fast food companies as the Old Economy. But this is no easy or immediate path. "
CONTRACTS Halter. In the meantime, the old Bernardo Caprotti continues to personally inspect its stores and in disguise, perhaps with his son Joseph and dolphin. They are going to make sure the vegetables are fresh, clean corridors and fast cash. Most frequent target, the department store Viale Piave, Milan, not far from the apartment of the owner of supermarkets. A fear of such raids are not only workers in the chain, but also its suppliers, including producers of wine and tortellini, toilet paper or beans that aspire to have their goods on display in stores well Esselunga "famous for the quality" (as stated by another company slogan). The point is that getting on the shelves of Caprotti is not easy: a half-mouth, the suppliers say that the group requires contracts and discounts halter fierce, with no guarantee of sales, thanks to its corporate image, especially in cities like Milan and Florence. And who does not bend, is out: in the eighties caused a sensation with Barilla a fight that cost the group a long Emilia Mulino Bianco excluding products from the shelves of the distribution chain. Some, including suppliers, speaks explicitly of "blackmail," but the word is spoken only in the most absolute anonymity.
Esselunga Others define a "party hard but reliable," which places heavy conditions but also ensures the effective display of products in the agreed areas, as opposed to other competing groups.
Caprotti to wonder if all this recent fuss around Esselunga interested or not. More likely, the company that will annoy family history like hers became the subject of sociological studies and is considered the tip of quell'iceberg that neoliberalism is pervasive. He, for the extreme confidentiality in dealings with the media was even compared to Enrico Cuccia. He has invested billions sewing, year after year, a positive and politically correct about his team, prohibiting (first in Italy, along with the Coop) all feed transgenic and focusing on the organic market. He who has sponsored and natural ecological reserves, such as the Swallow's Farm, a park just opened on the Lipu Ticino. He has made arrangements with associations "Left" as Ctm Altromercato to bring in retail products fair trade. He, finally, gave birth to a project against child labor in the Third World, by inserting between the premiums of the Fìdaty Card footballs antisfruttamento guaranteed under the slogan "Esselunga the side of children."
Yeah, Fìdaty Card, the little big brother in the supermarket version, introduced by Caprotti in 1994 and now in the hands of more than two million people. More than 90 percent of sales business, now passes through this filter. Paper comes in several versions, but basically serves the same purpose: to offer discounts and premiums in exchange for their most valuable resource in the new capitalism, ie the information. In particular, information about customers' tastes, buying habits, behavior in the face of a new packaging, to promotion, to a particular position on the shelves.
Fìdaty But it also reveals the interests, hobbies, lifestyle: if you buy cat food you know you have a cat at home, if you buy boxes of condoms often tell Mr Caprotti you have an intense sexual life, if you go diapers to inform him that you had a baby. And then, what can you know what happens to this news about you? How much would a company willing to pay for cat food, condoms or diapers in order to know the names, addresses, tastes and purchasing habits of your potential clients? The group of course denies selling information to third parties: "The data is processed in accordance with the privacy laws and are not marketed," assures the press office. Maybe. But when you find yourself on the ticket for the birthday greetings, some doubts about Fìdaty is also less critical of patrons.
But in all this show of modernity, in better or worse, there is also a strong element in Esselunga of dear, old capitalism ours: the relationship with political power. Caprotti is too intelligent not to know that in Italy is not enough to reward and punish employees, not just to pursue the myth of total quality, not enough to impose its conditions on purchases: we must also pamper the ladies, seduce councilors, ministers grow. And so the owner of Esselunga appear first among the sponsors of Bossi and then between those of Forza Italy, with a lot of dinners to forage among entrepreneurs blue election campaigns.
Generosity, political sympathy, appreciation for staff? Sure, sure. But now there's Esselunga including building permits on brownfield sites in Milan and surroundings, especially Albertini. Which - says the opposition leader Milan, Sandro Antoniazzi - "has contracted all'Esselunga nine out of 11 floors of urban regeneration." Conversion of former commercial buildings in the factories of the North is a big party just begun, and Caprotti is one of the main guests.
The relationship with the League actually deteriorated since the Rewe, Germany's largest distribution company in the long allied with Esselunga, built a town on its Penny Market pratone of Pontida megaraduni that of the Po Valley. Bossi did not like the bulky hard discount and gone complained in his own way, even during the last elections. Remain rather good relations with Berlusconi, with whom Caprotti no secret of being in complete harmony for years. Even the decision to keep open the supermarkets in the days of 25 April and 1 May, historically sacred dates on the left, has an obvious political significance, although the company is hiding behind the usual rigmarole Consumer ("We just wanted to service our customers'). Among the first bills of his second government, Berlusconi has put the reduction in tax benefits enjoyed by the cooperatives. Be a coincidence, but the biggest competitor is the very Caprotti Coop. 
I read just today of the abuse suffered by a cashier chain Esselunga ( Mobbing, a cashier in tears "Humiliated, I thought I would die" - The Republic March 1, 2008). Unfortunately I do not think that such incidents should be regarded only as isolated cases in this country democratically now in disarray. The capital fact, allying with the organic political class has managed to impose the implementation of Economic and Financial Policies which provide for the subordination of individual rights and labor market needs (Law 30, Article attempts at suppression. 18 of the Statute of Workers, social security reform, etc. ...).
The owners of this country have justified these policies, anyway, sacralization and calling them inevitable (inevitable when there is only death). Then, when it could be time to redistribute the wealth, have opposed those justifying chosen and international economic difficulties.
obviously suffering from dementia: strange that not ever remember that thanks to these economic difficulties have continued to enrich their international (perhaps exploiting the poor getting poorer).
unions how they react to this? Introduced into the organic market have no real interest in defending workers' rights. If for example Esselunga protest actions more egregious consisted in the proclamation of a one-day strike and a garrison of solidarity with the worker. seems to me a little 'bit as a gesture of solidarity with a person who is not only been harassed employers unacceptable but which has also been physically assaulted.
For fear of being considered the usual left-wing extremist who raves against the master class I searched on google the words harassment and essex. Surprise of the surprises of the pages found there was one of Diario.it .
The article is dated August 1, 2002 and I thought I'd mention it in its entirety.
Esselunga, short shorts rights
Sandro Gilioli ( Diario.it - August 1, 2002)
Esselunga supermarket chain has spread to the Centre-North. The first store was opened in 1957 in Milan. Today the group has over one hundred offices, located in Lombardy, Tuscany, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Veneto. The turnover of the company, which employs approximately 13 000 people, more than 3.36 billion euro a year.
MILAN
anyone notices Berlusconi and Tremonti that their model of free trade already exists in Italy. It is experienced every day, in company with 13 000 employees and only one master. A company where the union does not exist, or almost, and even working on May 1. A company where modern theories of motivation are mixed to the old authoritarian factory. A business 'total', it has been called, because it tends to abolish the individual identity by crushing all the single objective of quality and profit. A company that fires without any problems (few) people who denounce the indoor climate. A company that wants to be highlight of the new capitalism, yet shun the stock market because its owner does not intend to share the management, it gives interviews and takes pictures as possible.
In this company you've probably come sometimes you, especially if you live in the North. Esselunga is called, is one of the giants of Italian distribution. And it is there, between the cheese counters and shelves of canned goods, you discover where they want bring Berlusconi and Tremonti.
Behind the model of aggressive neo-capitalism embodied by Esselunga is an old man named Bernardo Caprotti. Opened in 1957, with the help of American billionaire Nelson Rockefeller, the first Italian supermarket: it was - and still is - in Viale Regina Giovanna, Milan. The group was called "Italian Spa Supermarkets," but then they start (designed by Max Huber chart with a long tail) came to give it its current name. So most of the feedback was negative, if not ironic, but the Italians are accustomed to shop from home, they said, will never do shopping in a huge warehouse where they are not icy not served.
Then we saw what happened. Today the chain bill nearly three and a half billion euro per year and the stores are a hundred, mostly concentrated in Lombardy and Tuscany.
Since its inception, Esselunga played - or perhaps even anticipated - the zeitgeist. In the early sixties, for example, those American-style stores were the symbol of modernization and were soon imitated by others (including cooperatives red). Later, while around the world spreading the youth protest movement, in Esselunga coined the slogan "Do the shopping, not war." In 1979, with inflation flying more than 20 percent, the slogan became: "Esselunga, prices courts." In the nineties and 2000, the Zeitgeist did prevail irony, and here are the award-winning campaigns Armando Testa agency as "Mickey Mouse or radish?", "Bunny or kiwi?" Until the recent 'John Lemon' and 'Sitting Porro " .
Esselunga The paradox is that officially is a company model, politically correct and open minded. In its website, for example, ensures to provide a "fair wage" to all, prides itself not to sell GM foods and that it has entered into agreements with the associations for fair trade. The Press Office adds that the agreement is supplementary to the highest levels of pay and the actual working time is 36 hours per week, compared with the 38 other chains. In short, an idyllic picture. But clashes terribly with the reality that is emerging from a few months ago, when - little by little - some employees and former employees have started to come out about the overturning of Caprotti an impressive amount of accusations, they speak - in letters to local newspapers and e-mail sent to various sites chainworkers - continues to blackmail, bullying diffuse, visual inspection of forced part-time workers to full-time, anti-union activity and harassment inspectors.
But the bubble has really exploded in recent months, in Lombardy when the company fired and sued (with request millionaire damage) two of its employees - and Massimo Brunetti Cosmi Panza - who had on a website called "mafia" the company's attitude towards staff. This act of force has proved to be half boomerang, because the dispute has finally persuaded the union to open the file Esselunga, by coming to the surface (and no longer anonymous) dozens of complaints about working conditions, the climate of fear inside and the great arbitrariness - the limit of absolute power - with which the leaders manage shifts and duties, Sundays and overtime, permits and penalties. John Gazzo, the secretary of Uil-TuCs Lombard, use a lexicon about a bit 'harder: it speaks of "a company where there is a strict system of control of the sacred canon, a system where all controllers are controlled, a world totalitarian regime in fact, a case of denial of freedom and psychophysical person, a place where a process of annihilation of the rights of workers and those who do not delivery to be inserted in the black book. " According to Gazzo, to talk about bullying all'Esselunga is an understatement, because "the enforcement mechanism is larger and applies to all employees: it is a structural and occasional bullying, which is inherent in the organizational culture of the company, which means the removal of rights such as flexibility, according to an ideology of extremism business. " Gazzo inspectors and heads of states that have a habit of "encircle the individual employees in isolated corners of the workplace to intimidate with reproaches and pressures." And he concludes: "In Esselunga there is a relationship between the extraordinary gains and extraordinary absence of rights."
Chainworkers. Words seem heavy, but if you go to hear some other trade unionist who has had to deal with Esselunga, one realizes that Gazzo is actually a moderate. Bruno Rastelli, Filcams of the CGIL, the company Caprotti compared to a polluting factory. Alex Foti, one of the young employees of retail chains that have created the site chainworkers.org, proposes a "unified campaign against Esselunga with pickets in front of supermarkets, mass boycott of the critical inputs and products." Just search chainworkers, moreover, appear more testimonies of workers and former workers Esselunga who speak of 'fierce controls, "" despotic relations' and' flexibility wild ", so" you know when you start the round but you never know when you finish '. Request to provide a response to these accusations, responds with Esselunga these four words: "It is correct."
And you get the same reply, the same, once the company a few questions about events that took place in Florence, at the supermarket on Via De Amicis, a few months ago where an employee died suddenly during opening hours: the colleagues, shocked, they asked the management to suspend sales for at least half an hour as a sign of respect, but the ideology of the market has prevailed and Esselunga did not close even for a minute. Similarly, no explanation is given in relation to another complaint that comes from mass, where the company would use young people on short term contracts (and thus more open to blackmail) to replace permanent employees participating in strikes. The case ended up in Parliament (by a search of MEP Elena DS cords), but Esselunga refuses to enter into the merits merely a curt: "It's all false." It is certain, however, that training contracts are used in abundance throughout the company Caprotti, because they create power relations rather unfavorable to the worker, desperately looking for confirmation at the end of twenty months and therefore willing to do anything in terms of time and tasks.
More silence by the leadership on the big supermarket in San Donato Milanese where employees have revealed to the local weekly paper L'Eco di can not even go to pee: in fact the supervisors are out the door and knock a few minutes. With a lot of business confidentiality even when you are up against when we ask for explanations on Jasmine, a Somali worker who was serving 23 years all'Esselunga Casalecchio (Emilia), but depended on a cooperative external cleaning on the first day of Ramadan, the girl of Islamic belief, has aroused the ire of the supermarket manager for having presented it with a veil on her head, and was fired. "They told me: either the work or the veil," says Jasmine. He adds: "Truly, mine was not even a chador, but a simple red scarf decorated that left his face uncovered."
Caprotti The company is called out, "We have outsourced the cleaning of Casalecchio to a company with its own staff, which carries out the service independently. There is therefore no relationship between Esselunga and staff of the contractor: the lady in question was an employee of that company. In short Esselunga is unrelated to the facts. " Yeah. Sin to complain that the veil was not cooperative, but the direction of the local department store. And pity that after being sent away from the supermarket, the employee has been summarized by the cooperative to do the cleaning in another place, a nursing home, where no one has objected to the handkerchief. What
outsourcing, namely the use of outside staff, moreover, is another aspect of the new capitalism of which you willingly Esselunga interpreter. The union complains that the basic principal of the company, in Pioltello, near Milan, "internal and external work side by side," but "the latter are forced to workload almost doubled, with long shifts day and decided, often in the absence of safety measures. " The local health authorities, according to the trade union base, found an incidence of accidents among worker-members of ten times higher than that of employees 'direct' in supermarkets. Also in Pioltello emerged some time ago, story of a thirty Filipinos (including their employees of a cooperative) fired for trying to trade unions. Esselunga, of course, says he does not have anything to do: Asians were of another company, "we have won all the cases that we have done."
yet to explain Filcams Cgil Milan, one can not simplistically Caprotti paint like a master of the ironworks and Esselunga as a concentration camp where all the workers would rebel. The real situation is more jagged and company policy as well. Sure, there are strict controls and inspections continue the organization, sometimes bullying and harassment, but employees - especially the pictures - also are encouraged with awards and promotions to an extent wider than the competition. The philosophy of high quality products, a true ball of Caprotti, is used to engage staff and make him feel part of a project to serve the consumer. And who shows to adapt to the business model, those who accept the ritual hierarchy, who offers the highest availability, who avoids the spread of auditors, who offers coffee to his superior, who is interested in a good display of goods and cleaning of the corridors, those who ask for news on receipts of the day, in other words those who agree to live as a family business is not abused at all. Or rather, get promises of career and shifts better. Even so, perhaps, explains the difficulties that the union met in many supermarkets, "those that do not fit" at the end represent a minority and their anger is not easily or solidarity or representation. Even more so in a company that 'accepting the union in the factory is like taking the whores in the house, "as he elegantly argued Esselunga a director in Milan, created some embarrassment at the same Caprotti.
By contrast, the incentive policy, especially at the highest levels, gives a reputation for Esselunga the myth-in supermarkets. In particular, there are buyers (the buyers of those goods Esselunga which then resells it to retail) that with time there's a net gain of around 6-7000 € per month. Their creation myth is an old business model and, of course Guaitamacchi, speaking half Italian and half in Milan has grown over the decades, the current generation of buyers, also accustomed to working 14 hours a day, sending them in the morning at six markets General chicken and meat.
social research. This mix of authoritarianism and awards - a model to many aspiring entrepreneurs who see their idol Caprotti - convinced the UIL-TuCs Lombard sull'Esselunga start a sociological study, in collaboration with the cooperative Sensitive the leaves, one created by Renato Curcio. The result is a newly published book titled just that the company total (Sensitive to the leaves, 104 pages, 12 €). The theoretical field of research is all retail, but the union has no difficulty in explaining that "the imaginary company 'appears in the book is nothing but a group of Caprotti. "The title," said Curcio, "refers to the fact that, as a prison or mental hospital, sometimes the company became an institution encompassing, that totally takes the life of a person, an individual whose identity has not nothing because it is embedded in the identity business. " To tell Esselunga and other similar companies, Curcio a long way: from a Japanese Zen monaco, Sotetsu, who was educated from an early age to the discipline, obedience and submission to his order, which must be loyal to the death. In short, it grows in the cult of self-sacrifice in the name of a great cause. Throughout his life, however, sees Sotetsu change (twice) before the eyes of the great cause to which all offer: the first is the monastic order, then (during World War II) is the emperor, and finally (after the war) is the company. In fact, in the fifties and sixties Sotetsu discovers that the same Zen master who had taught him everything is passed to the service of the corporation and that the same principles (of the collective intake and elimination of personal identity) are applied within organizations to create more involvement and more productivity. Sotetsu committed suicide in 1983, but the dynamics exhibited by him will spread quickly outside of Japan, to combine with the demands of the new capitalism. "And the retailers," said Curcio, "now applies the same personal denial of personal identity borrowed from Japanese culture." Schemes, where the key word is 'availability' to the company, both in terms of hours membership is as ideological. Curcio calls it "a ipermobbing" because it requires the employee to conform his person to the interests of the company from day one that takes service. And the suffering it causes, the suffering caused by the suppression of the ego, eventually finding an outlet in medicalization, that is, in drugs, consumption of which in Italy is growing geometrically.
so clear, in a rather violent, another aspect in which Esselunga best represents the worst of modernity, that is, the absolute prevalence of the consumer on the manufacturer. A 'side effect' of neo-capitalism that the quality of the product offered the consumer is sacrificed the quality of life imposed on the manufacturer. "Customer satisfaction is the main business value," read the brochure of the group: what is concealed is the human cost, existential, behind the idolatry of customer service. "Sooner or later," says Gianni Rodilosso, national secretary of Uil-TuCs Esselunga and former employee, "you will notice that the consumer is nothing but a producer who has finished his shift. This is true for large retailers such as call centers, for fast food companies as the Old Economy. But this is no easy or immediate path. "
CONTRACTS Halter. In the meantime, the old Bernardo Caprotti continues to personally inspect its stores and in disguise, perhaps with his son Joseph and dolphin. They are going to make sure the vegetables are fresh, clean corridors and fast cash. Most frequent target, the department store Viale Piave, Milan, not far from the apartment of the owner of supermarkets. A fear of such raids are not only workers in the chain, but also its suppliers, including producers of wine and tortellini, toilet paper or beans that aspire to have their goods on display in stores well Esselunga "famous for the quality" (as stated by another company slogan). The point is that getting on the shelves of Caprotti is not easy: a half-mouth, the suppliers say that the group requires contracts and discounts halter fierce, with no guarantee of sales, thanks to its corporate image, especially in cities like Milan and Florence. And who does not bend, is out: in the eighties caused a sensation with Barilla a fight that cost the group a long Emilia Mulino Bianco excluding products from the shelves of the distribution chain. Some, including suppliers, speaks explicitly of "blackmail," but the word is spoken only in the most absolute anonymity.
Esselunga Others define a "party hard but reliable," which places heavy conditions but also ensures the effective display of products in the agreed areas, as opposed to other competing groups.
Caprotti to wonder if all this recent fuss around Esselunga interested or not. More likely, the company that will annoy family history like hers became the subject of sociological studies and is considered the tip of quell'iceberg that neoliberalism is pervasive. He, for the extreme confidentiality in dealings with the media was even compared to Enrico Cuccia. He has invested billions sewing, year after year, a positive and politically correct about his team, prohibiting (first in Italy, along with the Coop) all feed transgenic and focusing on the organic market. He who has sponsored and natural ecological reserves, such as the Swallow's Farm, a park just opened on the Lipu Ticino. He has made arrangements with associations "Left" as Ctm Altromercato to bring in retail products fair trade. He, finally, gave birth to a project against child labor in the Third World, by inserting between the premiums of the Fìdaty Card footballs antisfruttamento guaranteed under the slogan "Esselunga the side of children."
Yeah, Fìdaty Card, the little big brother in the supermarket version, introduced by Caprotti in 1994 and now in the hands of more than two million people. More than 90 percent of sales business, now passes through this filter. Paper comes in several versions, but basically serves the same purpose: to offer discounts and premiums in exchange for their most valuable resource in the new capitalism, ie the information. In particular, information about customers' tastes, buying habits, behavior in the face of a new packaging, to promotion, to a particular position on the shelves.
Fìdaty But it also reveals the interests, hobbies, lifestyle: if you buy cat food you know you have a cat at home, if you buy boxes of condoms often tell Mr Caprotti you have an intense sexual life, if you go diapers to inform him that you had a baby. And then, what can you know what happens to this news about you? How much would a company willing to pay for cat food, condoms or diapers in order to know the names, addresses, tastes and purchasing habits of your potential clients? The group of course denies selling information to third parties: "The data is processed in accordance with the privacy laws and are not marketed," assures the press office. Maybe. But when you find yourself on the ticket for the birthday greetings, some doubts about Fìdaty is also less critical of patrons.
But in all this show of modernity, in better or worse, there is also a strong element in Esselunga of dear, old capitalism ours: the relationship with political power. Caprotti is too intelligent not to know that in Italy is not enough to reward and punish employees, not just to pursue the myth of total quality, not enough to impose its conditions on purchases: we must also pamper the ladies, seduce councilors, ministers grow. And so the owner of Esselunga appear first among the sponsors of Bossi and then between those of Forza Italy, with a lot of dinners to forage among entrepreneurs blue election campaigns.
Generosity, political sympathy, appreciation for staff? Sure, sure. But now there's Esselunga including building permits on brownfield sites in Milan and surroundings, especially Albertini. Which - says the opposition leader Milan, Sandro Antoniazzi - "has contracted all'Esselunga nine out of 11 floors of urban regeneration." Conversion of former commercial buildings in the factories of the North is a big party just begun, and Caprotti is one of the main guests.
The relationship with the League actually deteriorated since the Rewe, Germany's largest distribution company in the long allied with Esselunga, built a town on its Penny Market pratone of Pontida megaraduni that of the Po Valley. Bossi did not like the bulky hard discount and gone complained in his own way, even during the last elections. Remain rather good relations with Berlusconi, with whom Caprotti no secret of being in complete harmony for years. Even the decision to keep open the supermarkets in the days of 25 April and 1 May, historically sacred dates on the left, has an obvious political significance, although the company is hiding behind the usual rigmarole Consumer ("We just wanted to service our customers'). Among the first bills of his second government, Berlusconi has put the reduction in tax benefits enjoyed by the cooperatives. Be a coincidence, but the biggest competitor is the very Caprotti Coop.
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