Vol. 74/No. 46      December 6, 2010

The company pays varying bonuses most months, said Ned Measel, one of the three, based on “controlling waste, efficiency, and other factors.”

“Some workers work harder to try and maximize the bonus, but most don’t,” Measel said. “It’s blood money because it’s part of the company’s continuous efforts to get workers to exert themselves, taking on more and more production tasks, and to take greater responsibility for organizing profitable—as opposed to safe and efficient for workers—production.

“It’s also part of providing a ‘pay package’ aimed at discouraging workers turning to organizing a union. There’s no better use for it than to go to the production of books like Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power,” he added.

Clay Dennison, a paper mill worker in Washington State, sent in a check for $560, what’s left after taxes of a $750 lump-sum payment. “It’s in ‘lieu of a raise,’ as it says in the current union contract,” Dennison noted. “The payment is for accepting a wage freeze this year, and it looks like blood money to me.”

Janice Lynn in Atlanta works for a company that gives a “gas card to everyone on their birthday—part of the many small bribes it gives to get workers to identify with the company, work faster, and cut across any talk about a union,” she wrote. Lynn sent in $15, the amount on the gas card, to the fund.

—SETH GALINSKY