Currently, I am working on a drive to organize some low wage workers, we could sure use your support, here is a synopsis of what is going on...
We as a community of compassionate individuals who care about the way that the poor and powerless are treated are called to take action on behalf of the workers at Capital Returns. Who would have believed that right under our noses; right here in Milwaukee we would find a government subsidized company being run like a plantation. Imagine coming to work every day for an average wage of $9.00 and hour and being exposed to mystery pharmaceutical substances in powder, liquid, or any other imaginable form. How about being searched every time you have to go to the bathroom, or being forced to perform your data entry job standing up and having your chairs removed from your department? These are just a few of the oppressive conditions that employees at Capital Returns at 6101 N. 64th St. are faced with every day.
Capital Returns is a pharmaceutical waste distributor based on Milwaukee’s north side. They received a $250,000 economic development loan from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to help them move to their present location in 2005. That same year they were purchased by a large supply chain management company named GENCO. They employ about 500 workers at their 64th St. Location.
Capital Returns is a pharmaceutical processing plant in Milwaukee that processes expired and unused pharmaceuticals into waste products. Through this process, workers primarily women of African American and Hmong descent are employed to handle potentially harmful drugs and log them into computer databases. The working environments that these laborers are subjected to are absolutely atrocious. With hard days at in the plant and hazardous working conditions, these employees are not only not making enough money to live with the most meager of comforts, but also all sorts of health and safety concerns plague these low wage workers everyday. The harsh treatment and the unsafe work conditions have caused many of these workers to pursue joining the United Steelworkers Union.
In this memoir, we hope to understand some of the indignities that are happening to the workers at Capital Returns. These are the stories of the voiceless; who work day in and day out under oppressive structures of exploitation that are dedicated to keeping their employees destitute.
Health Concerns
When it comes to health concerns at Capital Returns, low-wage workers are constantly being put in situations where they must choose whether to do their job and not get fired, or place themselves in situations where they risk serious bodily injury.
Often times, workers through their jobs handle all sorts of old drugs without adequate protection to their own bodies. Many of the drugs that these employees handle have the potential of being highly harmful to their health. For example, the potential for a woman who is pregnant being exposed to birth control pills as part of her job is highly possible. In fact, in the past couple months 2 women who work at the plant have had miscarriages and although there is no way to say that it may be a result of the drugs, the correlations are awfully suspicious.
There is a general lack of concern for the employee’s health at Capital Returns, ventilation in the processing plant is always terrible. High humidity and lack of fresh air often leaves employees feeling nauseous with searing headaches and abnormally high cases of asthma attacks. And although workers have reported feeling terrible as a result of the working conditions, nothing is done to improve their well being. “On a weekly basis, there always someone who goes down,” one worker explained. “A lot of the time we have to choose between whether we want to stay healthy or continue to go to work.” When workers must choose between their health and whether they will continue to have a job, many of these workers can do nothing but keep working as they rely on these jobs to raise their families and pay the bills. Losing their jobs is just not an option for many workers at Capital Returns and as a result, they must put themselves in situations that are highly harmful to their health and well being.
In addition to bad ventilation in the plant there have also been reports of fires in the building. When these fires occurred, there was no evacuation of workers from the plant, but instead workers were told to keep working through and the fire would be taken care of and would not spread into the part of the building that they were working in. Not being allowed to leave a building when it’s on fire?! What kind of company is Capital Returns? Do the workers staying absolutely productive on the job outweigh the consequences of their safety?
Treated Like Children
The workers at Capital Returns are treated like workers on a plantation. The company conducts extensive searches on workers when they go to the bathroom, leave the plant and go to lunch. Strict rules dictate ridiculous policy that makes absolutely no sense. For example, one worker was suspended for being insubordinate to her supervisor when he told her to give him her badge and go home for the day. When the worker told him that she needed her badge to leave the building, she was suspended. In a world where we are taught to treat each other with dignity and respect, this sort of child like wrangling of low-wage dignified adults is simply not acceptable.
Because of these workers often desperate situation in the workforce, many of them are scared to speak up in fear of losing the jobs that they hold on to so dearly. They feel that they have to put up being treated like children because of their desperate need for a job.
Oppressive Policy
Capital Returns could care less about the well being of their worker. Employees who log in the old pharmaceuticals are forced to stand all day on concrete floors to do their work. In the past, they gave their workers chairs, but because of reasons unbenounced to the employees, they have had all of their chairs taken away. When asked if they could have their chairs back, it was refused. As a result, these workers spend their whole day on their feet on the concrete floors of the shop as they enter old drugs into computers. Many of the workers are seniors who find standing up all day particularly difficult on their bodies. Beat up and tired from being on their feet all day, the company bosses sit in well padded seats and watch over their plantation.
Workers are suspended for the most ridiculous of reasons, especially if the company suspects you of being for the union. One day, after a long day of logging drugs, one worker clocked out, eager to get home after a tough day at work. Every day before each worker leaves the plant they are searched by security. On this particular day, as he stood their being searched the security guard found that the worker had a pill that had fallen into one of the cuffs of his pant leg during the day as he logged expired drugs. When they discovered this he tried to explain when asked what it was doing there why it was there? He told them that his job was to log old pills and oftentimes the drugs fall out of their broken packages and end up all over the place. Another worker told me that at her desk, there were always old pills laying around in all the cracks of her desk from her job. However, because of this incident, the worker who had been discovered with the pill was automatically accused of stealing the pill and was fired immediately, he had been an employee good employee at Capital Returns for a long time, devoted to the company that he worked for, his coworkers often described him as an excellent, diligent worker who had always done what he was supposed to. Now without employment, he risks falling back on bills and destroying his credit as a result.
Now take this logic and put into a job like landscaper or welder. Suppose that a landscaper left the job site with dirt on his pants. Could he be rightfully fired for stealing the dirt from the job site? Or a welder who comes home covered in metal shavings. This sort of treatment of low wage workers that have no voice is simply unacceptable.
At Capital Returns, if you are a pregnant woman there is no consideration for your need for a job. Once workers have a baby and must go on maternity leave, they are required to re-apply for their job as if they were a new employee. During the time in which a mother has a baby, there is no consideration for the mothers well-being. When a mom has a newborn at Capital Returns, they go into labor not knowing if they are going to have a job when they are healthy enough to go back to work, leaving both the lives of the mother and the child up in the air.
Many of these workers are young women that have been hired through Wisconsin’s W-2 Program which generally starts them out as temporary employees. Capital Returns preys on these sorts of programs because it knows that the people who are hired through this program are poor and easily exploitable. Through this process, Capital Returns, by hiring the most exploitable laborers knows that it is much more easily able to patronize and marginalize these workers.
Intimidation
As a result of the employees at Capital Returns vocalizing their concerns at the workplace and getting no response from the company workers thought that the best idea would be to contact the union and see if they could get something organized.
The result of these actions were harsh. The company began having meetings and trying to intimidate and scare workers about the terrors of the union. The company went so far out of the way as to hire union busters whose full time job was to make sure that the workers didn’t form a union. Apparently, Capital Returns has the money to hire these expensive contractors to come in and break up unions, but cannot afford to give their workers even the most minimal of power in their workforce. These union busters held meetings that sought to spread lies and create a culture of fear in the workplace. Some workers were even threatened to run over in the parking lot if they decided to form a union. The company even started posting people to watch over the lunch room to see who was talking to whom in order to figure out which workers supported the union and which ones didn’t. After the company started doing this, they began to single out workers who they believed to support the union and conduct ‘random’ searches on them as they entered the work place. It also seemed that once these people were singled out, that they were watched much more closely at the workplace to find any sort of slip ups that could warrant discipline or suspension. Through this process, workers in the plant are scared, rumors about the union spread like wildfire as workers are pitted against one another at the job. Through these actions, the company was able to set up a culture of fear in the plant that implied that if you supported a union, there would be a much greater possibility of getting fired.
Because of this crippling fear that the employees face, many of them are afraid now to say how they really feel about how things are going at work. Only with your help, can we stand in solidarity with these workers. With this support behind them, we have the ability to change the way that Capital Returns treats its employees.
A Call for Action
We as a body of people called by our own sense of morality have an obligation to stand up for the voices of those who are drowned out. If we are to be a society based on the democratic values for all, then we need to first start at the root cause of fighting injustice. This is not simply an abstract call for help on creating an abstract better world but real people in the Milwaukee community that wish for nothing more than a voice in the places of their employment.
We as a people must be willing to listen to this silent voice, to stand up and make a calling on behalf of the low-wage worker. History books tell us that plantation work ended with the ended with the civil war almost 150 years ago. However, it can be assured that it is still here.
The forces that keep hard working poor in a state of poverty are relentless in Capital Returns. Workers must continue laboring at places where they have no voice, no opportunity to escape except complete destitution. In our society a place that prides itself on being the richest in the world how is it that companies like Capital Returns are permitted to continue labor practices like the ones that they do? Have we not evolved beyond that state?
The Capital Returns workers need you help. The more people who help to get the word out about what is going on at Capital Returns; the more people who attend our rallies; the more people that feel compassionate about the people in our very city about these issues; the better chance we have of creating justice in the workforce at Capital Returns.
We as a community of compassionate individuals who care about the way that the poor and powerless are treated are called to take action on behalf of the workers at Capital Returns. Who would have believed that right under our noses; right here in Milwaukee we would find a government subsidized company being run like a plantation. Imagine coming to work every day for an average wage of $9.00 and hour and being exposed to mystery pharmaceutical substances in powder, liquid, or any other imaginable form. How about being searched every time you have to go to the bathroom, or being forced to perform your data entry job standing up and having your chairs removed from your department? These are just a few of the oppressive conditions that employees at Capital Returns at 6101 N. 64th St. are faced with every day.
Capital Returns is a pharmaceutical waste distributor based on Milwaukee’s north side. They received a $250,000 economic development loan from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to help them move to their present location in 2005. That same year they were purchased by a large supply chain management company named GENCO. They employ about 500 workers at their 64th St. Location.
Capital Returns is a pharmaceutical processing plant in Milwaukee that processes expired and unused pharmaceuticals into waste products. Through this process, workers primarily women of African American and Hmong descent are employed to handle potentially harmful drugs and log them into computer databases. The working environments that these laborers are subjected to are absolutely atrocious. With hard days at in the plant and hazardous working conditions, these employees are not only not making enough money to live with the most meager of comforts, but also all sorts of health and safety concerns plague these low wage workers everyday. The harsh treatment and the unsafe work conditions have caused many of these workers to pursue joining the United Steelworkers Union.
In this memoir, we hope to understand some of the indignities that are happening to the workers at Capital Returns. These are the stories of the voiceless; who work day in and day out under oppressive structures of exploitation that are dedicated to keeping their employees destitute.
Health Concerns
When it comes to health concerns at Capital Returns, low-wage workers are constantly being put in situations where they must choose whether to do their job and not get fired, or place themselves in situations where they risk serious bodily injury.
Often times, workers through their jobs handle all sorts of old drugs without adequate protection to their own bodies. Many of the drugs that these employees handle have the potential of being highly harmful to their health. For example, the potential for a woman who is pregnant being exposed to birth control pills as part of her job is highly possible. In fact, in the past couple months 2 women who work at the plant have had miscarriages and although there is no way to say that it may be a result of the drugs, the correlations are awfully suspicious.
There is a general lack of concern for the employee’s health at Capital Returns, ventilation in the processing plant is always terrible. High humidity and lack of fresh air often leaves employees feeling nauseous with searing headaches and abnormally high cases of asthma attacks. And although workers have reported feeling terrible as a result of the working conditions, nothing is done to improve their well being. “On a weekly basis, there always someone who goes down,” one worker explained. “A lot of the time we have to choose between whether we want to stay healthy or continue to go to work.” When workers must choose between their health and whether they will continue to have a job, many of these workers can do nothing but keep working as they rely on these jobs to raise their families and pay the bills. Losing their jobs is just not an option for many workers at Capital Returns and as a result, they must put themselves in situations that are highly harmful to their health and well being.
In addition to bad ventilation in the plant there have also been reports of fires in the building. When these fires occurred, there was no evacuation of workers from the plant, but instead workers were told to keep working through and the fire would be taken care of and would not spread into the part of the building that they were working in. Not being allowed to leave a building when it’s on fire?! What kind of company is Capital Returns? Do the workers staying absolutely productive on the job outweigh the consequences of their safety?
Treated Like Children
The workers at Capital Returns are treated like workers on a plantation. The company conducts extensive searches on workers when they go to the bathroom, leave the plant and go to lunch. Strict rules dictate ridiculous policy that makes absolutely no sense. For example, one worker was suspended for being insubordinate to her supervisor when he told her to give him her badge and go home for the day. When the worker told him that she needed her badge to leave the building, she was suspended. In a world where we are taught to treat each other with dignity and respect, this sort of child like wrangling of low-wage dignified adults is simply not acceptable.
Because of these workers often desperate situation in the workforce, many of them are scared to speak up in fear of losing the jobs that they hold on to so dearly. They feel that they have to put up being treated like children because of their desperate need for a job.
Oppressive Policy
Capital Returns could care less about the well being of their worker. Employees who log in the old pharmaceuticals are forced to stand all day on concrete floors to do their work. In the past, they gave their workers chairs, but because of reasons unbenounced to the employees, they have had all of their chairs taken away. When asked if they could have their chairs back, it was refused. As a result, these workers spend their whole day on their feet on the concrete floors of the shop as they enter old drugs into computers. Many of the workers are seniors who find standing up all day particularly difficult on their bodies. Beat up and tired from being on their feet all day, the company bosses sit in well padded seats and watch over their plantation.
Workers are suspended for the most ridiculous of reasons, especially if the company suspects you of being for the union. One day, after a long day of logging drugs, one worker clocked out, eager to get home after a tough day at work. Every day before each worker leaves the plant they are searched by security. On this particular day, as he stood their being searched the security guard found that the worker had a pill that had fallen into one of the cuffs of his pant leg during the day as he logged expired drugs. When they discovered this he tried to explain when asked what it was doing there why it was there? He told them that his job was to log old pills and oftentimes the drugs fall out of their broken packages and end up all over the place. Another worker told me that at her desk, there were always old pills laying around in all the cracks of her desk from her job. However, because of this incident, the worker who had been discovered with the pill was automatically accused of stealing the pill and was fired immediately, he had been an employee good employee at Capital Returns for a long time, devoted to the company that he worked for, his coworkers often described him as an excellent, diligent worker who had always done what he was supposed to. Now without employment, he risks falling back on bills and destroying his credit as a result.
Now take this logic and put into a job like landscaper or welder. Suppose that a landscaper left the job site with dirt on his pants. Could he be rightfully fired for stealing the dirt from the job site? Or a welder who comes home covered in metal shavings. This sort of treatment of low wage workers that have no voice is simply unacceptable.
At Capital Returns, if you are a pregnant woman there is no consideration for your need for a job. Once workers have a baby and must go on maternity leave, they are required to re-apply for their job as if they were a new employee. During the time in which a mother has a baby, there is no consideration for the mothers well-being. When a mom has a newborn at Capital Returns, they go into labor not knowing if they are going to have a job when they are healthy enough to go back to work, leaving both the lives of the mother and the child up in the air.
Many of these workers are young women that have been hired through Wisconsin’s W-2 Program which generally starts them out as temporary employees. Capital Returns preys on these sorts of programs because it knows that the people who are hired through this program are poor and easily exploitable. Through this process, Capital Returns, by hiring the most exploitable laborers knows that it is much more easily able to patronize and marginalize these workers.
Intimidation
As a result of the employees at Capital Returns vocalizing their concerns at the workplace and getting no response from the company workers thought that the best idea would be to contact the union and see if they could get something organized.
The result of these actions were harsh. The company began having meetings and trying to intimidate and scare workers about the terrors of the union. The company went so far out of the way as to hire union busters whose full time job was to make sure that the workers didn’t form a union. Apparently, Capital Returns has the money to hire these expensive contractors to come in and break up unions, but cannot afford to give their workers even the most minimal of power in their workforce. These union busters held meetings that sought to spread lies and create a culture of fear in the workplace. Some workers were even threatened to run over in the parking lot if they decided to form a union. The company even started posting people to watch over the lunch room to see who was talking to whom in order to figure out which workers supported the union and which ones didn’t. After the company started doing this, they began to single out workers who they believed to support the union and conduct ‘random’ searches on them as they entered the work place. It also seemed that once these people were singled out, that they were watched much more closely at the workplace to find any sort of slip ups that could warrant discipline or suspension. Through this process, workers in the plant are scared, rumors about the union spread like wildfire as workers are pitted against one another at the job. Through these actions, the company was able to set up a culture of fear in the plant that implied that if you supported a union, there would be a much greater possibility of getting fired.
Because of this crippling fear that the employees face, many of them are afraid now to say how they really feel about how things are going at work. Only with your help, can we stand in solidarity with these workers. With this support behind them, we have the ability to change the way that Capital Returns treats its employees.
A Call for Action
We as a body of people called by our own sense of morality have an obligation to stand up for the voices of those who are drowned out. If we are to be a society based on the democratic values for all, then we need to first start at the root cause of fighting injustice. This is not simply an abstract call for help on creating an abstract better world but real people in the Milwaukee community that wish for nothing more than a voice in the places of their employment.
We as a people must be willing to listen to this silent voice, to stand up and make a calling on behalf of the low-wage worker. History books tell us that plantation work ended with the ended with the civil war almost 150 years ago. However, it can be assured that it is still here.
The forces that keep hard working poor in a state of poverty are relentless in Capital Returns. Workers must continue laboring at places where they have no voice, no opportunity to escape except complete destitution. In our society a place that prides itself on being the richest in the world how is it that companies like Capital Returns are permitted to continue labor practices like the ones that they do? Have we not evolved beyond that state?
The Capital Returns workers need you help. The more people who help to get the word out about what is going on at Capital Returns; the more people who attend our rallies; the more people that feel compassionate about the people in our very city about these issues; the better chance we have of creating justice in the workforce at Capital Returns.
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Please contact me at 414 771 7541 if you would like to get involved in the campaign for justice
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