Security at the Los Angeles Times Olympic Facility began
eroding rapidly as soon as the company began outsourcing departments, in a cost
cutting measure, that I often wonder was worth the savings? Way back in 2006
the custodian department was replaced with workers that either couldn't speak a
word of English or very little, computers were taken from the room called the Learning Center
As more departments at the production facility were replaced
with outside contractors, the thieves had a field day, especially in the
personal locker rooms for the workers to change into their uniforms. Nothing of
value could be stored in the locker room as the combination locks were disabled
in a manner that a strong pull upon the lock would open the lock.
One night after work I stopped by the market and was unable
to find my debit card, yet the missing card reappeared the following night in
my wallet. As I scanned my bank account I discovered my debit card was used at
a donut shop in Inglewood ,
and was charged just under $6.00 before being returned. Knowing I was not in
the Inglewood
area on the date my card was used, I became suspicious, and warned all my colleagues'
not to leave anything of value in their lockers. And questioned management, why
they failed to warn the employees of the hazard?
As we produced newspapers we would see two custodians
pushing their mop buckets through the press room, with eight foot long cardboard
tubes, sitting in the buckets of water. Little did anyone know the tubes were
filled with copper and brass, which they unloaded into their cars at the back
of the building.
After almost completing removing all the metal they were
caught, and when I questioned the plant manager if they were prosecuted, I was
told "They have been banned from all Los Angeles Times properties for life".
I still laugh over this.
The very first day we had the new security company take over
for the Los Angeles Times security at the Oly Plant, I arrived for my morning
shift to witness the new guard manning the gate sound asleep. Really a secure
place to work as anyone could simply walk by the snoring guard, and 8th and Alameda is not the safest
neighborhood, especially after dark.
After terminating all the company truck drivers the company
outsourced trucking to Ryder, and after a short while the new employees formed
a union with the Teamsters. Well as everyone knows the Los Angeles Times is
extremely anti-union, and quickly outsourced trucking to Brandt Brothers
Trucking, I'm not certain if some of the drivers just hired on directly from
Chino State Prison? But several wore orange jump suits, that stated the name of
the prison on the back of the jump suits.
The scent of marijuana was present near the loading dock and
at the Olympic Street side of the building after the new trucking company was
brought onto the property. Luckily for the new employees, they do not fall
under the random drug testing the company holds their employees to, or many
would be let go.
Last Friday the Los Angeles Times building was placed on
lock-down as an employee of one of the companies that rents office space from
the newspaper claimed to have a gun, bullets were discovered and thankfully no
one harmed. I wonder if he's now banned from entering all Los Angeles Times
properties now?
Caught in the act at the Los Angeles Times
Action at the Los Angeles Times
Olympic Crime Wave
To the employees at Times Mirror Square, welcome to our world, and the lack of security.
Ed, they found a note on this man and it's circulating on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason education sucks, it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners, now. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club.
This country is finished.