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+--- Thread: Operation Hey Mackey (/thread-2280.html)
Operation Hey Mackey - Keith Millea - 29-09-2009
09.28.09 - 1:28 PM
Operation Hey Mackey! – Whole Foods, Oakland
by Russell Mokhiber
It was a beautiful Friday night in Oakland.
California that is.
Things were going swimmingly at the Oakland Whole Foods.
Operation Hey Mackey! - Whole Foods, Oakland from Jamie LeJeune on Vimeo.
And then at 6 p.m., musicians started arriving.
More than 40 of them.
Trombone.
Clarinet.
Drums.
Singers.
And they gathered in the back of the store.
And began singing a song.
It was a take off of Toni Basil's 1982 pop hit "Hey Mickey."
(Hey Mickey You're So Fine
You're So Fine You Blow my Mind
Hey Mickey
Hey Mickey.)
But these were former Whole Foods shoppers.
Boycotters now.
Who were turned off by the CEO, John Mackey, when he pronounced in August in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that health care was not a human right.
So, they adapted the song - just for him.
"Hey Mackey, you're a swine, you're a swine, you blow my mind, Hey Mackey."
"Oh Mackey what a pity, you don't seem to care."
"We're not as rich as you, but we still need healthcare."
"Oh Mackey you're so greedy can't you understand."
"It's guys like you Mackey"
"What you do, what you do Mackey"
"Don't break my heart Mackey."
Max Bell Alper, a union organizer for AFSCME, was one of the organizers of the Whole Foods musical protest in Oakland.
"We were all disappointed in Mackey's Wall Street Journal op-ed," Alper said. "We came up with this song, got some musicians together, choreographed a dance number, and we went to Whole Foods in Oakland and did it."
The group handed out flyers that read in part:
"Whole Foods is sickening . . . Sustainability cannot endure without preserving the dignity and health of not only the planet but our fellow people."
Alper said that customers reacted positively to the musical protest.
"There were people who came up to us afterward and told us - you are right, I'm going to boycott Whole Foods also," Alper said. "Or they would say - I was boycotting Whole Foods after Mackey made his statement, then I started slacking, now you have shaken me up, and I'm going to start boycotting again."
Alper said that the employees were most excited - "they came from behind their counters and started clapping along with us."
Alper said that Whole Foods managers are regularly given training on union avoidance.
"That's code for union busting," Alper said.
Oakland police and homeland security police were called - but there were no arrests.
The video link didn't have sound earlier.This youtube link is better.This is GREAT stuff indeed.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APs76Cd6fbI
:dancing:
Operation Hey Mackey - Magda Hassan - 29-09-2009
Nice one Keith! Next time I hope the workers can take over the shop and run it for themselves and leave Mackey out of the loop.
Operation Hey Mackey - Peter Presland - 29-09-2009
Cracking stuff! - Inspirational!
All smiles and rollicking good-humour.
And the authorities just hate it - scares them witless and they have no idea how to deal with it - short of the iron fist that is - oh, the expressions on those security guys faces!
I was surprised at my reaction too. A combination of smiles, laughs, plus a bit of a lump in the throat and the hint of a tear in my eye - as if it might be possible to somehow change manipulative amoral corporatism into something human - tempered by the knowledge that, short of a genuine revolution, it simply won't happen.
All power to them though - great stuff and I hope that guy Mackey chokes on his faux health foods.