{"id":176533,"date":"2020-05-24T18:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/05\/24\/the-most-karen-thing-ever\/"},"modified":"2020-05-24T18:46:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T23:46:00","slug":"the-most-karen-thing-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/05\/24\/the-most-karen-thing-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Karen Thing Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Have you heard about “No Evil Foods”? They are a vegan meat company that claims to be socialists, and they are waging a scorched earth campaign against its workers joining a union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This so typical of the faux socialist bougie types.<\/p>\n

Socialism for thee, not not for me:<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the company No Evil Foods, which sells a variety of socialist-themed vegan meats, fought a union drive at its Weaverville, North Carolina plant that included numerous \u201ccaptive audience\u201d meetings where management told workers to vote against a union.<\/span>

<\/span> Motherboard obtained a 23-minute video of No Evil Food\u2019s CEO and co-founder Mike Woliansky repeatedly imploring workers to vote \u201cno\u201d in the union election, and telling workers that a union could hamper the company\u2019s ability to \u201csave lives\u201d and \u201cchange the world.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> In his speech, Woliansky compared joining the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents tens of thousands of meatpacking workers in the US, to \u201chitching your wagon to a huge organization with high paid executives and a history of scandal and supporting slaughterhouses,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s an organization you want to support with your dues money.”<\/p>\n

No Evil Foods brands itself with a socialist messaging and sells $8 packages of vegan products with leftist names like “Comrade Cluck” (a chicken substitute seasoned with garlic and onion), and “El Zapatista” (a mock chorizo), a reference to Mexico\u2019s anti-capitalist indigenous movement. It sells its product<\/a> at 5,500 stores nationwide, and, in online listings for jobs in its Weaverville production facility, the company says, \u201cwe do good no evil. We care about doing good through the products we make.\u201d <\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the company fired several workers who led the union drive at its manufacturing plant (known as \u201cthe Axis\u201d), according to a report in the Appeal<\/i><\/a>. Four employees told Motherboard that the company has fired five workers active in labor organizing since April.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cJust when we filed for our election, they ramped up their [anti-union] meetings,\u201d a former No Evil Foods worker who quit in March told Motherboard. \u201cThey told us we\u2019d have to negotiate with shareholders instead of them and made emotional appeals to us like \u2018we have our house in this.\u2019 Hey, I would love to be able to afford a house that I\u2019d be able to risk to start a business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The hypocrisy of capitalizing on socialist messaging while using anti-union speeches to defeat a union drive was not lost on workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not a bunch of whiny kids who would complain at any job,\u201d a former no No Evil Foods worker who was fired in May, told Motherboard. \u201cPersonally I wouldn\u2019t be speaking out to the media if this was a company that didn’t use socialism for its marketing. It’s the fact these people are liars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my first few months, I thought this company was great. The $13.65 I made was the highest I\u2019d ever been paid in my life,\u201d a former No Evil Foods worker who was involved in the union drive and quit in March, told Motherboard. \u201cBut then they started making changes that impacted people with second jobs, and their response was just so starkly like \u2018we don\u2019t give a shit.\u2019 I realized that their socialist messaging is all branding and tricking the consumer into making them feel like they have a consciousness.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am sure that the Wolianskys think that they are actually progressive in some meaningful way, it’s just that they rationalize that anything that might inconvenience them is a bridge too far.<\/p>\n

Hypocrites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you heard about “No Evil Foods”? They are a vegan meat company that claims to be socialists, and they are waging a scorched earth campaign against its workers joining a union. This so typical of the faux socialist bougie types. Socialism for thee, not not for me: Earlier this year, the company No Evil …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,364,476,387,465,442],"class_list":["post-176533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-evil","tag-food","tag-hypocrisy","tag-labor","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}