Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful Begins Blitz Against Cigarette Litter

       

"Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful is reviving its award-winning “Every Butt Hurts” cigarette litter prevention program during August with billboards, television and radio spots and a social media campaign aimed at drivers who toss cigarette butts out of their vehicles. The campaign is being financed by a $35,000 grant from Reynolds American Inc.

        Other aspects of the campaign include distribution of drink coasters promoting the EveryButtHurts.com website, placement of additional cigarette butt receptacles at select sites throughout the city where smokers congregate, and giveaways of free cup holder ashtrays for drivers who smoke as well as portable ashtrays.

        Billboards are advertising the campaign on five major collector streets in Winston-Salem. Additionally, Fairway Outdoor Advertising is donating space on two digital billboards, one along U.S. 52 and the other along Business Interstate 40.

        A 30-second radio spot related to the billboards will run on four radio stations in the Triad and their streaming website feeds, and the television campaign will rerun the “Waltz of the Flying Butts” public service announcement on TimeWarner Cable and WXII.

        The social media campaign will include web ads targeted to users who have identified themselves as smokers. The web ads will be linked to EveryButtHurts.com, where users can request a free cup holder ashtray or pocket ashtray.

        At least 35 large cigarette butt receptacles will be placed at busy city bus stops and other places. At locations where receptacles have already been placed, cigarette butt litter has been reduced by as much as 75 percent.

        The Every Butt Hurts campaign has received three Distinguished Service citations from Keep America Beautiful since it was rolled out in 2011.

        For more information about Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful and opportunities to be a volunteer or sponsor, go to www.KWSB.CityofWS.org."

- A Press Release

Farmworkers union pickets Reynolds American shareholder meeting

Farm Labor Organizing Committee President Baldemar Velasquez greets supporter Veronica Dahlberg outside of Reynolds American headquarters in Winston-Salem today

Members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee union and supporters from across the street picketed outside Reynolds American's corporate headquarters in downtown Winston-Salem today in an effort to pressure the tobacco giant into signing an agreement to guarantee collective bargaining rights for farmworkers.

About 125 farmworkers and supporters picketed outside Reynolds American headquarters on North Main Street, where the company was conducting its annual shareholders meeting this morning. Representing an array of progressive groups from North Carolina and beyond, supporters chanted, "Si se puede!" and carried small red flags bearing the farmworker union's emblem, along with signs with statements such as "Dios es un dios de justicia."

The union is seeking an agreement from Reynolds to ensure that freedom of association and collective bargaining rights for workers on contract farms that supply tobacco to the company, and to provide protection against human trafficking and squalid conditions in labor camps.

Union president Baldemar Velasquez emerged from the shareholder meeting in an upbeat mood at about 10:30 a.m., and said that for the second year in a row the tobacco company has "responded with a proactive dialogue." 

Velasquez said he has recently met with Reynolds American CEO Dan Delen and plans to meet with Mark Holton, vice president and general counsel, tomorrow for more substantive talks.

"I told him the next steps can't be a cosmetic practice," Velasquez said. "I told him worker have to have representation rights and the ability to speak for themselves. At this company, they're the ones who make the decisions that allow the growers to sell their product. They need to guarantee the workers' rights at the bottom of the supply chain.

"Until this manufacturer follows the examples of manufacturers in Ohio such as Campbell Foods and Dean Foods, and corrects the inequities in their supply chain, there will not be justice," the union president continued. "Reynolds American could make a statement to the world through an agreement that they uphold workers rights."

David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds American, rejected the idea that the company would consider signing any agreement to guarantee collective bargaining rights.

"I would say that there's no progress as it relates to RJ Reynolds," he said. "We can't enter into collective bargaining agreements with farmworkers. The farmworkers themselves, they already ahve the right of freedom of association; that's already addressed. If a worker on a farm wishes to join a union we have no qualms at all about that. Whether they want to be in a union or don't want to be in a union, that's their choice."

Howard said Velasquez has directly on three or four occasions with company officials since the last shareholder meeting, and said he believes the parties have made important progress despite differences on the company's role in any collective bargaining arrangements.

"Some of that progress includes the establishment of a multilateral council that RJR has participated in as well as FLOC, the growers association, other manufacturers and the [state] Department of Labor," Howard said. "These issues are agriculture wide and they're not specific to tobacco farms and they're not specific to North Carolina."

Howard said Reynolds American is announcing today that it will make a donation to Telemon, a Raleigh-based nonprofit that gives matching grants to farmers to improve farmworker housing.

Contingents from numerous labor and community groups, including the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Occupy Winston-Salem, NC Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, the Beloved Community Center, Cakalak Thunder and Hope, made up the picket line.

Joe Greaser (left) and Gregorio Gutierrez

"That's what solidarity is all about," said Joe Greaser a member of the Machinist union who traveled from Raleigh. "There's power when workers support each other."

RELATED: Reynolds American announced today its board of directors has approved a 6.8-percent dividends increase for its shareholders. Dividends will increase from 59 cents to 63 cents per share, or from $2.36 per share annualized to $2.52 per share annualized.

PHOTO: FLOC supporters rally at Kangaroo

A coalition of about 30 supporters of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, or FLOC, rallied outside of the Kangaroo on the corner of Cone Boulevard and Yanceyville Street in Greensboro on Monday. Members of Jobs with Justice, the Greensboro Industrial Workers of the World and Cakalak Thunder joined the Beloved Community Center and FLOC to encourage Kangaroo to publicly ask Reynolds American to meet the farmworkers' demands. 

Kangaroo representatives have told the Beloved Community Center and FLOC that it privately asked Reynolds to meet with the union, FLOC organizer Justin Flores said, but Kangaroo refused a visit to see the conditions of farmworkers in the state and hasn't made any public statement. 

Supporters chanted "workers rights are human rights" and waved red union flags before a smaller contingent of supporters delivered a letter to the Kangaroo store manager. The letter requested that the company publicly tell Reynolds that its customers are concerned about the rights of farmworkers FLOC represents and urge an agreement. 

Photo and story by Eric Ginsburg

Occupy Winston-Salem protests Reynolds American layoffs

Amanda Porter-Cox, Will Cox, Tina Campbell, Tom Grant and Kayla Porter-Cox (l-r) picketed Reynolds American's headquarters in downtown Winston-Salem today.

“This is the personification of corporate greed,” said Occupy Winston-Salem activist Will Cox as he stood in front of the Reynolds American headquarters this afternoon with a sign reading, “RJR workers got burned by big tobacco.” “Many times we’ll see in the media and lines fed by CEOs that profits are great and everybody benefits. But who gets hurt is the people that labored to create the profits that are treated as expendable.”

As the Winston-Salem Journal reported on Wednesday, the company confirmed that it has cut an undisclosed number of jobs at its Tobaccoville plant.

Protesters, numbering about a dozen, cried foul about the Winston-Salem-based corporation cutting jobs while reporting $304 million in profits for the fourth quarter of 2011.

“[The company says] there’s certain expenses we have and we need to be flexible in a changing market,” said Cox, who works in the healthcare industry. “The change they want to see is the arrow go up for profits. For us who are working, the change is our benefits are cut. Our hours are being cut. And sometimes our jobs are being cut.”

A spokesperson for Reynolds American was not immediately available for comment.