69. Vegan Union-Busters: Lush Cosmetics w. Hannah Total Liberation

Rundown







In this episode, Mexie talks with former Lush Cosmetics employee, Hannah, about the company’s gross union-busting tactics and why she and others formed the Global Lush Union. As the mainstream vegan movement continues to focus itself on consumption under capitalism, it’s no wonder that vegan brands are replicating the same kind of colonizing and inequality-producing tendencies of capitalism itself.







Sources and Links







* Global Lush Union: https://globallushunion.com/* Global Lush Union Petition: https://globallushunion.com/our-petition-1* How Lush Cosmetics Tried to Crush a Union Drive: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkd77m/how-lush-cosmetics-tried-to-crush-a-union-drive * Lush Cosmetics’ employees say the company leadership is trying to quash their attempt to unionize — despite supporting unions at other companies: https://www.businessinsider.com/lush-leadership-rejects-union-despite-supporting-them-for-other-brands-2020-12* Help No Evil Foods workers: https://www.moevilfoods.com/







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Transcript







F1:  [MUSIC] How can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but how can we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet?







F2:  There’s an us before the wound, there’s an us before oppression, and to me pleasure is the way that we tap down into that.







F3:  We live in capitalism.  Its power seems inescapable.  So did the divine right of kings.







MEXIE:  Hey everyone, welcome to the Vegan Vanguard.  It is Mexie and today we have on Hannah who is a former Lush Cosmetics employee to talk about the company’s union-busting and why she and others formed the Global Lush Union.  We have talked previously on the podcast about vegan companies engaging in union-busting and other anti-labor practices.  If you will remember about a year ago, we had on workers from No Evil Foods which is a vegan company that branded itself using socialist iconography which not only busted up unionization efforts a year ago but recently fired all of their employees without severance.  Absolutely unbelievable, so please go follow @soevilfoods on Instagram to see how you can help support those workers.







I believe they’re on Twitter as well, but as you probably know, I have deleted my Twitter.  But it’s really sad that the mainstream vegan movement has been so co-opted by capital.  It’s been so focused on consumerism and just trying to get everyone to buy vegan products that it hasn’t been terribly effective in actually transforming government policies.  I mean, certainly there have been great victories, right, but it hasn’t been terribly effective in transforming our global food systems for lasting animal liberation.  As we talk about a lot, we’re killing and people are eating more animals today than ever before.







Yes, of course our population has grown, but meat consumption is also rising at a pace that is outstripping population growth, so it’s just really sad to see the mainstream vegan movement so co-opted, amenable, so fused with capitalism that it’s just becoming yet another capitalist industry that harms workers who are human animals, right?  On this podcast we’ve talked a lot about how we can’t consume our w...