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"... The Writing On The Wal should be on your radar for at least an occasional visit. Think of it as slightly more relevant than keeping abreast of political campaigns. If you have as much political and economic power as most Americans, it likely is."
I do love it when Walmart shows up in the most unusual places like this analogy concerning the now defeated Stop Online Piracy Act and the soon to be defeated Protect IP Act. Walmart is such a universal bad actor that it has become the villian of choice around the world.
As a rough analogy, since antipiracy crusaders are fond of equating filesharing with shoplifting: suppose the CEO of Wal-Mart came to Congress demanding a $50 million program to deploy FBI agents to frisk suspicious-looking teens in towns near Wal-Marts. A lawmaker might, without for one instant doubting that shoplifiting is a bad thing, question whether this is really the optimal use of federal law enforcement resources. The CEO indignantly points out that shoplifting kills one million adorable towheaded orphans each year. The proof is right here in this study by the Wal-Mart Institute for Anti-Shoplifting Studies. The study sources this dramatic claim to a newspaper article, which quotes the CEO of Wal-Mart asserting (on the basis of private data you can’t see) that shoplifting kills hundreds of orphans annually. And as a footnote explains, it seemed prudent to round up to a million. I wish this were just a joke, but as readers of my previous post will recognize, that’s literally about the level of evidence we’re dealing with here.
…I would definitely link to this. Then I’d quote the big story from the NYT today:
After trying to mollify its critics in recent years by offering better health care benefits to its employees, Wal-Mart is substantially rolling back coverage for part-time workers and significantly raising premiums for many full-time staff.
Citing rising costs, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, told its employees this week that all future part-time employees who work less than 24 hours a week on average will no longer qualify for any of the company’s health insurance plans.
In addition, any new employees who average 24 hours to 33 hours a week will no longer be able to include a spouse as part of their health care plan, although children can still be covered.
Then I’d come up with something outraged to tie everything together at the end.
Jonathan and I have referred to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, numerous times. The book is 10 years old now and Ehrenreich has written a afterward for the anniversary addition. This paragraph leapt out at me.
In 2000, I had been able to walk into a number of jobs pretty much off the street. Less than a decade later, many of these jobs had disappeared and there was stiff competition for those that remained. It would have been impossible to repeat my Nickel and Dimed “experiment,” had I had been so inclined, because I would probably never have found a job.
What do people do do when they can’t even find shitty jobs? Here’s a hint.
If you want to bury your story from the media, the best way to do it is to schedule an event on a Friday afternoon in Washington D.C., all but guaranteeing that everyone has gone home and that other stories will have popped up before Monday rolls around.
Making Change at Walmart and Jobs with Justice members to rally outside Walmart D.C. lobbying office, will deliver message to Walmart demanding “Pay what you say” as part of national conference.
WASHINGTON – Making Change at Walmart will rally outside Walmart’s lobbying office in Chinatown Friday afternoon as part of the national Jobs with Justice conference. Press is invited to attend this public event. Dyana Forester of One DC will MC, and scheduled speakers include Walmart associates, local Respect DC coalition members, faith leaders and other national groups that support Making Change at Walmart’s mission.
What: Hundreds rally from around the country at Walmart D.C. Lobbying Office to tell Walmart it doesn’t matter what it says, but what it does for communities
Who: Making Change at Walmart coalition members, including Jobs with Justice national conference attendees, Walmart associates, and Respect DC members.
When: 4:30 p.m., Friday, August 5, 2011
Where: Walmart Lobbying Office, 701 8th St NW, Washington, D.C.
Making Change at Walmart and Jobs with Justice stand for good jobs that allow workers to support a family and make communities strong. Walmart has a track record of poverty jobs and disrespect of employees, and of making verbal promises it doesn’t intend to keep. The company needs to pay its associates the hourly wages it promises, and put all its promises in writing.
Making Change at Walmart seeks to promote the American values of equality, dignity and respect in the workplace. The campaign is making change by working directly with Walmart associates to claim the respect on the job they deserve, holding Walmart corporate managers accountable to hourly employees and the public for their practices, and joining with community leaders in major cities across America to make sure that any new jobs offered by Walmart meet strong standards for healthy, growing communities.
How do you really feel about Walmart? Here’s your chance to express your true feelings — pro and con — about the world’s largest retailer. Write whatever you like in the comments section and engage your fellow readers in the conversation.
Do you suppose the security guard saw a couple of furner lookin’ folks and just knew that they were up to no good? Or perhaps the guard was upset with all the cash the socialists in Washington were giving furners when he had to make do with a job as a Walmart security guard.
Newlywed shoppers claim Wal-Mart’s false accusation that they tried to steal $2.90 worth of chicken neck bones caused the wife to be falsely arrested and lose her job, her husband to be deported, and both to lose their car, all their possessions and their house – though Wal-Mart’s security video showed they had paid for the damn chicken bones.
Mary Hill Bonin sued Wal-Mart and several of its managers in Jefferson County Court.
Bonin says the imbroglio ensued when she went shopping at the Adamsville Wal-Mart on July 1, 2007, with her husband of 2 months, who was not yet a U.S. citizen.
They used the self-checkout counter to save time.
Bonin says the scanner would not register the $2.90 worth of chicken necks, so she asked a Wal-Mart employee for help. The employee checked the machine and told her “it’s okay,” according to the complaint.
The Bonins left and showed their receipt to the greeter and door guard, who accused them of stealing the neck bones. According to the complaint, things got out of hand pretty fast:
“Plaintiff told these employees to look again as the item was on the bottom of the receipt and therefore accounted for. The security guard started screaming and asked to see the identifications of the plaintiff and her husband. The security guard screamed at the plaintiff and her husband saying they were going to be deported.
Given all the comments we get here on buyingmeat at Walmart, passing up on the chicken necks seems like a smart move.
How do you really feel about Walmart? Here’s your chance to express your true feelings — pro and con — about the world’s largest retailer. Write whatever you like in the comments section and engage your fellow readers in the conversation.
[Update at 0707 on Friday, 24 June: REDACTED. Those of you who might have stopped in yesterday would have read a longer version of this post that involved an email from an intern who, it turns out, got ahead of himself and requested a takedown. I decided to redact the post, not because of any error on my part, but because it is the nature of interns to make mistakes and I have no desire to cost the budding journalist a summer job. In my response I repeated a rule taught to me when I was an undergraduate journalism major: everything, absolutely everything is on the record unless explicitly stated, and agreed to, otherwise.]
As Uncle Bob noted in his comment yesterday, we’re not around much anymore, and if either Jonathan or I were to make an appearance it would be because of the 9-0 decision in favor of Walmart in Dukes. Why do I focus on the 9-0 and not the 5-4 decision?
Because I think (and very well be the only journalist who does so) that is where the meat of the story is. I think the 9-0 decision first, provides cover for the justices on both sides of the 5-4 decision and second, demonstrates that the attorneys representing Walmart’s female employees, became too infatuatred with the cause and the fame they would garner as the legal minds that brought down Walmart and forgot their first duty to their clients.
In doing so they may have set the labor rights of workers decades.
How do you really feel about Walmart? Here’s your chance to express your true feelings — pro and con — about the world’s largest retailer. Write whatever you like in the comments section and engage your fellow readers in the conversation.
Back on the 4th of March I Went Thinking, a personal retreat I periodically engage in to get away from the Internet and all distractions electronic, to enter myself and ponder. I did so because the demands of making a living suddenly became intense and I had no energy for either Have Coffee Will Write or The Writing on the Wal. I discovered, however, that in daily observing these twin devotions – engaging in the process of reading and thinking about an Internet-centered World and then composing some commentary about what I had read and thought about to share in my dinnertime conversation – I had closeted myself as effectively as any addict and left my dear Kaliope bound and gagged in the next room.
In my Thinking I freed her, but damn, is she pissed. I have tortuous predawn hours before me, but I am making amends. While her still voice remains in that next room, I anticipate her cautious approach, her return to just behind my left ear where she whispers frustrating words and creates flickers of realization. I need her.
What then of my blogs? With a single exception, no reader missed me enough to comment. Could the message be any clearer? I will continue in my housekeeping tasks for TWOTW and to post brief essays in what I think of as my 272 project (of which this is one example) on HCWW.
I struggle with my commitment phobia. I have allowed the mind killer, the little-death to keep me from my precious muse. No more. Kaliope is once again first in my life. I have serious sparking to attend to.
I’ve actually learned to use the Twitter and for the first time since I’ve been on that site Walmart is trending, which means that lots of people are tweeting about it. Oddly enough, most of these tweets seem to consist of people asking “Why is Wal-Mart trending?”
The whole story makes me wonder how much time I would have thrown “Wal-Mart” into the search engine over there if Twitter had been around five years ago.
How do you really feel about Walmart? Here’s your chance to express your true feelings — pro and con — about the world’s largest retailer. Write whatever you like in the comments section and engage your fellow readers in the conversation.
I do love it when Walmart shows up in the most unusual places like this analogy concerning the now defeated Stop Online Piracy Act and the soon to be defeated Protect IP Act. Walmart is such a universal bad actor that it has become the villian of choice around the world.
