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Users Trash Wal-Mart On Its Facebook Site
hhavensteincw writes "Only two weeks after Wal-Mart launched its latest foray into Web 2.0 land, Facebook users have hijacked a page aimed at selling back-to-school supplies to college kids to instead post rants about the company's labor practices. Of the 100-plus comments, none relates to dorm decorating as Wal-Mart had originally envisioned."
You need one of those ancient "greeters" as gate-keepers on the system. I don't even let people post comments on *my* lowly page without approving them first, how can they be so naive?
What, me worry?
Am I the only one surprised it took so long?
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
Perhaps because the consequences of their business practices don't necessarily only affect consumers, but the companies from which they are buying their products, specifically the labour practices of the manufacturers. Walmart has low prices, this is true, but the value we enjoy from those prices are supported solely by the unfair wages and operations of overseas manufacturers. It is just like thermodynamics. The low cost of these products has to come from somewhere. It just happens this somewhere is sometimes a sweatshop.
Most people out there know someone that worked at or works for Walmart. I have never met someone that had anything good to say about working there, yes even higher up district managers.
And if anyone is surprised that a publicity stunt / Advertising trick that intrudes on what many college students think of as their "hallowed ground" of friend networking backfired in such a way that it's incredibly embarrassing, they must be either silly or don't know what they are doing.
That's like Microsoft putting a "tell us how you love Microsoft" section in the middle of a linux community.
The fun part, Let's see if they try it on MySpace and expect a different result.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Maybe because the cost of living in california is exceedingly high, and even making $65,000/year there is barely enough to live alone without any assistance?
Do us all a favor and take your own advice. Watch the Penn & Teller 'Bullshit!' episode about Wal-Mart, where they thoroughly demolish the anti-Wal-Mart arguments.
As good as Penn and Teller are about promoting atheism, they have a decidedly Libertarian agenda that they push right along side it, and have a tendency to sweep arguments against that view (which tend to go hand in hand with the the anti-Wal-Mart arguments) under the rug.
When an argument is using a propaganda sight and Penn and Teller as its sources, we all lose, kids.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Why would they let the children have computers? Plus the 'net would take away from their 18 hour work days.
lol: You see no door there!
I think it often happens with organizations that are large enough to be insulated from the world, or that have very active propaganda machines, that they start believing their own propaganda.
And Wal-Mart is probably one of these.
They probably do think that the anti-Wal-Mart people are just a few malcontents, and that for most people, Wal-Mart is the center of happy shiny communities. And so they are probably surprised to learn that among many people, especially the educated, they aren't popular.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Tell me again why unskilled labor should be payed at the same rate as a highly trained, skilled worker? If the pay was the same, what incentive would people have to learn skills and work in a more demanding, higher stress job?
These people chose to work at Wal Mart and knew going into it what the pay was. Its simple economics. Wal Mart pays poorly because they have an abundant pool of workers who are quite willing to work at their pay scale.
Don't like the wages? Take a few night courses and move up. Or just work somewhere else.
Don't like how Wal Mart treats its employees? Don't shop there.
You make a really good point here. I'll just point out that working at Wal-Mart is also in that comfort zone where 'working' generally consists of standing around, operating a cash register, and moving around pallet jacks. I mean, I'm sure there's probably some disaffected underemployed would-be software designers in there somewhere (I'm taking this as an article of faith, I've never *met* any of these), but this isn't exactly high-demand labor. And it's not as if these people are unemployable anywhere else. The jobs they can get might not be as comfortable, or may not be within climate controlled environments, or they may have to load up all of their cheap shit and get on a Greyhound to another town, but there's opportunities out there for those willing to break out of their comfort zone and look for them.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
They launched a campaign targeted at college students, trying to get them to discuss dorm decoration?
That might have worked on grade school kids, but college students aren't so easy to "put one over" on -- they're adults, and they're usually informed about the issues. Wal-Mart's marketing suits should have realized that their terrible reputation would precede them.
The issue with Walmart is that the company opposes labor unions -- if the workers at a store try to unionize, Walmart shuts down the store and puts them all out of a job. They have the resources to pull that kind of shit.
And I don't particularly want somebody's screaming kids in the place fucking up my perfectly good dinner but you don't see me pushing to ban 'em. Instead I pick up and take my money elsewhere. It's pretty neat how that works
Lots of businesses oppose labour unions. And for good reason. It's no wonder all the American auto plants are shutting down, when you have to pay people $25 an hour for untrained labour, meanwhile, all the cars coming out of Japan can do it so much cheaper. How are they supposed to compete? There are many stores that do not pay union rates for workers. Why should Walmart be required to. Maybe it's not economically feasible for Walmart to pay rates that union employees demand. If that's their business model, then fine. That's their choice as a corporation. Meanwhile, there's still people lining up for jobs every time a walmart opens, and people lining up to buy stuff from there. So while there may be a lot of people who don't like them, there's a ton more people who do like what walmart is doing.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
All of them could be. Because it would decrease the cost to build them, which opens up the potential to either sell them for less, or sell them at the same price with more capability. Either of which would also put them on a better competitive footing with Japan, Korea, and so forth.
Don't imagine for a minute that artificially high costs of labor have no effect upon the ability of a business to produce a quality product.
Don't worry about it though; even though labor unions seem to have the upper hand at the moment, they are one of the key forces that bring automation to assembly lines. Sure, they have the power to blackmail employers right now; but at the same time those ridiculous wages are being handed to them across the table, management is handing contracts to industrial robotics firms. American unions are destroying their own member's jobs by making sure they cost more to the company than automation does, and that they are more annoying to have around than robots are.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
all the cars coming out of Japan can do it so much cheaper.
n tent/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901385.html Labor Unions are largely responsible for health insurance and retirement benefits for full time employees being the standard. Walmart skirts this by having the majority of their employees work part time. They can enroll for health insurance only if they enroll their dependents as well, which is a problem because on their part time salary they can't afford the enrollment premiums. As for people lining up for the jobs and products, they lined up for Standard Oil as well. Walmart employees aren't usually in a position to be picky about their jobs, but just because they have to settle for "better than nothing" work doesn't mean that society should advocate their marginalization.
They can do it so much cheaper because the first $1500 of each car goes to cover medical insurance costs, not so in Japan. 69% of that health care cost is going to cover retired employees.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co
We are all just people.
And for good reason. It's no wonder all the American auto plants are shutting down, when you have to pay people $25 an hour for untrained labour, meanwhile, all the cars coming out of Japan can do it so much cheaper.
You may have a point about other goods but many foreign cars are domestically assembled and many domestic cars have as high or higher quotient of foreign parts. Also Japanese companies have historically felt obligations to their workers while US companies have not as much compunctions of screwing over workers to guard the bottom line. Over all your point about this one product type is full holes.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
If it blows that much, quit. Go clean bedpans at a nursing home, or roof buildings, or even take some of that free money the govt throws around, take some college courses and learn how to do something that pays money. It's your life, man.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Sorry to be so smug, but that's what happens when you rely on corporations to provide you with health care. Health care is a cost, and it's in the constition of most corporations to reduce costs where possible. This is why it isn't a good idea to rely on corporations for your health care. Telling people to either pay-up, or be sick/die, isn't something a corporation should have the power to do. That's why I'm happy to live somewhere with socialized health care. There's just too much room for corruption and taking advantage of people when you can dangle their health/life in front of them to get them to pay whatever you want them to pay.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Then do us all a favor, quit forcing your communist agenda on business owners and entrepeneurs and eat at those places that ban smoking, and QUIT FORCING YOUR LIBERAL BULLSHIT ON EVERYONE ELSE.
It's my fucking business, if I want smokers to enjoy the establishment by providing a smoking section; I should have that right. You don't want to eat where there's smoke? Don't eat at my joint.
It's not your right to make MY business decisions.
Can you brandish a gun in public areas? Can you drive drunk? Similar rationale. Smoke at your home thats fine. But the waitress isn't paid enough to breath all your second hand smoke and most restruants are too cheap to get separate ventilation so either they should ban smoking or mandates separate smoking section ventilation and higher wages to waitresses/waiters who work there.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Penn & Teller use the Straw Man a lot, a potent and popular tactic in a visual medium.
They find someone to act as the spokesperson for the position they're arguing against, and that person is always going to be someone who is utterly disagreeable to pretty much anyone who isn't a complete psycho.
For the Wal-Mart episode, they want to show what the anti-Wal-Mart crowd looks like, so they find these two nasty people who print up nasty t-shirts belittling some cruel stereotype of the Wal-Mart shopper, as well as the stereotype's wife and children.
Who's going to agree with that?
Then, on the pro-Wal-Mart side, they've got a nicely-dressed, soft-spoken young college professor.
Penn & Teller are funny and I agree with a lot of their conclusions, but they are very manipulative in their approach.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
"Maybe it's not economically feasible for Walmart to pay rates that union employees demand. If that's their business model, then fine."
What a crock of shit, in modern market society many "business models" are little more then mathematical slavery. People do not have an independent resource base (food,shelter, etc) outside of the market. If people were truly resource independent many businesses would go belly up, or not even be possible. Right now private industry and families hold all the carrots and for many depending on where they are they simply must work or produce value to get things that are not local, we've created machine that never stops, never stopping to question how this effects society and the quality human life.
You can devalue human life towards zero because businesses do not bear the full cost and risk of producing people and supporting them. Imagine having truckloads of free bread simply show up at your business everyday. That's what it's like to be an employer in regards to people.
People do not like making wage progress only to have it backslide and taken away from them and have their time and abilities devalued. We're talking about human lives here, not things, not objects. Not to mention the psychological principle of investment: People hate investing all their time and life into their workplace only to be treated a disposable unit of production. And it's not just the bottom feeding industries like wal-mart, there's a reason many early US presidents were protectionist, as not to get into trade-wars of attrition that suck the wealth out of their economies and fuel unrest.
Most modern economic liberals forget that wealth is just transferred, and if you're one of the millions that wealth is being transferred from because you've been replaced or have been FORCED into redundancy, that's hardly 'the persons fault'. The system has many negative aspects and that's why George Soros is doing what he can because of the threats capitalism poses to itself.
"The Capitalist threat"
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/soros.htm
Nope. They offer what they're willing to pay, some people take them up on it, and others don't. The only way to "drive wages down" is by force, like when Dick Nixon instituted wage and price controls to keep the economy from coping with inflation.
You're missing an important part of the equation. When a wal-mart comes into a smaller town, it tends to drive a lot of the smaller shops out of business because people go to by the uber-cheap (usually poorly made) stuff at wal-mart. Those were stores that were supporting the people who owned them and their employees.
Those people have to have a job to pay the bills. Since Wal put so many places out of business, they are, in effect, the only game in town.
And that DOES drive the wages in an area down.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
They treat them horribly? you mean worse then child prositution or working your self into an early grave in the fields? because that's often the choices a poor person has in "other" countries. they choose sweat shops, as horrible as they are, because they are the best choice they have. it's much the same as it was for our countries when they first industrialised.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Offering a woman who is in the wilderness with a broken leg a ride to the nearest hospital, on the condition that she give you a blowjob would be wrong.
Offering someone whose family is starving $2/day, on the condition that they work as slaves for you is wrong.
Yes, in each of these cases, not doing anything at all could be argued to be even worse. But that ain't enough. By that you've just demonstrated that the action is not the worst-possible-action. But there's a long step from being "not-the-worst" and to being "good".
The second example is particularily interesting; it would actually be a *crime* not to help a helpless person in such a situation. For all of your examples, choosing to help the people involved is not something that you are obliged to do in any way. Yes, you could establish your altruism by aiding them with no strings attached but you are not required to do so. (Some nations will probably have laws that require you to aid people in distress even if this comes at some cost to you - this changes things as you note.)
Assuming that you are not an altruist, however, then
Whether this becomes "good" or just remains "better" is entirely a subjective assessment. I would tend to think that so long as you are candid about what your offer entails, then giving more options is a good thing even if you are offering them for entirely selfish reasons. Whether that makes you a "good" person is a different question altogether, but that has no bearing on whether or not the offer should have been made.
As an example, if I were in grave debt I might be happy to hear the offering from the local loan shark with tendencies towards knee breaking so long as he's up front about his interest rates and methods of sanction. I might end up not accepting the offer, but at least I have it on the table along with all my other options.
sigs are hazardous to your health