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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
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?
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
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.
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."
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.
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...