Last night CNBC aired an hour and one half special report on Walmart. I will say that they tried to be fair, bringing statements made by employees back to Mike Duke, Walmart's CEO and asking him what he thought about them. Mike Duke seems like a nice enough guy, maybe it's his delusions that make me feel unsure about him.
Mike Duke thinks that the Walmart employees and the upper echelon (including store managers) are one big family. But in the words of one Walmart employee, "I don't even know the man . . . he's no family of mine."
The idea that Walmart is operating in a family atmosphere is merely a show for the public. They no more treat us like family than you do some stranger walking in the street. A family's head would not deprive their members of the money needed to live, or the care necessary to make the family member well, at least a good family head wouldn't.
Not only does Walmart seek to brainwash the public into its squeaky clean image, it tries to brainwash its employees as well. Daily morning meetings are held in each store after which the Walmart Cheer is performed. It's a rah-rah Walmart chant that's meant to hype the employees up so that when they hit the sales floor they will be enthusiastic about their jobs.
You know what Walmart? You want to make me enthusiastic about my job? Pay me decently! Make certain that the two or three thousand dollar suit that Mr. Duke wore during the interview isn't bought with the ache of my back and the sweat of my brow. Make sure that we are receiving a decent wage and then, if there's anything left over, have Mr. Duke go to Men's Warehouse and take advantage of their bogo sales.
Walmart now demands that their employees wear uniforms. It was not so when I joined the corporation in 2007. We wore blue smocks over our regular clothing that said on the back, "how may I help YOU?" As far as I have been able to discern, everyone liked the smocks and felt very comfortable in them. The switch to uniforms was an extra hardship laid upon the workers by Walmart because they do not pay for these uniforms. We are required to wear uniforms but must pay for the pants and T-shirts as well. We are not reimbursed or stipended. I received two shirts and received a voucher for one pair of pants 4 years ago. Boy! Walmart's cheaply made China clothing doesn't last that long! My point is, if we are required to wear uniforms, why must we also pay for them?
Sam Walton started Walmart in the Ozarks in a district where farms were failing and jobs were scarce. His idea of cheap labor to fill the many jobs with these farmers was great for them, but, when Walmart hit the city and, over these many years the workers have become more sophisticated and more apt to be "unappreciative" of the Walmart hype. The average worker today wants to be treated fairly, not made to feel that he should be thankful for a job that pays more than the average retail store, but just barely gives enough hours to stay above the legal requirements.
I do not hate Walmart. On another blog I was labled "a bitter old woman" because I criticized Walmart. I only want Walmart to do what's right for its 2 million employees. Pay us decently, provide us with a health care plan that does not cheap out on us when we have to see a doctor and does not have a $350.00 deductible to pay for even after we take out lots of cash every payday to cover our health care. And, stop all this "family" stuff unless they really, really mean it in every sense of the word.
Oh, and one last thing. You will never read of, or hear me say the word "associate" when mentioning any Walmart worker. The term should never have been introduced. We are not associated with Walmart. We are employees, workers, laborers, take your pick. Because, if I had my choice I would not be an "associate" of Walmart at all.
www.walmartworkersforchange.com www.americanworker.org
Obama election sparks new interest in civil rightsBy Andrea Shalal-EsaREUTERSBIRMINGHAM, Alabama - When Barack Obama is sworn in next week as the first black U.S. president, 97-year-old Alabama civil rights veteran Amelia Boynton Robinson will see a miracle in the milestone."I think it's an act of God," said Robinson, who was jailed and beaten decades ago in the racially segregated U.S. South.For Robinson, whose mother was born just a few years after the end of slavery, the fight for equality did not end with the civil rights laws passed in the 1960s and it won't end with Obama's historic inauguration on January 20."To this day, I am still on the battlefield," Robinson told 35 educators, students and activists last week in Tuskegee, Alabama, during a four-day tour of civil rights historic sites in Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama.Obama's election has rekindled interest in the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s amid continuing racial tensions and wide disparities in income, education and health care between whites and minority groups.In Alabama, visitor numbers are up dramatically at a center that marks the route of a five-day, 47-mile march led by King from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 by 25,000 people demanding equal rights for black Americans, said Tina Smiley of the U.S. National Park Service.Doug McMillon, chief executive of the Sam's Club unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc, has brought four large groups of executives to the center in recent months, and has commissioned a film so all his workers can share the experience, she said.Activists Charles Alphin and Bernard Lafayette organize civil rights tours such as the one Robinson addressed.Robinson, who once hosted Martin Luther King Jr. in her home, will travel to England next month to teach the principles of non-violence used in the sit-ins, mass arrests and protests that characterized the movement.In the 1930s, she started a voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, where African-Americans were hindered from voting until the mid-1960s by capricious literacy tests, poll taxes and the need to produce two white "sponsors."Robinson catapulted the issue into the limelight in 1965 when she asked King for help.Soon afterward, King led the historic voting rights marches in Alabama. On what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday," white authorities beat and tear-gassed protesters and television images flashed around the world.A LONG ROAD"It's the screaming I remember most," says Joanne Bland, who was 11 years old when she was knocked unconscious on Bloody Sunday. Her 14-year-old sister needed 26 stitches on her head; but both girls marched again the next Tuesday.The violence sparked outrage and solidarity marches around the country and helped prod Congress into passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that finally secured the right of African-Americans to vote.Bland ran Selma's voting rights museum and now leads tours of the 20,000-plus town that is grappling with a high crime rate, drug problems, severe poverty and rising unemployment.Bland says the Selma movement paved the way for the election of Obama, who visited the city in 2007."What we did here in Selma is why he was able to be elected," she said.Obama often credits the black Americans whose struggle made his personal road to the White House possible."It's important for people to study and learn about this period of history so that we can continue to build on King's work and his philosophy," added Roger Vredeveld, 47, who teaches U.S. and black history in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and went on the tour.Some analysts have described Obama's victory as ushering in a "post-racial" era, but civil rights activists say there is still much to be done. They point to such crises as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which revealed deep racial divides, and recurrent cases of police brutality.Another teacher on the tour, Arthur Romano, cited riots in Oakland, California, after the January 1 shooting of an unarmed 22-year-old black man by a white transit police officer, and said King's non-violent approach would be far more productive.Oscar Grant's death, he said, "serves as a reminder of how far there is to go, and the need for serious, strategic and long-term community involvement on these issues."(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
posted: http://africanamericans.barackobama.com/page/community/post/president/gGxFcL discussion: http://discussheadlines.blogspot.com/2009/01/civil-rights-education.html
After interviewing another post-election withdrawal sufferer, a talk-radio psychologist blurted out her cure for the nation, “Get a life!” Cameras panned to a man playing golf. The TV anchor recommended sufferers take up a hobby. Wrong!
Here is a more comprehensive cure for what ails us:
1. The global economy can no longer be dependent or sustained on American gluttony! We need to return to slow, smart growth focused on sustainability, not speculation. No more get-rich quick schemes. No more corporate welfare bailouts to fiscally irresponsible companies and CEO’s with policies that encourage greed. We need a mandate for a global green economy supporting worldwide innovation and integrity. 2. We must return to a pre Wal-Mart society where quality, not quantity matters. More is NOT better, as we see in expanding waistlines and credit card debt. You say ‘no way’, I say ‘there is no other way’. We must insist on global corporate criteria to ensures the same labor, environmental, and safety standards are maintained, stopping corporate continent hopping for shareholder profits. When trade is encouraged under universal regulations, local economies will thrive without the threat of job loss.
3. We need to connect the final and most important dots to cure America's post-election withdrawal. We don’t need to “Get a life!” We need to call unto our ‘better angels’, replacing our hedonistic society with a more altruistic one. We need to feed our vacant souls and “GET A PASSION!”
Election 2008 taught us that we need passion and meaning in our lives. When we serve a cause higher than ourselves, serving others, not just our own interests, we are inspired, fired up, willing to take action. Isn’t this why the election meant so much to so many? Isn’t this why people who had never voted were suddenly motivated to make a difference, interacting with others! Common ground towards a common good engaged the nation, much like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. But we don’t a disaster to engage our better angels.
Each of us can seek out meaningful work, connecting to others in a way that gives us a reason to get up in the morning without drugs or alcohol.
When we reach out to feed our deepest need to be a part of a solution bigger than ourselves, we will find meaning and passion that is more fulfilling and effective than just taking up golf!
MY COMMENT: Walmart in Mexico was making workers take a portion of their salaries in merchandise from the store they worked at! Our relations are important. When Bush admin supports these practices in Mexico, what do they intend for the USA?
Friday, September 05, 2008 Mexico Supreme Court orders Wal-Mart to stop paying workers in store vouchers Joe Shaulis at 11:27 AM ET [JURIST] The Mexican Supreme Court of Justice [official website] on Thursday ruled [press release, in Spanish] that Wal-Mart de Mexico [corporate website; JURIST news archive] may not pay employees in part with vouchers redeemable only at its stores. The court nullified the employment contract of a worker who challenged the voucher payments, finding that they violated Article 123 of the Mexican Constitution [PDF text], which guarantees the right to "dignified and socially useful work." The court likened the arrangement, which Wal-Mart called the Plan of Social Welfare, to a practice that prevailed during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz [profile], who ruled Mexico [JURIST news archive] in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the practice was abolished by the current constitution in 1917, workers could be forced to buy exorbitantly priced goods at company stores. AFP has more. AP has additional coverage. From Mexico City, El Universal has local coverage. Among other legal setbacks for Wal-Mart [JURIST news archive], four labor groups filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the Federal Election Commission last month, alleging that the retailer forced employees to attend meetings where political campaigns were discussed. Last year, a Philadelphia judge ordered Wal-Mart [JURIST report] to pay nearly $47 million in legal fees and costs resulting from a class action brought by employees who had been denied pay for work they did during breaks. A jury awarded the same plaintiffs $78 million for their off-the-clock labor, plus $62 million in damages [JURIST reports] under a Pennsylvania law that prohibits employers from withholding pay for more than 30 days. Also last year, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the certification [JURIST report] of a class alleging that Wal-Mart had discriminated against female employees.
TACTICS FOR DEALING WITH WALMART re: OBAMA!
From extensive prior personal experience, especially with regard to WalMart, China, and Tibetan Political Causes, let me tell you that WalMart only comprehends it when you do condemn them, especially if you hunt down each and every Walton and their inlaws and heirs living in or near Bentonville, Arkansas. If this was indeed a company wide effort, to ask employees to not vote for Obama (for whatever reason, mostly having to do with unionizing is my surmise), you have to safely assume that it was a Board Decision, largely from family members and their clones, drones, and apparatchiks. These folks say it was not anything official, however....
In any case, Walmart does respond: for example, when they did a survey in their UK supermarket chain, ASDA, they asked the customers what they wanted to keep and what they wanted to get rid of, and the #1 get rid of thing was: the neurotoxic and carcinogenic poison, the artificial sweetener, Aspartame, found in diet cokes, sugarless gum, Equal, and 7000 other products. They did just that, got rid of it, and then, when they described the things they had got rid of as NASTY in some publicity and some store placards, Ajinomoto of Japan, the world's largest aspartame and MSG manufacturer in Japan, decided to sue them, and WalMart/ASDA didn't cave in....They are holding their ground, legally.
SO MY ADVICE IS THIS: DO CONDEMN THEM LOUDLY IN THE EDITORIAL PAGES AND IN LETTERS TO THE WALTONS, BUT WORD IT CAREFULLY SO AS NOT TO SOUND ELITIST. Make it clear that you're not going to shop there because of this, and the old consumer prerogative is one of the most powerful tools in the world!!!!!
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Here are my two major new articles: please take the time to read them and if you like them forward them to friends and colleagues. Thanks!
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard Socks it to MuslimsWant to live under Sharia Law? Then Get out of Australia!
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=55387&ret=AccountDtl.aspx
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Several before and after photos of Beijing's air quality, plus an article: "Pollution curbs turn Beijing into urban laboratory": Perhaps IOC Jacques Rogge Will Listen to Requests to Remove Marathon, Triathlon, and Cycling out of Beijing's Smog, As We have Asked for the Past Six Weeks!
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=55375&ret=AccountDtl.aspx
Stephen Fox, Managing Editor Santa Fe Sun Newsstephen@santafefineart.com
The Wall Street Journal asks if the nation's largest employer, Wal-Mart, is working against the Democratic candidate.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121755649066303381.html
Walmart is telling their works not to vote for Barack Obama.
Walmart Vs. Their Workershttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/01/politics/animal/main4314198.shtmlCBS News Online
I made an angry retort to Mickiboop. I misplaced my response to her post by not reading the entire series of Walmart-related posts from different people carefully enough. This blog does not make it easy to follow a series on one topic.
The Walmart fallacy is that Walmart-haters support working people. In fact, they happily shop at stores that are easily more oppressive than WalMart and pay higher prices for similar imported goods. They also ignore the big shopping centers that cause similar land-development problems just because they identify themselves with the better-off shoppers at those other stores. Wal-mart haters are using WalMart as a cover for hating low-income wage laborers in general.
We have so much assault going on against working class people in my city that it has made my fuse very very short. I apologize for offending anyone who is an Obama supporter, but I make no aplogy at all for offending any Clinton supporters. I am not one of the ostriches with their heads in the sand about the fact that Hitlery Clinton did not actually concede anything to Obama's victory. I beleive many Clintonites have come into the Obama campaign with the intention of taking it over at the convention. We cannot afford to ignore their true intentions.
I was actually mobbed and shoved out of a community group because I used Walmart plastic bags and I thought that was just an odd personal thing until I noticed that the people running around this city with "stop Walmart" petitions are using them as trigger points for targetting people to drive out of the city for other reasons, mostly Clinton-style class hatred of menial laborers. They have been attacking people using all the Clinton tactics of gathering personal information and then feeding it into their activist network to take over "affinity" groups and grab real-estate through their control of "neigborhood" groups.
The Clintonites have identified a certain set of characteristics as being "the enemy" and shopping at WalMart is one of them. Being under $25,000 a year is another, and they are actually waging a war in this city against the affordable apartment complexes that have been getting city help to serve that population. The Clintonites for the most part are so disconnected from reality that they do not know that $25,000 a year is well above what anyone in any regular minimum-wage type job earns full-time and they characterize such people as "poor" instead of as "working class" and they characterize all "poor" as criminal noncitizen undesirables who are to be driven out of the city so that California yuppies can move in. They are not content to buy a house and move in, they are focused on driving everyone else out.
In fact you can live quite well here for about $12-15,000 a year (single w/o kids) and until recently you also were respected if you worked. Lots of artists and musicians have lived here for that reason but now the Clinton activists are mobbing us all out of our clubs and jobs and shutting down our studios unless we co-operate with their crazy fringe radical politics and give them control of our funding and hand them our neighborhoods.
I watched this whole WalMart fight over the years and the more I learned about actual urban growth patterns and planning and retail marketing, the more I could see the fallacy in the entire set-up. Watching them mob people based on class perceptions of body type, clothing, and stylishness (the "new" racism!) has confirmed the true nature of the anti-Walmart crazies.
I have learned from simply reading the newspapers that Wal-Mart has given political contributions to both Barack and Hillary. But Hillary sent hers back due to Wal-Mart's anti-union stance. I was just wondering if Barack has also sent his back and, if not, would he shop at Wal-Mart today?
Joe
I get so discouraged by the effectiveness of "say anything" kitchen-sink smear tactics, incessant tabloid-media distractions passed off as real news, pandering, innuendo, and outright lies that rely on the general ignorance of the lowest common denominator in this country - confidently knowing all along that by the time the actual truth filters down to the masses, it'll be too late!... it makes me sick!
Over the weekend, my girlfriend was walking through the parking lot of our semi-rural Indiana Walmart wearing her Obama shirt, when some hayseed jackass called her a "terrorist lover"!
You know, I WANT to have hope... I WANT to believe in this country's ability to rise above the BS... But misinformed hate like this makes me infinitely frustrated, bitter, and angry! Not to mention the fact that it happened to MY girlfriend! (I really hope I'm the one that runs across you next time you redneck pr***!)
I'm no less proud to be an American, but I'm a little less proud of America - and its liars and hate-mongers from both the GOP and (yes) the Clinton campaign that continue to perpetuate their vile messages to the gullible, with absolutely no remorse what-so-ever! Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to vote, but unfortunately they are - with their evil puppet-masters happily pulling their strings all the way to the polls!
HOPE...
I HOPE the majority of people aren't this ignorant. I HOPE we outnumber the stupid. I HOPE we will collectively rise-up and politically crush the manipulative evil that runs rampant within our system. I HOPE this really IS "our time".
Rednecks 4 Obama '08Ye-ha we can, y'all!!!
P.S.: Let's do it tomorrow Hoosiers!!! I DO have faith in us!!!
LEE SCOTT HELP DEBORAH SHANK
Dear Mr. Scott
I am writing this in hopes you will read this and understand.
I am personally asking you to donate to Deborah Shank's Walmart's pay back to Walmart fund of the full balance Walmart is seeking.
Why in the world Walmart would want this impression,
I have no comprehension to understand.
I am asking You ( Lee Scott ) and the Walmart children to help your employee.
You might have every legal claim in the world to recover this money.
But morally ... Read More
http://ameriborn.com/blog/?p=64
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/walmart.insurance.battle/index.html?iref=newssearch
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/11/sebok.walmart.suit/index.html
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2007-12-07-wal-mart-disability-suit_N.htm
http://www.walmartclass.com/walmartclass_press_advisory-9th_circuit.html
Perhaps it's time to ask HRC once again about her longstanding ties to Walmart's Board of Directors, of which she was a member for nearly a decade --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtdwcbqeE5s
...and why we need Universal Health Coverage
I was watching Anderson Cooper 360 tonight and saw the sad and horrifying tale of Debbie Shanks, a Missouri Wal-Mart employee who was struck in her minivan by a tractor-trailer and rendered brain-damaged for life and in need of nursing home care. She was covered by Wal-Mart health insurance but there was one little bit of fine print that Wal-Mart would use to make things even worse.
You can read the whole story here.
Enraged, I wrote the following email to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott:
I encourage others to learn more and become similarly vocal - His email is lee.scott@wal-mart.com
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Subject: Giving the Shanks the Shaft
Dear Mr. Scott, Wal-Mart CEO, Don't do it. Don't execute the collection of Mrs. Shanks' $270,000 trust fund that keeps her brain-damaged self alive and cared for in a nursing home. She was a covered employee when she suffered her tragic brain injury in that car accident. Now your lawyers say they're days away from seizing all her money. Don't, I repeat, DON'T do it. As a matter of fact, you'd better round up a big pile of money from all your cronies now because y'all in deep PR Doo Doo. Wal-Mart's name is worse than MUD. You know it. Anderson Cooper's done you in, and you deserve every bit of it. Gotta teach you idiots that there are some lines you just don't cross. The math doesn't work out. Woulda just been cheaper to skip going after the money. Really now. It's gonna be much more expensive now. How does that help keep your prices low? Maybe they should just fire you, Mr. CEO, and get somebody else. 'Cause the way I see it, if your company's health plan has a case before the Supreme Court of the USA and you're the head man and you don't know about it, you're done. On the other hand, if you did know about this case and you didn't stop it in its tracks, you're an idiot and should be done. Your company's reputation is SOOO important that you can't be a very good manager if you've let this fiasco slip out of control. Either way, you should probably do the Board a favor and submit your resignation soon. Unless somehow you can make turd smell like a rose by quickly and publicly apologizing and offering the Shanks a substantial settlement for their ordeal of fighting you all in court while caring for their brain-damaged mother/wife and dealing with the death of their brother/son in Iraq. The sickest part is, she no longer has any short term memory, so every time she asks for her son and has to be told that he died in Iraq, it's like hearing it for the first time. What part of that not being a good idea to further brutalize do you not understand? I don't understand how you can think you're doing your job allowing this to fester. You had $90 BILLION in sales LAST QUARTER. What part of this poor lady's $270,000 do you really need? Honestly. Your move. Good luck, you'll need it now. David Caputo Holyoke, MA
I was unaware of this interesting piece of Clinton Experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uihZYwFoino
I'm sure the Unions and Women in PA will be impressed with her experience here.
I've included a link to an ABC news story on Hillary's record when she was on the board of directors of WalMart for 6 years from 1986 through 1992.
The story mentions that Hillary's campaign biography and memoirs make no mention of the fact that Hillary served on the board of directors for WalMart for 6 years. It tells you something about her character that she now chooses to attempt to hide this inconvenient aspect of her record and her experience.
The simple fact is that in 1986 Hillary chose to spend her time working to help WalMart. In 1986, Barack Obama was working as "a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment." You decide who has the better record, who has the better judgment, and who you can trust to tell you the truth.
Thanks Mark from Lexington, MA
Barack the Vote !
The first story is about two weeks old, but just now gaining attention at Digg.com:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Clinton_Remained_Silent_As_Wal_Mart_Fought_Unions_4
The second story is one I've submitted to Digg. Forgive the imflamatory headline I wrote. Unfortunately, I've learned that a sensational headline is one of the only ways to get noticed on digg:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/BREAKING_Read_Clinton_Top_Advisor_s_RACIST_Comments
If you are a member of Digg.com, add me as a friend! My username is ddmulholland.
