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Another link: http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/15/wal-mart-tells-workers-dont-download-labor-groups-chat-app.html http://www.foxbusiness.com/features

by 0xmohit 10y ago

Another link: http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/15/wal-mart-tells-workers-dont-download-labor-groups-chat-app.html http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/15/wal-mart-tell... Interesting: Wal-Mart has instructed store managers to tell their employees that the app wasn't made by the company and described it as a scheme to gather workers' personal information, according to a document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

0xcde4c3db 10y ago
That's totally unsurprising to hear. Wal-Mart apparently defaults to portraying unions as pure evil. I don't know what the current procedure is like, but they used to make new hires watch laughably biased "educational" videos about unions. I don't remember the contents in detail, just that they roughly reminded me of '80s anti-drug PSAs/specials, with union organizers essentially taking the place of the "drug pusher" who wants to profit by ruining your life. Wal-Mart management, of course, takes the place of the wise parent/guardian who has your best interests at heart.
- vitus 10y ago
  I think the parent comment was pointing out that the foxbusiness article was pretty blatant plagiarism -- in fact, if you go through the two articles side-by-side, you can see that the foxbusiness article is pretty much taken verbatim, albeit some slight restructuring (that IMO harms the overall flow of the piece). One point, though, although I'm not sure how to interpret this, is that the original author (Nassauer) is linked at the bottom of the foxbusiness piece.
  - Sanddancer 10y ago
    The WSJ is owned by News Corp, the same company that owns Fox News. So this is probably not plagarizing, just a company printing an article in their various holdings.
- Frondo 10y ago
  It works, too. In the popular media, unions have been so thoroughly demonized for several decades. Lots of middle-aged folks now will have grown up with their only idea of the union as being the lazy teamster who does nothing all day except file grievances, or the fabled electrician who won't plug in your power cord at a trade show because it's someone else's job. And the kinds of people who're going in for these jobs at Walmart probably aren't the most educated to begin with, so watching a video that confirms the biases they've picked up from popular media, well, that's probably a pretty effective tactic on Walmart's part. This is all not to say that unions in the US are blameless. They could surely learn a lot from the way unions operate throughout Europe. There's been corruption, greed, and mismanagement in the big unions, just like every big organization (especially big American organizations; something in our cultural DNA seems to make us prone to graft), but us workers still absolutely need them or something like them to keep up the good fight.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    I'm in my late 30s. My image of unions is an amalgam of my uncle who got paid well for his union job and the guy I knew a decade ago who bragged about intentionally disrupting a UAW production line. (and of course other stuff, but I've seen both ends of it. I also don't give the UAW a lot of credit for tiering their recent agreements: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2015/10/30/workers-paid-equally-uaw-gm-deal/74904590/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-moto... It's almost literally "got mine".)
  - tankenmate 10y ago
    In fact WalMart's European arm, ASDA, is heavily unionised and management have a love / hate relationship with it but on the whole put up with it. At one point ASDA management tried to induce workers to waive their right to collective bargaining in return for a pay rise; a court found that unlawful and fined the company and made them compensate the affected workers £2,500. So they have largely buried the hatchet but it is the only place in the world that WalMart tolerates unions.
  - chrisbennet 10y ago
    "Lots of middle-aged folks now will have grown up with their only idea of the union as being the lazy teamster who does nothing all day except file grievances, or the fabled electrician who won't plug in your power cord at a trade show because it's someone else's job." Or have had the actual experience of not being allowed to plug in your own electrical cord at a trade show and blaming in on the union - which is probably right. I'm not saying unions are all bad but in the US ones don't have a good track record. When the AFL-CIO asks for an exemption to the $15 minimum wage it doesn't help their image. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/los-angeles-15-dollar-minimum-wage-unions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/los-angeles-...

by 0xmohit 10y ago

0xcde4c3db 10y ago

That's totally unsurprising to hear. Wal-Mart apparently defaults to portraying unions as pure evil. I don't know what the current procedure is like, but they used to make new hires watch laughably biased "educational" videos about unions. I don't remember the contents in detail, just that they roughly reminded me of '80s anti-drug PSAs/specials, with union organizers essentially taking the place of the "drug pusher" who wants to profit by ruining your life. Wal-Mart management, of course, takes the place of the wise parent/guardian who has your best interests at heart.

vitus 10y ago
I think the parent comment was pointing out that the foxbusiness article was pretty blatant plagiarism -- in fact, if you go through the two articles side-by-side, you can see that the foxbusiness article is pretty much taken verbatim, albeit some slight restructuring (that IMO harms the overall flow of the piece). One point, though, although I'm not sure how to interpret this, is that the original author (Nassauer) is linked at the bottom of the foxbusiness piece.
- Sanddancer 10y ago
  The WSJ is owned by News Corp, the same company that owns Fox News. So this is probably not plagarizing, just a company printing an article in their various holdings.
Frondo 10y ago
It works, too. In the popular media, unions have been so thoroughly demonized for several decades. Lots of middle-aged folks now will have grown up with their only idea of the union as being the lazy teamster who does nothing all day except file grievances, or the fabled electrician who won't plug in your power cord at a trade show because it's someone else's job. And the kinds of people who're going in for these jobs at Walmart probably aren't the most educated to begin with, so watching a video that confirms the biases they've picked up from popular media, well, that's probably a pretty effective tactic on Walmart's part. This is all not to say that unions in the US are blameless. They could surely learn a lot from the way unions operate throughout Europe. There's been corruption, greed, and mismanagement in the big unions, just like every big organization (especially big American organizations; something in our cultural DNA seems to make us prone to graft), but us workers still absolutely need them or something like them to keep up the good fight.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I'm in my late 30s. My image of unions is an amalgam of my uncle who got paid well for his union job and the guy I knew a decade ago who bragged about intentionally disrupting a UAW production line. (and of course other stuff, but I've seen both ends of it. I also don't give the UAW a lot of credit for tiering their recent agreements: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2015/10/30/workers-paid-equally-uaw-gm-deal/74904590/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-moto... It's almost literally "got mine".)
- tankenmate 10y ago
  In fact WalMart's European arm, ASDA, is heavily unionised and management have a love / hate relationship with it but on the whole put up with it. At one point ASDA management tried to induce workers to waive their right to collective bargaining in return for a pay rise; a court found that unlawful and fined the company and made them compensate the affected workers £2,500. So they have largely buried the hatchet but it is the only place in the world that WalMart tolerates unions.
- chrisbennet 10y ago
  "Lots of middle-aged folks now will have grown up with their only idea of the union as being the lazy teamster who does nothing all day except file grievances, or the fabled electrician who won't plug in your power cord at a trade show because it's someone else's job." Or have had the actual experience of not being allowed to plug in your own electrical cord at a trade show and blaming in on the union - which is probably right. I'm not saying unions are all bad but in the US ones don't have a good track record. When the AFL-CIO asks for an exemption to the $15 minimum wage it doesn't help their image. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/los-angeles-15-dollar-minimum-wage-unions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/los-angeles-...