Walmart has reportedly closed a smattering of its stores across the country citing "plumbing problems". The mega-retailer's media cohorts are reporting the mystery but won't say that the closures coincide with stores which have been hardest hit by labor unrest. It turns out, Walmart has opted to close its doors where employees have most successfully organized "Fight For Fifteen" actions. By suddenly closing the stores Walmart preempted further organizing and punished the upstarts by laying off all the store's employees with only a few hours notice. Walmart claims the plumbing problems will take a half year to fix. I think what remains of Walmart's workforce has been given a wonderful opportunity to retaliate in kind. What of these plumbing problems? Are Walmart's other stores showing signs of plumbing problems too? Might a larger wave of plumbing problems be induced? I think Walmart's union-busting advisors have loosed a weapon that will prove more consequential for Walmart than its wage-slave victims. Foisted on their own petard, I believe is the expression. Petard in this case is substituted by toilette. Walmart customers can even get in on the act, err, investigation, for free. Come to Walmart empty handed, find a bag of cement
Tag: Walmart
Walmart Black Friday Strike Protests
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS- Walmart Express, 3636 N. Broadway, Lakeview
Walmart: Strike you goddamn morons!
Finally, finally Walmart slave-wage workers are marching, on their off hours, picketing their stores. Finally. It's tempting to get out there and hold signs in support, but where were they when we were protesting Walmart ourselves? The pathetic Walmart "associates" couldn't be convinced we weren't jeopardizing the source of their livelihoods. Except their jobs aren't livelihoods. Even as Walmarts in more and more cities face a growing uprising, I'm not convinced that our local workforce can wise up beyond agitating to medicate their lives with pot or jumping at the chance to scab each other's part-time hours.
Facebook advertisers can repost “likes” in your name so you don’t have to
Users of Facebook are accustomed to seeing friends listed in right-column ads, mentioned liking such-and-such a brand, or two or three. It's understood that those friends at some point visited the brand's page and clicked "like", permitting that company, Amazon for example, to pay Facebook to advertise the "like" as frequently as it wishes. It's also understood that when one "likes" a page, a post is simultaneously shared to herald the act and appears on the user's wall unless that feature is turned off. What you may not know is that your initial timeline post can be reposted, in the center-thread, at the advertiser's whim, perhaps limited to when you're online, perhaps triggered when you log on, but not logged on your wall and thus unseen by you. Does it also boost the number of people pretended to be "talking about" that brand? Are 372,523 talking about Starbucks? That could include "you", repeating yourself ad-maybe-nauseum. 35593
Walmart ‘boxes’ lack any sense of ‘integrity’
___Walmart keeps telling its subordinate hourly employees that they need 'integrity' if they are to be allowed to continue to work for Walmart. But how does Walmart itself at its upper levels of management do in the integrity department? Let's look at Walmart in Mexico, for example, where the company is enmeshed in scandal about its corrupt interactions with public officials- Wal-Mart silenced Mexican bribe inquiry ___ Where's the 'integrity'? 34090
Now MoJo throws Apple critic Mike Daisey under the bus in their exposé of Walmart Chinese shadow factories
Mother Jones is next to discredit Playwright Mike Daisey for his dramatization of Apple's supply line abuses in China, right in the byline of Andy Kroll's piece on Walmart's shadow factory system in China, which they call their, haha, "fiction-free investigation". THEN THEY FALL FOR A GREEN INDUSTRY-STRENGTH CLEANER! MoJo asks: Are Walmart's Chinese Factories as Bad as Apple's? and never really answers. Instead it's a behind the greenwash exposé, and what else is new. AND Kroll falls for a Walmart PR contractor who adversaries of sustainability hacks recognize as the archetypal intelligence fiend, the federal witness protection program hair club for men, biker, treehugger alias. This time in the persona of "Terry Foecke (pronounced FAKE-ee), a consultant spearheading Walmart's factory energy efficiency program in China. In a lobby full of Westerners, Foecke cut an unmistakable figure—thickly bearded, 6-foot-3, with a broad belly and hip square-framed glasses. He was an unlikely Walmart ally: a soft-spoken, almost professorial progressive who quoted George Bernard Shaw and told me he spoke out against runaway consumerism at his Unitarian church back home in Minnesota." Um, yeah Andy. Fake-ee.
Say goodbye to 2011 and bad bad Walmart
OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Occupy Walmart continues today at Platte and Chelton. JOIN US. Why Walmart -- where have you been?! If the 99% can come together on anything, it's against capitalism's most despotic retailer. Judging by the support from traffic passing on Platte Avenue, 99% agree, this new year will not sustain such a greedy business model. Here are photos from Friday's protest. 29704
PICS: Together we can fight Walmart
OCS- There may be OCCUPIES less recalcitrant, but few more scenic. 29633
Why I Occupy Walmart
MY ENDGAME in occupying Walmart is to rally union members to the Occupy Movement. Union members, not unions. Taking the fight straight to Walmart, one of the most despicable, exploitative despoilers of the world's people and economy is something the big unions should have been doing thirty years ago. Maybe their members will finally see that they've been sold up the river by their supposed representatives. That neither local nor national unions are expressing solidarity with us on the sidewalks of these super centers is proof that the only wages and working conditions they've been protecting are their own.
Tent monster who occupied Walmart
OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- The occupation continued this weekend at the Walmart on Powers & Palmer Park. We took special care not to make shoppers feel guilty, who'd already turned in, or coming out of the store, hurriedly checking items off their to-do lists. Instead we directed our BOYCOTT WALMART banners at the rush of consumers driving by, many of whom gave us honks of support. 29558
PICS: Occupy Walmart 12/12 First of our Twelve Walmart Days of Christmas
OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Occupy CSprings occupied the Walmart on 8TH STREET for our first of 12 Walmart Days of Christmas. Slogans you can use for your own superstore boycott: WALMART: ROLLING BACK UNION GAINS, ALWAYS -- WALMART KILLS MOM & POPS -- SHOP LOCAL, NOT WALMART and HEALTHCARE FOR CHRISTMAS. Up next: POWERS BLVD! 29505
On #D12 #OccupyCS takes on Walmart, company store of the global plantation.
OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Showing the flag today on the Occupy corner of Acacia Park in advance of tomorrow's 12/12 WALMART BOYCOTT. You might well ask why we passed on a sunny, pre-Chrismas shopping weekend to picket the 8th Street Walmart on a MONDAY. Easy. Our boycott is timed with other OCCUPY actions on #D12, the shutdown of Oakland's port by #OccupyOakland and #OccupyDenver's blocking of the Loveland Colorado Walmart distribution center. Solidarity. So we thought we'd dry our new signs today and recruit for tomorrow's event. The cops came early. 29487
Bad News for the CorpoFascists… Cali woman gasses other shoppers
at a WalMart, scuffling over an X-Box. All the Corporate Goodies in one bag here, pepper spray, Capitalism, WalMart, Microsoft, greed, all in one fell swoop. On the main YouTube video of UC Davis Occupy being peppersprayed, 30 thousand comments and most from a tiny minority of the viewers, Right Wing Retards cheering for violence against their Fellow Americans. Now the Corporate Whores are seeing what their system is promoting in a different light, and I bet none of them like what's happening. They'll try, probably, to blame Occupy, Liberals in general, Hippies, pot smoking, everything other than the greed their corporate Masters need to justify the very existence of Capitalism At another Wally World, a shooting. Merry Christmas you stupid stupid bastards.
Robot Workers
There's a commercial for a well known insurance company that has a woman saying "To save money I enrolled my kids in a day care center run by robots" And one for a hamburger chain which has a robot trying to eat one of their sandwiches "Machines can't eat them, machines shouldn't make them". Noble sentiments that, but for the fact that an auto insurer and fellow earth-rapists like a Fast Food restaurant really aren't doing much for humanity or the rest of the species on the planet either. Like self-checkout machines at stores. Designed to maximize profits by simply not paying humans. Some of them, like the ones at WalMart, go even further and bitch at you if you don't scan or put money in fast enough. Service With A Snarl. 26453
Ikea factory workers organized by IAM, who will unionize the retail employees?
Ikea factory workers in Danville, Virginia, voted to unionize. Did they do it alone? No, they joined the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (Upside for Ikea, its customers can pretend their prefab furniture is tooled by rocket scientists). If Ikea retail employees follow suit, maybe there's hope for organizing the poverty-wage employees of America's largest private retailers: Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, so what current retail unions are recruiting their membership to flier offending locations, circulate among the workers and initiate organizing campaigns?
Store-bought patriotism and the futility of trying to shame the shameless
If you want the image in full-size, it's more than 1400x800. See, I'm not a flag-waver. I DO however know at least Some of the flag code. One is that you're only supposed to display a flag in an environment consistent with the design. That does NOT include displaying a cloth flag from a Motorized Vehicle. 18704
King Soopers v Unions, just a thought.
I've noticed lately they've got signs up all around the stores saying "Our People Make The Difference" and similar themes, to the effect that they value the workers, really they (say they) do. So why the continual Big Scary Hassle regarding any contract negotiations? I saw something on TV the other day about "How It's Made -- Awards" and the deal was about those plastic Award trophies that large corporations give out at the end of the year... instead of, you know, cash bonuses. I always prefer artwork, like small wallet sized engravings of Dead Presidents, just a personal note. 17682
Is Walmart trademark “Price Rollback” nostalgic for better shopping days?
What is a Walmart "price ROLLBACK" but a way to take credit for sale pricing present and past? You generate goodwill for deals you're advertising, and buttress customer loyalty for savings you offered in bygone times, whether you did or not. 16900
You can’t even trust Goobers anymore
By "goobers" I mean Goober Peas. That staple of American Diet in more ways than you can possibly imagine unless you're allergic to them, Once Again being recalled due to bacteria that exist naturally in the digestive tracts of Carnivores. In this case, like the LAST recall, which was only last year, about this time, it's Salmonella. 15039
Breaking News!!
News 5 just gave WalMart and Microsoft, two very wealthy companies owned by the wealthiest people in America, FREE advertising. Disguised as News Reports. Said Wally World is Slashing prices and announcing that "most" of the testers for Windows 7 (who got their operating system free from Microsoft, a $100 gift, in other words they're PAID to say nice things about it) liked it. Gee, ya reckon? 10422
Illegal Alien costume has a Green Card
It's called the Illegal Alien Costume, available at Target, Walmart, et al. And look-- he's tendering a Green Card! That means he's overqualified to work the night shift cleaning super center floors. Immigrant rights activists are calling for the retailers to pull the costumes. No human being is illegal, certainly not #1 enemy of the state, which most Americans associate the Gitmo jumpsuit. Halloween party planners say, lighten up! Political Correctness goes too far to ask us to show sensitivity for the thousands of undocumented workers being rounded up by ICE, incarcerated indefinitely in privately operated Wackenhut detention centers, who may or may not be wearing orange Guantanamo prison garb. When Abu Ghraib type snapshots emerge from these DHS funded facilities, next year's Halloween xenophobic gag may be for adults only.
I recognize the voice…
The female voice on the Tea-Party/Konservative Korporate Klan commercials, like “Health Care- Wrong for Colorado, wrong for America, Wrong for YOU”, “Energy Regulation, Wrong for Colorado, Wrong for America, Wrong for YOU!”, “Thinking for yourself – Wrong for Colorado, Wrong for America, Wrong for YOU!” 9742
Support Anti-American Domestic Terrorism – Buy a teastained Flag!
From Fake Warrior ChickenHawk Norris! Yes, for about $80 bucks you can buy a Made in China WalMart Flag with tea spilled on it. This from a Martial Arts Professional Athlete who got out of the Draft on a Rich Kid Technicality, just like Bush, Cheney, Rove, Bill O'Reilly, the entire cast and crew of the FORMER Terror Regime... then proceeded to make a Propaganda Movie Career supporting War and glorifying the VietNam War in particular. Just like John Wayne did. Make money off Human Suffering and Shed Human Blood. Just, you know, as long as it's not THEIR suffering or THEIR blood. Now he's making money promoting Murdering Americans for your fun and HIS fun and Profit. That and his party lost and there's now a Black president. 9349
Speaking of Halls…
Remember this? The whackadoodledoo Corporate Sucks who laughed so hard about this, protesting that it was only "harmless and funny" for Wally World to force their Company Slaves to work even while sick with symptoms of FLU... you remember the flu, right? Deadly, very contagious.yeah... THAT flu. But apparently there's no release of any kind of policy statement from WalMart that says the Manager Drones can't fire or dock the wages of the Regular Associate Drones for refusing to handle the food of the general public while contagious. 9223
Attack Drones: Freedom is so fucked
Armchair freedom fighters like me count on there remaining some parity between the forces of oppression and man's inexorable drive to be free. Masses can repel the few, nonviolence can shame the hesitant, terrorism can haunt the genteel, IEDs can pick off the occupiers, training can dispatch the sentries, but how to overcome automatons? We've confronted impregnable drones in scifi movies, and now such drones have become reality. They're bits of nothing in the air really, but a literal boatload of firepower has got their back. 8997