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Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

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Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#201

Post by salmon30salmon »

Frondo wrote: post #27
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

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 job…

The Port of Portland (Oregon) lost container service due in no small part to this exact type of fracas between unions. There was a work slowdown over who is allowed to plug and unplug refrigerated units. This slowdown eventually led to large container ships no longer calling the port. The economic impact that this has had on the local economy is huge. Now small businesses and farms need to truck or train their goods to Seattle/Tacoma, which is a large cost for low margin goods (such as hay).

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/02/what_th...

These are real people hurting due to the so-called fabled union demonizations.

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#202

Post by rayiner »

yolesaber wrote: post #199
rayiner wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massive profits. Wal-Mart's profit margin is about 5%.

That doesn't mean that $131.69 billion is not a massive amount of money. http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Wal-Mart_(WMT)/Data/Gross_Pro...

That's gross profit--revenue minus cost of goods sold, not including salaries and rent. Other overhead plus taxes brings that down to about $15 billion. Which is not a lot of profit for a company with almost 2.3 million employees. It's equivalent to a 20-employee mom-and-pop that pulls out $120,000 a year for its owner. A McDonalds franchise is much more profitable.

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#203

Post by enraged_camel »

randomdata wrote: post #183
enraged_camel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment was, literally, "What, exactly, is unfair about the current compensation?" And literally the first option in the search I linked ("walmart unfair wages") will lead you straight to the answer.

Actually, my comment said that fair markets will see people try to undercut each other and that the best solution is to reduce or eliminate the fairness by having a union become the only negotiator. Quite the opposite of fair, as individual freedom to negotiate is lost, but it ends up most beneficial for those involved. Did you actually read my comment? Because it seems like you didn't read my comment.

I read your comment to the same extent that you read the results of the search I provided.

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#204

Post by coldtea »

microcolonel wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #11

It's an illegal labor practice in the US for an employer to do that. It's interference with the right to bargain collectively. But WalMart probably doesn't have much to fear from the Labor Department. Even under the current administration, enforcement is weak, and it will probably be weaker under the next administration. It's really tough to organize a union today, even though the law as written is pro-union.

They're not interfering with the right to bargain collectively though. For all we know, they're genuinely warning their employees that they may be involved in a PII collection scam. They can't reprimand/dismiss you for using the app, but surely they can tell you it's unwise. I don't see why people are so quick to tie Wal-Mart to the pyre; for what they pay, their employees are satisfied to an outsized degree. Given t…

>They're not interfering with the right to bargain collectively though. For all we know, they're genuinely warning their employees that they may be involved in a PII collection scam.

I never thought the benefit of the doubt could go so far.

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#205

Post by jimmywanger »

anigbrowl wrote: post #137
jimmywanger wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said I was being a devil's advocate. And the fact that an app requires such personal information to pretty much access an expert system raises my hackles. Are you really unable to tell the difference between merely registering for a site and given them your phone number and zip code?

Of course I'm able to tell the difference. I'm also able to tell the difference between a labor union trying to organize workers and other forms of commercial activity.

Apparently this app is just for answering frequently asked questions about HR and leave policies, with the help of IBM's watson.

Which article were you reading? They were not trying to organize workers overtly, and just to give advice on lead policies requires absolutely no personal information that needs to be stored.

What part of that can't you tell the difference of, that their demanding of personal information is overreach?

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#206

Post by jimmywanger »

TheDong wrote: post #125
jimmywanger wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Locked down racks" is complete FUD. That was my point. I'd much rather have them Amazon boys or Google boys take care of my data than my own sysadmin team - the Amazon/Google sysadmins are sharp, they apply all patches, and they have procedures in place to make sure they don't do anything incredibly stupid. The fact they don't mention how they store any of this information that could have potential career altering…

What you're saying is even more FUD though. Using AWS EC2 or GCE's compute doesn't mean you aren't responsible for sysadmining. You still have to patch your boxes, you still have not do incredibly stupid things. The actual security difference between servers on a rack and virtual machines in a cloud is roughly a dozen ip-tables rules (security groups).

There are two levels, IaaS and PaaS.

For IaaS, I agree that you're responsible for some sysadmining, but you start from a known good point in that bare VM OS images (for CentOS, Ubuntu, Windows, etc) will probably have all the appropriate patches applied and up to date. Of course you're on your own when it comes to spinning up your programs to make sure SQL injection doesn't work, etc etc.

PaaS is another thing. In that case, if you're using AppEngine or ElasticBeanstalk or Heroku, you don't have to worry about the base infrastructure or the datastore at all. They should have all the relevant security patches applied at all times, which really cuts down the attack area to just your app, not the web server, datastore, or OS vulnerabilities.

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#207

Post by [deleted] »

jonathankoren wrote: post #191
Dove wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Walmart engages in wage theft and is then sued for it, that sounds to me like the law works. Unless the penalties aren't enough to resolve the issue or something, that doesn't sound like an ongoing injustice - and at any rate, sounds like a problem for the courts, not the public. Sorting that sort of thing out fairly is their job, and they're surely going to be more thoughtful about it than angry internet mobs. If…

The benefit of the subsidy is Walmart because they can pay less. Having a job and being stuck on charity is not the system working as designed. A system working as designed wouldn't need charity at all, and certainly would be needed for those that are working and are still indigent. I really find it odd that you think paying more would be "taking from the poor to give to the poor". Walmart and the Walton family are e…

[deleted]

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#208

Post by lotharbot »

phil21 wrote: post #171
ethanhunt_ wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the more interesting features of the American political environment, over at least the last three and a half decades, is the extent to which the demographic that is (or was) nominally represented by unions has voted for politicians who have made no bones about their intent to weaken the unions and labor law, especially at the state level. They failed because the majority of people are hard workers who loathe…

While a bit more political and divisive than I would have gone with, I think you hit the nail on the head. Those that would benefit most in theory from unions generally have the most experience "in the trenches" with them. This experience shows them that unions more or less became places to protect the lowest common denominator with zero regard for any value they bring to the table. Show me a union that functions lik…

> "Show me a union that functions like a "guild" where it polices it's membership extremely well, and people strive to be skillful enough to join"

Pro sports players' unions.

It makes sense -- owners must act as a collective unit in order to ensure competitive balance and some degree of economic stability. A sports league where one team can afford to buy all of the best players from other teams is going to lose fans very fast. With owners acting collectively, players act collectively as a counterbalance. They make sure that they get a reasonable share of the overall income, and that it's distributed in a way that pays top performers more but also pays well enough at the bottom to keep the league an attractive place for marginal players.

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#209

Post by moyta »

tomcam wrote: post #95
Animats wrote: post #11

It's an illegal labor practice in the US for an employer to do that. It's interference with the right to bargain collectively. But WalMart probably doesn't have much to fear from the Labor Department. Even under the current administration, enforcement is weak, and it will probably be weaker under the next administration. It's really tough to organize a union today, even though the law as written is pro-union.

Is Wal-Mart actually doing anything illegal? They are not preventing their employees from downloading anything. They are simply telling the employees that the app collects personal information and that it may be used in nefarious ways. I see no evidence at all that Walmart is stopping the employees from any kind of download of the app.

Its disingenuous and in other countries would get the labor board on their ass, they are using FUD to stop their employees from organizing.

Here in the US we have very weak labor law enforcement, thus Trump can have managers dodge a certified union [1] approved by his employees in a vote, and not even get a slap on the wrist for refusing to bargain with the union as his company is legally required to.

[1] - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/las-vegas-hotel-wor...

Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App

#210

Post by moyta »

ethanhunt_ wrote: post #142
mannykannot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even under the current administration, enforcement is weak, and it will probably be weaker under the next administration. One of the more interesting features of the American political environment, over at least the last three and a half decades, is the extent to which the demographic that is (or was) nominally represented by unions has voted for politicians who have made no bones about their intent to weaken the u…

> One of the more interesting features of the American political environment, over at least the last three and a half decades, is the extent to which the demographic that is (or was) nominally represented by unions has voted for politicians who have made no bones about their intent to weaken the unions and labor law, especially at the state level. They failed because the majority of people are hard workers who loathe…

You have obviously never had to work in a unionized environment, here in Seattle Seattle Public Utilities will show union protected employees the door in a heartbeat if they cannot perform their duties or if management doesn't like them. I've seen & heard it repeatedly, here is a recent example [1]. The only people I've heard of being protected are the barely literate middle management at SPU and Oracle despite the tens of millions of dollars they have billed the city over what they quoted for a broken billing system to replace the maxed out billing system we currently have.

Get some facts & experience before commenting on things your unfamiliar with. Unionized employees nearly always vote for their interests, the number of unionized employees has collapsed under union busting tactics over the past few decades.

[1] - http://sheridanlawfirm.com/johnson-v-city-of-seattle-plainti...

[2] - http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/city-light...

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