
Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App - miraj
http://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-tells-workers-dont-download-labor-groups-chat-app-1479214510
======
Animats
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.

~~~
mannykannot
> 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 unions and
labor law, especially at the state level.

Whether the unions could have made a difference - and whether that difference
would have been to the long-term benefit of their members - in the face of
global industrialization and automation, is another issue altogether (unless
it was the issue that got the ball of disillusionment rolling in the first
place.)

~~~
ethanhunt_
> 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 being
yoked to a lazy or incompetent person, and unions have proven to be
exceptionally good at maintaining employment of people who are terrible at
their jobs.

Some people are absolutely baffled by the software industry not having unions.
It's because people getting hired and fired within 12 months at my job is what
ensures that I only work with the best.

Unions suffer from what most of the progressive movement does: everything bad
that happens to them is the fault of the big, bad republicans and capitalists.
If they'd bother to introspect for even a second, maybe they could fix their
shortcomings and start to do some good.

The environmentalist initiative that went on the ballot in Seattle this month
was lead by a guy who is working within the Republican party for climate
reform because he's said it's not possible to work with the left anymore
because of their dysfunction. The left's response to this? Tried to torpedo
his climate bill. The head of the left is so far up its own ass that I think
it's getting close to terminal. Progressivism in America will have to die and
be reborn as a functioning body for political change.

~~~
phil21
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 like a "guild" where it polices it's membership
extremely well, and people strive to be skillful enough to join - then I will
both support that union as a member, and hire those members when possible.

If all you exist to do is keep the lowest performers employed at the expense
of your most productive members you can see why most hard working folks tend
to have a complicated relationship at best with unions as they are implemented
today.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" 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.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
> 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

On the other hand, the New York Yankees.

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jimmywanger
Just to play devil's advocate here, this is from the article:

> The app, called WorkIt, invites users to register by providing a name,
> email, telephone number and ZIP Code. Users can also s hare (sic) their job
> title and Wal-Mart store number....

That is a bunch of personally identifying information. You can easily steal
somebody's identity with those bits of information, or at least have a good
idea of who they are. I see how Walmart's corporate line is at least somewhat
believable upon further thought.

And there has been no disclosure on how they're storing this information. Are
they storing it on AWS/GCE/Azure or Linode? Or do they have their own locked
down racks that safeguard this information?

Look, I'm not saying that there's anything malicious about this, or the
Walmart isn't trying to bust worker collaboration. But, in today's security
conscious world, you really should ask these questions when you're requesting
PII to sign up to your app.

And malice vs carelessness doesn't matter when your personal information is
leaked all over the web.

~~~
r00fus
It's not PII [1]. That's an actual legal term. Workit apparently wants worker
identifying information, and Walmart, like other employers are free to tell
their workers not to provide it, but there's no ethical or legal reason they
can give to workers not to use it.

It's not unlike GlassDoor - lots of companies would prefer you didn't use it,
but at the employee level, the advantage/disadvantage ratio is pretty in your
favor.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_inform...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information)

~~~
detaro
Your own link lists some of the collected data as PII.

~~~
r00fus
Employment data considered "linked" information, and not core PII.

Core PII is: "any information about an individual maintained by an agency,
including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an
individual's identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of
birth, mother's maiden name, or biometric records"

~~~
jimmywanger
You're talking about core PII here. I'm saying the signup requirements
probably constitute PII when taken all together.

Full name (if uncommon) and email address (if private from an association/club
membership, etc.). IP address (I'm pretty sure they can log your IP address
unless they specifically say they don't.) And Zip code is mentioned as PII if
linked to any of the above.

These are all things they request for signup, and then you can optionally
include your job title and your store number. All that stuff put together is
very clearly PII, so I'm not quite sure what your point is.

~~~
r00fus
You need something personally _identifiable_ , not just personal of nature to
constitute as PII (I deal with actual PII on a daily basis). Adding up PII-
related info together doesn't constitute PII.

Many people gladly share personal details with activism sites and social
networks well in excess of what this app is requesting, the only thing
surprising here is the Streissand effect that wal-mart will get by naming this
app.

------
0xmohit
Another link: [http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/15/wal-mart-
tell...](http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/15/wal-mart-tells-
workers-dont-download-labor-groups-chat-app.html)

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
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.

~~~
Frondo
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.

~~~
chrisbennet
_" 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-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/los-
angeles-15-dollar-minimum-wage-unions)

~~~
santaclaus
> 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.

While in grad school, the heater in our lab was out during a cold-ass New York
winter. We put in work requests for weeks, and no repairs were ever made. A
fellow grad student finally got fed up, looked up the plans to the heater
online, and figured out how to fix it on his own. Months later (it is spring
time now) someone from facilities shows up, goes into a fit that someone non-
union fixed the heater, and the fellow grad student got into some shit from
the department and the deans office. Yes, this is anecdotal, but negative
interactions with unions are a real thing.

Edit: Also, the most vocal opponent of the smoking ban on campus was from one
of the service worker unions.

~~~
jackpirate
There are very real safety/regulatory/liability issues with having random grad
students performing electric repairs. My guess is that this is the actual
problem from the facility manager's perspective, and you (or someone in your
chain of communication) are misattributing it to a union problem.

Of course, it's inexcusable for repair work to take so long.

------
ransom1538
Walmart is just a front for off loaded cheap Chinese goods. Sure using labor
camps, product dumping and destroying the sky doesn't happen in our backyard.
But the concept of Walmart as pro American is disgusting. Anything to harm it
is good. Good for this app. Bored? I'll fund a new one.

~~~
PunchTornado
why the hate for imported stuff? Do you want everything you buy to be made in
USA? I don't understand you people. Trade is good for all of us. No country
can build everything.

~~~
_RPM
What do you mean you people?

~~~
RIMR
People like you.

------
fatdog
It is a fascinating idea. Let's explore it:

The app would let users signal need from a buyer so that workers in their
social network could agree on the price to give them.

If buyers managed to find the service somewhere else, users could snap a
picture of the person/company who won the business and "review" them so that
their network knew not to help the winner out, like if their brakes were about
to fail or their house caught fire or whatever.

Signup would be free but users would pay like %5+ of their paycheck, which
they will be fine with because of the increased benefits they get, and we
would use the money for expansion and blocking competitors. Uber failed at
getting political support because they were greedy capitalists who create
injustice, so campaign contributions will be one of our big cost centers, but
the returns will be well worth it.

Instead of an auction for services and market making like the apps we have
today, it's a way to collude to fix prices. If they act now, YC can get %5 for
a mere $50m.

Imagining the utility elevator pitch, "...no, no, like Grindr but for
comrades!" An app for creating labor cartels.

What will I call it? "Koloodr."

------
scarmig
The most dangerous thing about this app is the certainty that, if it takes
off, it'll be filled with union-busting labor "consultants" who'll focus on
identifying rebellious workers so Walmart can retaliate against them for some
other pretext. Note that Walmart already spends millions of dollars on these
particular types of specialized attorneys who do pretty much exactly that
except over other channels, so this isn't at all far fetched, despite how evil
it sounds.

------
santaclaus
> The app, released on Android phones Monday

Why Android only?

~~~
sfall
android is more prevalent in lower income workers. More of the potential users
would use android thus they develop on the predominant platform first.

~~~
VLM
Not in my observation. Where I work there is a low paid call center on another
floor of this giant building, and they all have iphones. Its like shoes.

At my socioeconomic level when I want to blow some cash or show off some money
I go on a thousands of dollar vacation travel or maybe buy a new car, for me
its enough to show I have some dough, but its cheap enough to fit my cash
flow.

Likewise a step or two or three downward, their way of flashing cash is the
$400 sneakers or $400 video game system or in this specific case, the $400
iphone. They may have saved from months of paychecks to afford it, but I'm not
really all that different other than I went to Ireland instead. Or I bought a
car mostly in cash. Its the same behavior at a different scale.

Android is definitely in the middle, from what I observe. No one over $400K or
under $40K has an android phone, at least not that I've seen.

------
hellofunk
I'm curious, was this article censored off the front page? I saw it near the
top briefly, and then when I clicked back to the front page, it quickly
disappeared, and it is still not in the front pages despite racking up votes.

------
tomrod
Hmm. It seems likely this will result in the Streisand effect for Walmart.

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searine
1\. Hello Streisand effect.

2\. Does anyone else hope semi-anonymous apps like this will lead to a new age
of unionization?

~~~
toomuchtodo
2\. More than you can imagine. Technology should be bringing an end to
sharecropping, not further increasing economic inequality.

~~~
nullc
I should have a pony.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I ain't got time for defeatist or libertarian attitudes (see handle).

The future is what we make of it.

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SubiculumCode
By doing that Walmart is promoting the group ha ha. Min.wage employees are not
going to listen to their boss when at home.

