I suppose I should now hire myself out to the big box stores for the possibility of products to review or maybe even pay. Somehow, I think I might be too opinionated for most of them, and way too desirous of my own peace of mind then to ever agree to do it for the likes of them. But, I do have to admit, I found it interesting that they’re recruiting moms, like me, ones that run blogs. From Newsweek
Among the first big companies to work with this segment was Wal-Mart. Last year the retailer recruited a group of mom bloggers to provide feedback on programs, products, stores, and services and to help build a “money-saving community.” Most are as popular as Tara Kuczykowski of DealSeekingMom.com, a blog that focuses primarily on printable coupons, product samples, and giveaways. She has 25,000 subscribers and almost 7,000 followers on Twitter. This is an insta-audience for the mega-retailer, one that’s happy to hear what any mom in their blogging group has to say about their merchandise. To be clear, none of the mommy bloggers are paid by Wal-Mart, says Melissa O’Brien, senior manager of PR and brand reputation. Nor do they have to blog about anything that’s Wal-Mart-related, although Kuczykowski says many of them often do. That’s one of the benefits, she says. They get products they can review from vendors, plus extras to give away on their sites. “There have been a couple of situations where we’ve also been asked to do a video for a vendor and have gotten paid,” she says. “You’re giving your opinions on [a product], but they’re not paying you for a positive opinion.”
I love how the writer says: To be clear, none of the mommy bloggers are paid by Wal-Mart I think it’s missing a word, the word DIRECTLY. You see, Wal-Mart doesn’t DIRECTLY pay the mommy bloggers, they line them up with their suppliers. Isn’t that a nice distinction? Wal-Mart can tell their suppliers about the bloggers and just some how, out of the blue, products, coupons and other “incentives” will magically appear at a mommy bloggers doorstep, but it doesn’t influence you, and it’s not like you’re getting paid or anything. Seriously? How stupid does this writer think I am? Wait, how stupid does Wal-Mart think all of us are?
I suppose companies like Wal-Mart have thought of Americans as Sheeple. Like we run around, eating grass, shepherded by ad agencies from one commercial product to the next, never knowing or caring why. And mommy bloggers are the latest sheeple in the mix.
But I do have to wonder if these mommy bloggers who are enticed by the free products, incentives and coupons know what it’s like for the average warehouse worker. I know they meet the “associates” when they go to the stores, but do they know how or at what cost those cheap consumer products are brought to them? And if they knew, would they care? Does Tara think beyond her pocket book and the 25,000 subscribers she’s got?
Perhaps, she might like to read Harold Meyerson in the American Prospect:
On May 14, Wal-Mart released its first-quarter financials for 2009 and announced that despite the recession — or, perhaps, because of it — business was booming. Shoppers in search of cheaper products had been flocking to its stores: A full 17 percent of its customers during the quarter were first-timers. The company had been able to exploit the downturn by reducing its legendarily bare-bones distribution expenses by an additional 5 percent. In keeping with its practice of compelling its manufacturers, shippers, truckers, and warehouses to continually cut costs, Wal-Mart had been able to “sweat the assets” in its distribution network more than usual, said Eduardo Castro-Wright, head of the company’s U.S. division.
Tags: Wal-Mart
A new study by Jenifer MacGillvary of the Labor Center at the University of California-Berkeley and Netsy Firestein of the Labor Project for Working Families shows how important unions are not only to workers but to their families. Seth Michaels at the AFL-CIO blog explains.
- Unions promote compliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act. Union members are more likely to have heard of the Family and Medical Leave Act, have fewer worries about taking leave and are more likely to receive fully paid and partially paid leaves.
- Comparing hourly workers who take family and medical leave, 46 percent of unionized workers receive full pay while on leave compared to 29 percent of nonunionized workers.
- Unionized workers are 1.3 times as likely as nonunionized workers to be allowed to use their own sick time to care for a sick child, and they are 50 percent more likely than nonunionized workers to have paid personal leave that can be used to care for sick children.
- Companies with 30 percent or more unionized workers are five times as likely as companies with no unionized workers to pay the entire family health insurance premium. Even when unionized employees are required to pay part of their family insurance premium, they pay a much lower share of the premium than do nonunionized workers.
Workers are more likely to get what they need and to be able to protect their families when they can join together to bargain with bosses rather than trying individually. It’s really that simple.
Tags: family
In the dining car, you can eat with the most interesting and random assortment of folks, at the same table. And, the food is good. You also eat with silverware.
I’ve eaten with a woman who can’t fly due to inner ear issues. I’ve eaten with students because Amtrak gives student discounts, so it makes sense for them. I’ve even eaten with folks from the First Class sleeper cars, now try and do that on a plane. But best of all, are the people who are taking their first ever trip. I love seeing the countryside through their eyes.
I’ve had mostly good experiences and occasionally, I’ve had amazing experiences.
I’ve taken the train to Orlando, Savannah, Cleveland, Chicago, New York and even a commuter train into New York (not Amtrak). I’m hoping to take the train to see friends in Fayetteville this winter and it’s really convenient for Fayetteville since they have a station there. If I wanted to get there faster and fly, I’d need to fly into Raleigh-Durham, about an hour away. I’m also likely to take the train to Pittsburgh for the blogging convention Netroots Nation in August. As you can see, I take the train.
Taking the train for me is cost effective, first and foremost. I rarely pay as much for the train as I would for a flight and then there’s the added bonus of not having to pay additional security taxes and fees. Of course, when your ticket has been issued, if you lose it, as my daughter did on our last trip, you will need to re-purchase that return trip ticket. That was a very expensive lesson to learn for the 15 year old. On the other hand, trust me, she’s never done that again.
Second, it’s safer than driving. Of course, there are those moments when car and train collide, and car always looses. I suppose the accident last week in Michigan is a reminder to all of us that, you can’t race a train:
Early last Thursday afternoon a passing Amtrak train pulverized a car full of young people when the driver decided to circumvent waiting cars at the crossing in an attempt to beat the train. The car occupants included four boys and a girl, ranging in age from 14 to 21.
The driver was 19 and operating the vehicle on a suspended license. It took a mile before the train came to a complete stop. When I saw the initial footage on TV taken by helicopter, I couldn’t tell where the car was.
SNIP
First of all, he should have known enough not to race an Amtrak train going 65 mph. He should have known if the gates were down, they were down for a reason and no emergency in the world would justify trying to go around them.
And my last reason for train travel:
It’s better for the environment. Train travel is mass transportation. By taking the train, there are fewer cars on the roads or planes in the air. Sure, walking is even better, but who has that kind of time?
Tags: public transit
In Georgia:
The state Department of Labor reported Wednesday that the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped half a percentage point to 10.1 percent in June, the highest rate ever recorded. The rate had been 9.6 percent in May.
–snip–
Last month, 483,394 unemployed Georgians were looking for work, an increase of 65 percent from June of 2008. Only one-third of those who are officially jobless are receiving unemployment benefits, Thurmond said.
And in Michigan:
Michigan’s unemployment rate spiked higher in June, hitting 15.2%, the highest since mid-1983.
That jump marked an increase of 1.1 percentage points over the May rate of 14.1%. The June rate was more than 7 percentage points higher than the 8.1% rate of June 2008.
Let’s not let talk about a rising stock market distract us from the things in our economy that most need fixing.
The Wall Street Journal’s blunt opening gets at what many reports on this week’s new jobless claims dance around:
The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for state jobless benefits continued to plunge dramatically last week, but the drop in the filings still doesn’t necessarily mean job prospects are improving.
Basically, there’s a seasonal fluctuation happening differently than expected and economists don’t really know what to make of things or what to predict.
For those reasons, a Labor Department analyst warned that the latest drops should not be interpreted as a sign that the outlook in the job market is improving.
“This big drop is not necessarily an indication of what is going on economically,” the analyst said, adding that the seasonally adjusted numbers are really clouded by the timing of the layoffs in the automobile industry and other manufacturing sectors.
And not that economists are anywhere near infallible even when they do think they know what’s going on, but demonstrating once again that the stock market isn’t exactly calibrated to sound economic analysis, stock futures rose when the unemployment numbers came out.
Tags: unemployment
In December 2008, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by Linda Hirshman questioning how economic stimulus would benefit women, given their low concentrations in the construction industries where significant amounts of the stimulus would be spent.
Back before the feminist revolution brought women into the workplace in unprecedented numbers, this would have been more understandable. But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower unemployment rate has actually risen just as fast as men’s. A just economic stimulus plan must include jobs in fields like social work and teaching, where large numbers of women work.
The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force.
She pointed specifically to green jobs, as well, as predominantly male, and argued that “jobs for women can be created by concentrating on professions that build the most important infrastructure — human capital,” and funding should be allocated there, to teachers and social workers and librarians.
Teachers and social workers and librarians are incredibly important, of course, and should be funded. But writing off construction jobs and green jobs as automatically male is not the way to make that argument.
Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy Research Institute demonstrates some of the flaws in Hirshman’s case. Rather than saying “these are men’s jobs and these are women’s jobs and that’s that,” Wicks-Lim begins by asking “How do we get women into these new jobs?” She also points out the benefits to women of moving into traditionally male-dominated fields, which often pay better than traditionally female-dominated fields—in her example, carpenters make an average wage of $18.72 while preschool teachers make an average wage of $11.42. One of these jobs is 99% male, the other is 98% female. Guess which is which.
We can’t just take it as a given that men are going to get the better-paying jobs. And government money going to green jobs can bring about real change:
Tags: green jobs
by Matt Mihlbauer—Minnesota
While canvassing in the uptown area, I spoke with a young doctor. He finished his 7 year long “residency” training several years ago. During the several months that came between the end of his residency and the start of his new job, he broke a bone in his foot. He did not have health insurance at the time, and ironically HE COULD NOT AFFORD to go to a doctor to have his foot x-rayed!!! Luckily, he knew how to wrap broken bones. Although it hurt like heck, he wrapped his foot every day for 6 weeks until the bone healed. He told me that he really could have used a public option during that time. He thanked me for being there, got me a glass of water, and wrote a generous check for Working America.
The House health care reform bill was released today. Here are some early analyses of it.
- The House Committee on Education and Labor summary.
- The AFL-CIO Now blog:
Comprehensive health care reform took a significant step forward this afternoon when House leaders unveiled the final draft of a bill that contains a public health insurance plan option and shared responsibility, including an employer “pay or play” requirement—while not taxing the health care benefits working families receive through their job. A vote could come by the end of July.
- Ezra Klein:
Three separate committees — Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Education and Labor — have come together on one bill. This is an incredible achievement. If you read histories of the 1994 health-care reform fight, all of them have a substantial section on the committee crack-up: One passed a version of single-payer, another a variant of Bill Clinton’s reform, another went further to the right. There was no unity.
There is unity now. And if it holds — if the House of Representatives manages to pass this plan with a substantial majority of enthusiastic Democrats — that significantly strengthens the House’s hand in its eventual negotiations with the more fractious Senate. That’s a big “if.” But so too would have been the idea that three separate committees could cooperate on a bill of this size.
Tags: Health Care
