aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Wal-Mart in the news today

The company’s probably happy about this piece from the New York Times:

In the last year, Wal-Mart has quietly introduced an ambitious program in the United States - in equal parts self-help class, corporate retreat and tent revival - that tries to turn its 1.3 million workers into a model for its 200 million customers on issues ranging from personal health to the environment.

The program, to be announced today, tests the assumption, if not conventional wisdom, that environmentalism and fitness are luxuries of the well-off, inaccessible to a vast number of the nation’s working class because of hectic schedules, stretched budgets and bad habits.

Not so about this piece in Salon:

Wal-Mart spy ring? Bruce Gabbard, the technician Wal-Mart fired last month after reportedly discovering that he’d secretly recorded the phone calls of a New York Times reporter, says that the retailer’s Threat Research and Analysis Group, where he worked, in fact operates a broad covert surveillance program. The story, which broke in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, includes allegations of widespread spying; in one incident, says Reuters, Wal-Mart reportedly sent an employee “to infiltrate an anti-Wal-Mart group to learn if it was going to protest at the annual shareholders’ meeting.” The company has defended its practices, with Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark saying, “Like most major corporations, it is our corporate responsibility to have systems in place, including software systems, to monitor threats to our network, intellectual property and our people.” (Reuters via AOL Money)

SEE ALSO: My piece on what liberal Wal-Mart haters are missing.