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. Of course, uniongal, probably doesn't hit the right demographic though.
Crossposted from Working America Blog
FromNewsweek
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.
With business booming and Wal-Mart continuing to squeeze every last bit of blood out of their turnip, about 200 workers and some clergy decided enough’s enough and took to the streets, or rather a warehouse:
On the very day that Wal-Mart released its quarterly statement, however, some of those assets announced that they'd be sweated no more. At 2:30 that afternoon, some 200 local warehouse workers, abetted by half a dozen priests and ministers and a number of union activists, paraded up San Bernardino Avenue to the main trucking gate at a Wal-Mart distribution center in Fontana, California -- an obscure Los Angeles exurb that is the epicenter of warehousing not just for Wal-Mart but for the entire U.S./Asian trade sector. Moments before the demonstrators arrived, Wal-Mart security guards scrambled down the long driveway and rolled the main gate shut, lest the protestors come inside. A Wal-Mart truck, halfway down the driveway on its way to the street, slowed, then stopped.
Over the course of the past 20 years, Fontana has grown into the warehousing command center for Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and others. And as this area grew into a command center, it also pushed to outsource once good warehouse jobs, making the industry almost entirely staffed by part timers and temporary workers, again from Harold Meyerson:
For the past five years until January, Clarissa Lua and Blanca Cortes both worked at a warehouse of a nonunion UPS subsidiary -- and for a succession of temp agencies, even though their jobs at the warehouse didn't change. They were making roughly $9.50 an hour processing packages and affixing additional mail labels when necessary. The working conditions left a lot to be desired: When she was six months pregnant, Cortes fainted and fell in the summer heat. (Many of the warehouses lack heating and air conditioning, in a region where summer temperatures routinely rise above 100 degrees. "They wouldn't even buy us a fan," Cortes says.) Then on Jan. 20 they were laid off, replaced by workers to whom the temp agency was paying just $7 an hour. With unemployment rising and the warehouses scaling back, they have been unable to find work since.
I worked as a production line manager of a warehouse, years ago. I was terrible at the job, no really, abysmal, and the job itself sucked. It was hot, dusty and in the winter, it was cold. I started at that job in 1994 for $10.50 an hour; it was not union. A year later I was salaried with the county government and a card carrying member of the Teamsters. It was a huge change in my life. And for these front line warehouse workers, they could really benefit from the ability to bargain with those companies.
Change to Win and the Teamsters are now taking it to the streets. They are working to organize the entire warehouse command center of Fontana, and not a moment too soon. Maybe those Mommy Bloggers can talk a little about the plight of the workers who are making mommy blogger's lives easier, somehow, I doubt that will ever happen. I just wish I were surprised by that. Unfortunately, I'm not.
In Solidarity with Fontanta Warehouse workers. You are all in my thoughts.