Excerpt from article by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Justin Kenward, who worked at a Target store in Chino CA for three years, wrote to tell me about his six hour interrogation, in 2003, by the store’s “Asset Protection” agents, who accused him of wrongly giving a fellow employee a discount on a video game a year earlier:
After about an hour of trying to tell them that I don’t remember any thing about that day let alone that transaction, I had to use the restroom. I asked if I could and was denied. This goes on for about another hour when I say “Look I have to pee, bad, can I go to the restroom?” Once more I was told no. So I stand up and start walking out the door, and was stopped. At this point I thought to my self “They’re looking to fire me!” So I start to think of ways that transaction might have came to be. I say something like
“I would never give a discount unless an L.O.D. (Leader On Duty aka: a manager) or a Team Lead (aka: supervisor) told me to ……” I was interrupted and told that it sounds like I was trying to place my mistake on other people. 3 hours in to this and still needing to pee I was told that I need to write an apologetic letter to the company with the details, every detail, that we just went over and then I could use the rest room…
Kenward not only lost his job, but faced charges of theft. Jump to article.
Unforunately my people can be hardheaded on certain issues.
PS. I was arguing that Walmart is the evil empire and destroys towns. My opponent argued that Walmart has given work to family members in southern towns and therefor she knows it to be a good institution.
Presenting information about how Walmart benefits townspeople for only a brief period before beginning to suck out their lifeblood, running other businesses out of the region by lowballing tactics and virtually enslaving residents to a one-employer, brutal-conditions, low-paying monopolistic business environment, did not move this woman from her position that Walmarts are great.
Maybe she reconsidered at home. I hope so . . .
Going back about three years I had an argument outside of a supermarket with a black woman about Walmart stores. She argued sentiment and I attempted to argue facts, but my debate opponent wasn’t willing to consider whether my facts were true or not. I was getting this lady 10 kinds of worked up and I backed off when she looked like she was going to jump on me and show me the justice of her position – first hand, or fist, or leg, whichever she could get in a good one with.
Strange.
Here in Bronzeville in Chicago, they went mad crazy about one coming to the community. Of course it’s a poor community, so they will await it with eager arms. I wish they would stand up for right in the poor communites of chicago, but poverty and activism don’t exist.
Even more distrubing was the fact that tons of black women clapped their hands with glee at opening day.