Brian Pickrell of Iowa Voice, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores
to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country,
newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping
the bills," he wrote.
It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.
Several
sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different
days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of
Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to
bloggers.
Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is
increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly
with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting
topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate
headquarters.
But the strategy raises questions about what
bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to
readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been
forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and
the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not
compensate the bloggers.
[....]
Wal-Mart's blogging initiative is part of a ballooning public
relations campaign developed in consultation with Edelman to help
Wal-Mart as two groups, Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart,
aggressively prod it to change. The groups operate blogs that receive
posts from current and former Wal-Mart employees, elected leaders and
consumers.
Edelman also helped Wal-Mart develop a
political-style war room, staffed by former political operatives, which
monitors and responds to the retailer's critics, and helped create
Working Families for Wal-Mart, a new group that is trying to build
support for the company in cities across the country.
At
Edelman, Mr. Manson, who sends many of the e-mail messages to bloggers,
works closely on the Wal-Mart account with Mike Krempasky, a co-founder
of RedState.org, a
conservative blog. Both are regular bloggers, which in Mr. Manson's
case means he has written critically of individuals and groups Wal-Mart
may eventually call on for support.
In a sign of how eager Wal-Mart is to develop ties to bloggers, the
company has invited them to a media conference to be held at its
headquarters in April. In e-mail messages, Wal-Mart has polled several
bloggers about whether they would make the trip, which the bloggers
would have to pay for themselves.
It is important to learn what Wally World is doing to
the employees they hire and to the communities they invade, and how they communicate their business practices to the public.
The average worker would have to pay one fifth of his
paycheck for health care coverage at Wal-Mart.
On a wage of about $8
an hour and 29-32 hours of work a week, many workers must rely on state
programs or family members or simply live without health insurance.
Employees must pay $218 per month for family health care coverage from Wal-Mart.
In Wal-Mart's employee health plan, deductibles range from $350 to as high as $3,000 for family coverage.
More than 60 percent of Wal-Mart employees--600,000 people--are forced
to get health insurance coverage from the government or through
spouses’ plans—or live without any health insurance. Wal-Mart shifts
the cost of health insurance to taxpayers and other employers, driving
up the health costs for all of us. Because of all this cost paid by taxpayers, state legislation is being written that would force Wal-Mart Stores
to spend more on employee health insurance.
This billion-dollar business is fighting back using canned blog posts and phony letters to newspapers to influence public opinion. Failure to provide adequate employees-health insurance seems to mean that the company doesn't care very much about it's employee's health and the company wants to free-load on it's customers. How SWEET!
So THESE trolls don't even have to make up their own crap. Nice.
Brian Pickrell 
