Wal-Mart's new informer hotline and ban on sexual relationships between staff has caused an unprecedented media storm in Germany.It links to Bild and Der Spiegel.Today's Bild, Germany's largest and most popular newspaper, flashes a full page on the "Sex Ban for Wal-Mart Employees" and says that the "Retail giant wants to regulate the private lives of its employees".
- "Honesty, respect, fairness and integrity", this is how the US retail giant Wal-Mart formulates its business values, writes Bild.
- In reality, the U.S. supermarket group is leading its employees from the nose. Now, a 28-page "Ethics Code" creates an uproar among its workforce. Wal-Mart even wants to sniff around even the love life of its employees, Bild says.
Often mistrusted for its American corporate culture, the German subsidiary of Wal-Mart has once again stuck its foot in it. Employees of the 92-store discount chain received a moral lecture along with their February paychecks: a code of ethics employees must follow or face termination, the Financial Times Deutschland reported Tuesday.Here is a direct link to a Google Translation of the Der Spiegel article (not provided by the message-controllers at UNI Commerce):The code forbids Wal-Mart employees from accepting presents from suppliers, dictates that employees may not fall in love with a colleague in a position of influence and requires workers to report colleagues immediately "if they observe that they have broken the rules." Non-compliance of the rules can lead to termination.
In addition the dear life of the coworkers is strictly regulated. "you may not go out with someone or step into a dear relationship with someone, if you or the coworker your conditions of work can to be able to affect the conditions of work of this person affect", prescribes the Kodex.All this is fairly standard in the US, especially among management.
Also in Germany, according to labor groups, WM is threatening to close down German stores (like it did in Canada) if flexible hours and store videocameras are not permitted.
Also here's a link to a google translation of the Verdi union's summary of WM news in Germany, which I will now read regularly.
I find it very amusing that Google translates Wal-Mart from the German as "Whale Mart".
UPDATE: UNI Commerce goes even further, insisting that an informant hotline is akin to Stasi techniques:
Wal-Mart's decision to establish an obligatory informants' hotline in Germany reminds many Europeans of times that they would rather forget. Using informers was an important part of the repression machinery of the communist regimes in Europe, including East Germany's infamous secret service Stasi.The important difference between WM and East Germany being that Wal-Mart is not a Communist, tyrannical, murdering government with a gang of secret police that will take you away in an unmarked black vehicle for wanting to live in freedom. Also, as far as I can see from the map of WM stores in Germany, onlyb 8 of the 90 or so WM's in Germany are located in the much less prosperous former East Germany (the upper-right-most five large regions, as seen in this map).
Other than that, the similarity between WM's informant line and the Stasi is well taken.
Posted by Kevin on March, 17 2005 at 12:43 PM
