Big (Box) Brother

It reads like a cold war thriller: The spy follows the suspects through several countries, ending up in Guatemala City, where he takes a room across the hall from his quarry. Finally, after four days of surveillance, including some patient ear-to-the-keyhole work, he is able to report back to headquarters that he has the goods on them. They’re guilty!

But this isn’t a John Le Carré novel, and the powerful institution pulling the strings wasn’t the USSR or the CIA. It was Wal-Mart, and the two suspects weren’t carrying plans for a shoulder-launched H-bomb. Their crime was “fraternization.” One of them, James W. Lynn, a Wal-Mart factory inspection manager, was traveling with a female subordinate, with whom he allegedly enjoyed some intimate moments behind closed doors. At least the company spy reported hearing “moans and sighs” within the woman’s room.

Now you may wonder why a company so famously cheap that it requires its same-sex teams to share hotel rooms while on the road would invest in international espionage to ferret out mixed-sex fraternizers. Unless, as Lynn argues, they were really after him for what is a far worse crime in Wal-Mart’s books: Openly criticizing the conditions he found in Central American factories supplying Wal-Mart stores.

In fact, the cold war thriller analogy is not entirely fanciful. New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro, who related the story of Wal-Mart’s stalking of Lynn and his colleague, also reports that the company’s security department is staffed by former top officials of the CIA and the FBI. Along the same lines, Jeffrey Goldberg provides a chilling account of his visit to Wal-Mart’s Bentonville “war room” in the April 2nd New Yorker. Although instructed not to write down anything he saw, he found a “dark, threadbare room… its walls painted battleship gray,” where only two out of five of the occupants will even meet his eyes. In general, he found the Bentonville fortress “not unlike the headquarters of the National Security Agency.”

We’ve always known that Wal-Mart is as big, in financial terms, as many sizable nations. It may even have begun to believe that is one, complete with its own laws, security agency, and espionage system. But the illusion of state power is not confined to Wal-Mart. 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.

My efforts to get a comment from Target were unavailing, but I did manage to track down a person who worked in security for the Chino store at the time of Kenward’s detention. Because she still depends on Target for her health insurance, she asked not to be named, but she writes that Kenward’s experience was not unusual:

What I know for a fact is that they took each of the twelve youngsters [Target employees] to their office separately. They locked them in an office without a telephone, would not let them phone their parents or anyone, and kept them there browbeating them for six to ten hours. They never told them they were being arrested...only that Target was disappointed in them and if they would write a letter of apology that they'd dictate they could go and all would be forgotten. None of these children knew their rights...all of them ended up writing the stupid letter. Of course this too was a lie...as soon as they had the letter in end the police were called and that person was hauled off in handcuffs and arrested.

This is the workplace dictatorship at its brass-knuckled best. When companies start imagining that they are nation-states, entitled to spy on, stalk, and imprison their own employees, , then we are well down the road to an actual, full-scale dictatorship.

As for those “moans and sighs” that issued from the hotel room in Guatemala City: Maybe Lynn and his companion were reflecting on the sweatshop conditions they encountered in a Wal-Mart subcontractor’s factory. Or maybe they were aware of the man spying on them, and were mourning the decline of democracy.

Comments

[bpb]

I guess these stores figure if our president can do it, so can they.

[Sharon]

There's a word for what Target is doing: false imprisonment. I hope Mr. Kenward sues their ass.

(I'm very sorry to learn this about Target--since Wal-Mart moved in, Target has been my alternative of choice. Maybe I'll just stop shopping retail, and go to Goodwill and the consignment shops.)

[Charlie Green]

I think he shoulda peed in their chair. Dumbasses.

[Different]

He should of peed on them instead, spat on them too, and then exercise his second amendment rights to beat them to a pulp!

That's what I do when people wrongfully imprison me and play god.

[Tim Worstall]

Given that a manager is in a position of power over his subordinates, isn't it actually a good idea that there are no-fraternization rules? And that companies enforce them?
Or do such feminist thoughts fly out the window when there's an opportunity to bash Wal-Mart?

[Trina Tocco]

Wow this is utterly shocking even though I have for the last year been working to develop campaigns and create change within big box stores. I hear heartbreaking and awful stories from factory workers producing for Wal-Mart and Target and now to think they have gone as far as to think they are above the law in the US is disgusting. How do we as people ever hold these larger than life companies accountable? For those interested, to go laborrights.org for more info on Wal-Mart sweatshops.

[evden eve nakliyat]

very very nice .thanks your informaiton.very nice blog..thanks...

[Anarcissie]

So why don't these people want to join unions?

[Tertullian]

Yes, why exactly is it, Ms. Ehrenreich, that, in your opinion, the average wage employees in big box America resist unionization efforts strongly, or appear to do so? What could be done to change this? Certainly the recent piece of news regarding the appalling decision of Circuit City to 'lay off' thousands of higher-paid wage slaves, only to offer them their old jobs back immediately but at significant pay cuts, seems an action rife with potential for rapid unionization success, right?

[Jennifer]

This is by no means limited to box stores like Target and Wal-Mart.

I recently worked for non-profit health care facility that, due to a loss of state funding, brought in a new CEO to run a tighter ship.

The man was clearly crazy as a loon and a raging control freak from the start. He began by purging all the middle management, forbidding employees to discuss it, and telling us he had bugged the bathrooms, tapped our office phones, and was reading our email.

Most of us figured this probably wasn't true, but there were physicians and advanced degree professionals huddling in dark corners, whispering, like a bunch of schoolyard pals forming a secret clubhouse.

And I'm sad to say this isn't even the only such situation that I've witnessed first-hand.

It's easy to say you'd pee on their chair, kick them in the balls, and threaten to call your lawyer until you realize that a bunch of grown (not to mention highly educated) adults are just as terrified as you are, but they're all smiling and acting like this insanity is perfectly normal.

Not to mention that you know perfectly well you can't afford a lawyer and they know it too.

[chris]

Jennifer, you wrote:

"It's easy to say you'd pee on their chair, kick them in the balls, and threaten to call your lawyer..."

I don't know what it is about urine or the reality of urinating that scares people. But you can be sure that anyone held hostage by corporate security personnel can pee freely either in his/her pants or in the nearest corner of the confinement area. In this situation, you must remember the only person who actually prevents an individual from peeing is the person who needs to pee. It's a self-imposed punishment.

I've encountered it myself on several occasions when I've been told that various public bathrooms are not available for use when my kids have been in dire need. I've found that when the bathroom guards are faced with the choice of letting my kids in the bathroom of having them let loose on the floor, the bathroom is suddenly available.

Kicking someone in the balls ventures into new territory. That's best not done.

Calling a lawyer, however, is the best move after emptying one's bladder. There is a limitless supply of contingency lawyers who will take cases of people abused in these ways by deep-pocketed corporations.

[Anarcissie]

Kenward was afraid of losing his job. For many people, it's not just the practical considerations, it's something like the Stockholm Syndrome.

[Monica]

Once someone is interrogated for theft or fraud, he will lose his job in any case, and his only chance to save it, if it is even possible, is to convince his interrogators that he did not do those things after all. Besides, firing employees is quite easy. There is no need to interrogate them for six hours. If the company is doing it, maybe it wants some extra information, such as who the guilty employees really are, so one should not assume that the company already knows everything and is sure about the employee's guilt (even if it says so and pretends that there is evidence). If, however, the company feels the need to get a legal justification for the firing, of course the employee should not write or sign any "apology" or admit anything. This only makes it worse. And after a year, of course the employee may not remember a particular transaction, or can safely pretend that he doesn't. Also, in case the so-called "statement analysis" technique is used in the interrogation, the employee should make sure he or she says things like "that's impossible" and "I didn't do that" and not say things like "you can't prove I did that". And while that may not seem fair, if it becomes clear who was working during a particular shift when something was stolen, for example, if management say "who did that", the employee should not hesitate to say "since it's not me, it must be John or Sue", or whoever was working on that day. It is assumed that a guilty party will hesitate to accuse others or to be specific. And if asked what penalty a person who stole, or did whatever the employee is accused of, deserves, the employee should not be lenient (for instance, say that the guilty party only deserves to be fired), because "statement analysis" is based on what a guilty party may say, and the guilty party is not likely to want the penalty to be too severe.

In fact, any employee may want to read about that technique before even seeking employment or being accused of anything to increase his or her chances of not falling into this kind of trap.

[Kevin Carson]

"...the employee should not hesitate to say 'since it's not me, it must be John or Sue', or whoever was working on that day."
--Monica

This assumes that something actually was stolen, and that management is neither mistaken nor knowingly trumping up false charges for political reasons.

Assuming that your coworkers are guilty because "if management saysi it happened, it must have happened," and you didn't do it, sounds a bit like Gracie Jane's "He must have been guilty, or the police wouldn't have arrested him." I'd sooner accuse management of being liars and thieves than my coworkers. The biggest acts of theft in most companies are the management featherbedding and self-dealing.

[Jennifer]

Some of you aren't being very realistic here.

Pee on the floor to retaliate against your controlling boss? Oh, give me a break!

Even if one could summon the proper rebellious spirit for it, loss of bladder control is humiliating -- even more humiliating than being interrogated by a boss on a control-trip. Why don't you just flap your arms and fly out the window while you're at it?

And good luck getting an attorney, especially on contingency. Most lawyers aren't interested in litigating workplace spats even for pay, let alone for free.

Such cases don't go anywhere because you have no civil rights in the workplace and your boss can fire you for any reason except telling you to your face that it's because you're a member of a protected class. (Or unless you're protected by a contract which the vast majority of American workers, blue-collar or white, are not.)

I do agree that it's probably best not to sign false statements, but even this area can get pretty grey.

A favored tactic of controlling bosses is to write you up for some crazy or blatantly false infraction or sneak it into your performance evaluation and then tell you that you need to sign it.

"This is no big deal," they tell you with a warm smile. "It's just a reminder. We all have areas where we need improvement."

So do you sign it?

Refusal to sign those things can be grounds for termination and...c'mon...it's just a harmless widdle weminder.

Until it's gets whipped out later to fire, demote, fail to promote, or otherwise inflict professional damage on you.

Kudos to those who can resist the temptation to sign, but let's have some understanding for those who can't.

Stockholm Syndrome? Perhaps. But I think it's something much more insidious: When everyone around you is acting like this is perfectly normal, it's hard not to feel like the only one who's being crazy or unreasonable.

Not to mention that a white-collar job, even under a controlling boss, can have a lot of attractive qualities. And professionals are usually committed to their work for its own sake.

Of course, blue-collar workers also enjoy and take pride in their work, but professionals are more inclined to see their work itself as a mission that can't be abandoned lightly.

Rather than blaming each other for failing to summon the gumption to piss on the floor, why don't we hold the fuckheads at the top responsible for behaving this way in the first place?

[Monica]

I did not say that you must assume that if management says so, the other employees really stole or committed some other wrongdoing. And you don't have to believe either that the interrogation technique I have mentioned is fair or reliable. It's just that the employee should try to give the kind of answer that is expected of an innocent person, and reading on the subject may help.

The kind of answers I have suggested are based on such reading. It's not me who invented them. There are more. For instance, a mother whose child disappeared and was not found yet was suspected of murder because she was talking about her child in the past tense instead of using the present. Or, a husband who won't say "we" about himself and his wife is supposed to show that he is not close to her and may have killed her, whereas a woman who says "we" about herself and the man she is accusing of rape, or an accused criminal who says "we" about himself and the co-accused shows "togetherness". Changing the tense, not saying "I" or talking less about a period of time is supposed to indicate that that's when some wrongdoing may have occurred. So say I, don't change the sentence structure, don't talk less about the time period when something may have happened, and don't say "we" about yourself and possible accomplices.

I'm not saying that an amateur will necessarily beat the system, but maybe, by being aware, the person who is interrogated or accused can avoid this kind of verbal trap that can be used by various consultants, by the police and by some managers who think they know the technique to establish probable cause in a legal sense or just see who seems more suspicious according to the "statement analysis" theory and method. It's not a matter of lying or not lying but a matter of saying things in certain ways that seem suspicious or not. And since there are people who think they can get an indication of guilt just by using such verbal tricks, there is nothing wrong with trying to answer the way an innocent person is supposed to answer.

As for accusing others, the idea is not to volunteer facts or accuse others for no reason. The idea is that if a few other people were working at the same time or otherwise could have done something, each accused person says "It's not me, so it must be the others". Don't hesitate to do that, because the person who hesitates to accuse others is flagged as possibly guilty. Don't worry: this accusation is not worth much if there is no evidence, and others are supposed to do the same thing in order to look innocent as well. It is the thoughtful person who won't say such a thing that is flagged as possibly guilty.

As for urinating, the best way to do it is to wait long enough and not doing it until the bladder is empty, but just enough to be noticed, as if the person could not stop a leak and then managed to stop the rest of the flow and is embarrassed and apologetic. That way, it looks like an accident, and the person seems to be acting in a respectful manner. He gets to wet the chair and the floor, and he can't be blamed for it. It's better to do that than get caught urinating in a corner or in a container while left alone in a room for a two minutes.

[Anarcissie]

Assuming you're being interrogated by corporate rent-a-cops and not the police, you have a right not to answer questions and to walk out of the room at any time. True, you will probably lose your job, but if you are being kidnapped and tortured the job is almost certainly lost anyway.

I strongly recommend against implicating other people under such circumstances, regardless of what you know or guess. It won't save your job and it may get other, innocent people in trouble. Also, as Monica points out above, the kind of people who specialize in browbeating employees will even use your sentence structure against you. Likewise, things you say about other people can be turned against you through misinterpretation. Answer all questions as minimally, politely, and calmly as possible. Do not volunteer information. Do not chat or try to get on the good side of your interrogators: the chances are excellent that they have no good side. Preserve your dignity, not only for yourself, but for everyone else, especially your fellow workers.

Again, I have to wonder why people don't form unions to resist this stuff. There must be some reason.

[Tertullian]

It is pretty clear that, once accused or even suggested that one may be guilty of some crime or violation of company policy, your job is toast, so forget trying to save it, and focus on trying to save yourself legal headaches. Simply state that you are not talking and are in fact leaving the premises stat. They will threaten to fire you, but they're going to do that anyhow, so who cares? Say or do nothing that could ever get you charged with a crime or even sued, have part of your owed pay witheld, etc. If store security or rent-a-cops attempt to interdict your departure, which they cannot legally do themselves, tell them to move out of the way. If they refuse, order them to summon the police. At this point, the police will clearly be on your side, and it will probably help you that they were attempting false arrest, etc., and you summoned the cops for legal help. Heck, you might well indeed, end up with a case that someone like Jim Sokolove would love to take.

[Monica]

Do not assume that you are the only person who is interrogated and have no chance of saving your job. Maybe they are doing that to everybody or to several employees to see, for instance, who is the one who stole something, or to get some information they want. And while you should not volunteer too much relevant information or mention stealing or some other problem before management asks you about that, the fact is that the person who talks little or makes very general or hypothetical statements is going to be considered suspicious. And by accusing others, I don't mean that you should invent any facts such as saying that you saw someone steal in your presence. But if, for instance, management mention a day when there were two employees and something was stolen and you are asked who stole that, make sure you say "it wasn't me, so it must have been [name of the other employee]". Same thing if there were more than two employees. Do not say that you saw them do it if you did not, but be very self-assure, and make sure you actually say that, and if asked if you did something, clearly say that you didn't, and don't seem to hesitate. Do not sign any admission of guilt or apology, but do not refuse to answer questions from the very beginning. If the interrogation lasts for six hours, that's different, but make sure you don't refuse to talk from the very beginning. If they only ask you questions for an hour max, that's normal. If you simply refuse to cooperate, you may get worse legal headaches, including a more professional interrogation, because you actually look suspicious (as opposed to just being one of the employees invited for questioning). Also use the "broken record" technique, which you might as well since you don't want to say anything that could incriminate you. That is, if they keep asking you the same questions, repeat the answers you already gave, even if they are baiting you with the different way they state their questions. And make sure you have eye contact and, if possible, the type of body language that is considered calm and assertive or at least not obviously nervous. Actually smile when the subject matter does not make smiling inappropriate. If they just wanted you out, they would have fired you already, but apparently, you have something of value they want from you, so outsmart them. Who knows? They may even think that you are very smart and psychologically strong and promote you. I wouldn't count on that, though...

Do not, however, fall into traps such as confessing to anything because the interrogator seems friendly or acts as if the issue is not a big deal, that you can expect some help, that this is done just because of some unimportant procedure or report, that you have to be honest or admit your mistakes, etc. Things like that are just used to encourage you to talk.

Statement analysis is also used in professional interrogation work, so it is in everybody's interest to know how it works.

[Anarcissie]

Monica, professional interrogators know all about the games you're suggesting people play. They won't work. An employer has a right to ask job-related questions once -- that should take a few minutes at most. If anything else happens, like repetitious police-style questioning, it's time to leave.

It's also morally wrong to try to shift the blame to someone else. Hostile interrogators know how to use that against the person answering their questions -- examples on request. This is exactly the kind of thing that people like the Gestapo used to practice.

Go see _Other People's Lives_.

If we don't defend our rights, we'll lose them. That includes defending them from corporations, religions and private thugs as well as the government.

[Monica]

It's not people who are playing games. It is the interrogators who, by the way, at the level an employer may hire or train, may not be that professional after all. And of course, someone who really did something or who gets a particularly skilled interrogator may not be able to outsmart the interrogator. But since it appears that individuals who are telling the truth or are not guilty are expected to follow a certain style of speech in their answers, of course it is better to know about that and try to follow that style. But someone who would simply walk out will never find out what he was going to be asked about and what the employer wanted, or probably wanted. And the employer is not police, so trying your statement analysis-defeating skills is not as dangerous as when the possibility of going to jail is right around the corner. If the employer, too, says that there is such a possibility, that's not the same thing. It's not the employer who decides, and it may be a lie.

Shifting the blame is just part of what an innocent person is expected to do. However, this is only a matter of elimination, as I have already explained. That is, if I did not do something and there were two people with me on that day, I would say "it's not me, so it must have been X and Y". But that's the whole extent of "shifting blame". I did not suggest saying anything that could incriminate others, such as that they were actually seen committing some wrongdoing. In fact, seeing them do it and not reporting it may be grounds for termination, too. So, in this example, I would not say something like "I actually saw them take the money" or "I saw them leave the store with a large bag, so that's how the stolen merchandise must have disappeared". But stating the simple fact that since it's not me, it must be them, is exactly what a person who is not guilty is expected to do. The others, too, are expected to do the same thing, and whoever doesn't is supposed to be the suspect. So don't hesitate to do that, but no more than that, for example. It is by getting stories about what the others did that interrogators can turn that against the person.

[evden eve nakliyat]

very very nice informations...thank you very much. mr suma...

[ateo]

Lock me in an office and tell me I can't leave? I hope you've written your will.

I'm a military veteran and nobody in the civilian world of employment is going to tell me I can't leave a building or otherwise exercise freedoms as a citizen of the United States to their fullest extent.

My fear of losing my freedom is much greater than my fear of losing a job which can be easily replaced. I'd tell them my story ONCE. Past that I would be done with the situation and I'd walk right out the door regardless of whether they liked it or not. If they fired me that would be acceptable because they were probably going to fire me anyway.

If they physically restrained me or otherwise falsely imprisoned me by locking me up somewhere the first thing I'd do when I got out is leave the building and come back with a 15 gifts for the bunch of them and maybe a few extra 15 piece gifts just in case.

[Monica]

That would not help you gain freedom. On the contrary, you would end up in jail and in some states, even executed. However, you could point out that they have no right to force you to stay unless this is a "citizen's arrest" for some crime, in which case they should call the police immediately. And of course, if they are that hostile, there is no point in trying to see their interview techniques in action and give the right answers.

[Lucky]

Very good information. However the comments here are by well-thought out, mature voices. This kid was 16 or 17, his first job. He didn't know and countless others do not know their rights. Even if they do, they are scared. Imagine if the kid is black or Latino. Your supervisor asks you to come answer a few questions. He's been nice to you before, so you agree, and start talking. At that point, this young guy is not thinking strategy, but believes them when they say they'll call the cops and have them arrested for XYZ, even if they have no grounds to do so. Has that ever stopped them before?