Walmart offers job training via DPS

[sg9018]

I thought this artilce will have been posted by now. In Thurday's Free Press,

Walmart offers job training via DPS

But one activist asks whether students are being trained as "subservient workers"

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
The Detroit Public Schools have teamed up with Walmart Stores to provide job training and entry-level, afterschool jobs to students at four high schools.
The training program was kicked off today at assemblies held at Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men and at Western International High.


Detroit International Academy for Women and Henry Ford High will also participate.


Students will get 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the school day and 10 high school credits for the class and work experience.

Sean Vann, principal at Douglass, said 30 students at that school will get jobs at Walmart. He said the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures - since all of the stores are in the suburbs.


Donna Stern, a national coordinator for the activist group known as BAMN, attended the assembly at Douglass and objected to the program.

“They’re going to train students to be subservient workers,� she said. “This is not why parents send them to school, to learn how to work for Walmart.�

http://www.freep.com/article/2010021...1049/1001/news

Thoughts?

[English]

Um, BAMN... the only workers at Wal-Mart are NOT "subservient". Whatever I think about Wal-Mart and their hiring and employment practices, it is the largest corporation in the world. There are plenty of other opportunities besides door greeter available, but one can't exactly be VP of purchasing at age 17.

[Jimaz]

How does this compare to non-Detroit employment programs offered by Walmart? Are they deliberately targeting Detroit due to its perceived desperation? Is this a deliberate parasitic targeting of a community down on its luck?

Not much of an article to answer those questions.

[Hermod]

Whatever ills Detroit has were caused long before Walmart ever built a store in Michigan.

Whether you work in Walmart, KMart, Macy's, Lulu's Dress Shop, or Al's Shop Quik, you had better be "subservient" if you want to keep your job [[and paycheck). You need to learn to keep your boss and the customers happy. Te alternative is to have short periods of employment sandwiched between long periods of unemployment.

[DetroitTeacher]

In this economy, I'd be happy to HAVE a job while in high school. Many of my students just can't find jobs in ANY capacity right now and they really would like to work. We all have to start somewhere and the jobs teens usually get are horrible, anyway. "Working at Walmart sure beats standing over a deep fryer all day," said one of my students.

[Neilr]

If Walmart can help prepare the students for the world of work through on the job training they will be providing a benefit that should carry over into the wider lives of the students.

One of the difficulties faced by many of our teenagers in Detroit is that often they are not able to communicate in the formal register, aka Standard English. This inability excludes them from most jobs that provide room for advancement. If they can develop their communication skills while working at Walmart, they will have acquired a benefit that will improve their chance of success in life.

As Langston Hushes wrote in Motto:

"My motto
As I live and learn
Is dig and be dug in return"

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/62965-Langston-Hughes-Motto

[Mikeg]

"We here maintain that the notion that any job is better than no job no longer applies." - Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking isn't limited to folks in the Bronx.

[Route29]

Just my take on this...
This is part of the fairly recent massive PR campaign Wal-Mart has embarked on in their efforts to appear less evil. In the case of Wal-Mart, they're doing a lot of good things, but doing nothing to change their horrible labor record, importing over 80% of what they carry from China, and decimating "main street" America.

That said, Detroit youth have little access to any employment opportunities whatsoever. The results of this are devastating. Wandering the streets, joining gangs, pushing drugs. Even the kids who avoid this have absolutely no idea how to perform in the workplace.

I manage a Detroit establishment. The majority of my part-time workers are young adult Detroiters. They are, without exception, hard-working, dedicated, smart people. However, these are the best and brightest that I've sought to hire. I get kids wandering in, sagging their pants, pulling a 3 page resume out of their back pockets crumpled up; incomprehensible e-mails. You can't really blame them; where are they going to learn that's not how you get a job?

It's not like these kids are going into a lifetime of forced labor at Wal-Mart. They can gain the skills and save some cash and tell Wal-Mart to have a nice life when they've moved on to bigger and better things. BAMN seeks to perpetuate the ways that have got us where we are today.

Wal-Mart may be a horrible corporate model, but don't we want to get these kids jobs, opportunities, skills, and spending cash by any means necessary? The irony.

[313WX]

I also assume Wal-Mart will provide reliable transportation to/from these convenient locations as well, yes?

[313WX]

Wal-Mart may be a horrible corporate model, but don't we want to get these kids jobs, opportunities, skills, and spending cash by any means necessary? The irony.

It really bothers me when people claim Wal-Mart is so horrihble, yet they do nothing more than use the old school American capitalistic model.

If anything, Wal-Mart proves how horrible capitalism can be when used to its fullest potential.

[Route29]

If anything, Wal-Mart proves how horrible capitalism can be when used to its fullest potential.

I completely agree with that.

[Melocoton]

Wal-Mart is not capitalism but instead corporate welfare funded by large tax breaks that low income workers don't get.

That's capitalism.

[wolverine]

I don't mind why anyone would look so deep into this. Yeah it's for some good PR, but plain and simple, they are offering kids some after school jobs. We all want jobs right?

[Hermod]

Walmart was just successful at what Woolco, Federals, WT Grant, Caldor, JM Fields, Masons, Zayre, and Ames failed at doing.