Best Buy to indies: drop dead

[AstroDan]

Okay, back to Best Buy:

Does anybody remember when Best Buy had the best indie music inventory around? This was in the mid 1990s? Anyone? Maybe Minnesota was just a test market.

Yes. I bought a Guided By Voices 'Box' in '95 at a Best Buy somewhere near Atlanta. I was pretty impressed.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Wal-Mart just closed a store in northern Quebec last month - it had always been a nice busy store, but one day the employees unionized and Wal-Mart responded by closing the store

A good companion to the anecdote about Starbucks and Peaberry's in Saratoga Springs

[Professor]

That really is a pretty good companion anecdote to the Starbucks/Peaberry's thing.

Do you know of a link to an article. Not that I'm not believing, but I'm curious about details. I doubt WMT would close a profitable store only because the employees unionized - but if they did so and then went on strike demanding pay & benefit increases which WMT couldn't meet, then I could see them closing.
Perhaps the local union can convince a Target, K-Mart, or even a Best Buy to take WMT's place?
Or maybe they can turn the facility into a mall, subdivide it, and install a bunch of local businesses. Perhaps a catchy name like "the Union Mall"?

-Jeremy

[;ivlunsdystf]

I saw it in the Wall Street Journal. It was a long feature story, either on the front page or on the front of one of the back sections. As I understood it (I read it hastily as I ate breakfast cereal) they were closing the store because they didn't want to establish any history of dealing with any union anywhere. In other words, it appeared that they were hoping to nip the union topic in the bud before any precedent could be established other than their demonstrating that they refuse to deal with unions.

This was in a town where the Wal-Mart was always very busy and most of the locals went there for most of their basic necessities, so it's not like they would have closed the store anyway due to flat sales or something.

[Knights Who Say Neve]

There is another case of Wal-Mart closing the meat dept. of a store because the butchers unionized.

Interestingly, Borders (who sells music, so it is related) had to settle a case for unjust termination for a undisclosed sum, because they fired some employees who attempted to unionize a store. The settlement included a gag agreement so the details wern't reported.

Apparantently anti-unionism is alive and well in Retail.

[;ivlunsdystf]

I guess if they close the whole store they don't really have to terminate anybody. They can just say "sorry, no more store"

[spankenstein]

Hrmm... I have a love/hate with unions. Whiel I think it's important to be able to unionize and that unions have really helped the labor market as a whole sometimes they are such a pain in the butt to work with. I've pretty much always worked at small entrepeneurial companies and our work ethic is "get it done" because if we don't then we don't get paid.

[Brian]

This ain't news and if you're upset, it's a fight you can't win ON THEIR TERMS.
Adapt, that's all we can do. You might find a way to stymie them, I hope so.

[;ivlunsdystf]

YO Brian welcome back - long time no see!

[Brian]

A BIG Minnie Perl Howdy to you too, Tater!

[Professor]

Hrmm... I have a love/hate with unions. While I think it's important to be able to unionize and that unions have really helped the labor market as a whole sometimes they are such a pain in the butt to work with. I've pretty much always worked at small entrepeneurial companies and our work ethic is "get it done" because if we don't then we don't get paid.

I definitely have no 'love' for unions (I'm sure you're all surprised) but I don't have only hate. I guess I'd say I have a respect/hate thing going on there.
In some cases unions are a fantastic thing - at least when they first form. The workers feel opressed or simply undervalued by their employers and so they join together to prove and threaten to stop working if the company doesn't meet their demands. Unfortunately, the methods are not always particularly savory, and the unions usually continue indefinitely after serving their purpose, and at that point they simply turn into more bloated bureaucracies.
I mean, a union of autoworkers or meet packers or truckers organizing themselves in order to better their situations is a fine thing. When those demands are met, and the union starts taking dues payments from employees, requiring all employees to join the union, and diverting the union dues into political campaigns, well that's when I see the union turning into the management they once fought against.

I'll have to look up that article to see the details, but I imagine in this case with WMT in Canada, the workers unionized and placed demands on the company probably with the threat of a strike which is really their only legal weapon. Whether WalMart couldn't or wouldn't meet the demands doesn't much matter, they decided to close that branch of their business.
So in that context did the union win?
I'd say that they did, though I have no doubt a lot of angry words were said about WMT. But the workers united and threw off the tyranny of that corporation. They won. Now they are free to either open independent retail stores or invite another, more union-friendly business in to take WMT's place.
I believe in the right of the workers to form unions.
But I also believe in the right of the business owner to choose to not work with unions.
The worker doesn't want to be held hostage by the business and the business doesn't want to be held hostage by the worker. It's a symbiotic relationship that can only be maintained in balance, not when one side dominates or becomes parasitic.

I personally am glad that I did not have to join a union for this job. There are a few unions on campus, but my job title doesn't fall into one. I don't have the protections perhaps that a union member has, but I have the ability to renegotiate my job description and pay-scale independently and at any time. Also, I don't need to pay regular dues to a bunch of folks who will be gracious enough to speak "on my behalf" or send the fund off to the Hillary'08 campaign.
And while I know the musicians unions have done a lot to grab better wages and perks for musicians in many cities, I again don't like the idea of being required to join a union and pay dues just to work in a particular city

So yeah, score 1 for the canadian union that threw out WalMart, and score 1 for WMT for not being held hostage by the union.
In the end, it looks like a tie.

-Jeremy

[cdbabel]

Pitchforkmedia can be self important and shrill (no, really?), but I thought this was an interesting article:

http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/06-02/23.shtml

Indie and boutique commerce and economics- an ongoing concern...

Ever heard of CD Baby? I don't have the time to read the article, but while we indie artists aren't on the selves, they sure as heck are in Best Buy's catalogue. Not as effective for browsing, but if you know what you are looking for, you can get it without paying shipping costs.

CD Baby teams with Best Buy

That said, I wouldn't want my album on the shelves of Best Buy. I'd have to print a huge amount for Best Buy to stock and I don't have the kind of advertising budget to sell them. Remember, having your album on a shelf does not mean it will be bought.

[trodden]

There is another case of Wal-Mart closing the meat dept. of a store because the butchers unionized.

Interestingly, Borders (who sells music, so it is related) had to settle a case for unjust termination for a undisclosed sum, because they fired some employees who attempted to unionize a store. The settlement included a gag agreement so the details wern't reported.

Apparantently anti-unionism is alive and well in Retail.

I do remember the Screeching Weasel mention on a best buy commercial.

Is Borders still anti-union? I remember the case about 6-7 years ago with union attempt. I wouldn't be surprised if its still practiced.

I like to not put emmotion and polical drivel aside. Those things make me alive.

[Roboburger]

I persoanlly love the guy arguing that capitalism isn't the answer, on his computer, over the internet. a lifestyle that owes it's exsistence from capitalism. Unless you were on the internet on a Unix system before AOL...

I'm a pretty left dude, I think that the best social advances that humans have made have been liberal in their leanings, but I always roll my eyes at people who want to regress from the benefits of capitalism, instead of doing the proper thing of using liberal ideals to improve the system.

I think Professor has done a fantastic job at outlining his argument. However, I feel it also clearly illustrates the danger that Subatomic worries about- little incremental decisions creating big waves farther down the line. People are free to vote with their wallet, and they often make poor chocies and don't understand the ramifications of their actions. You both are pretty spot-on in my book, and if everyone in the US was as smart and considerate as Subatomic and Professor, I would have far less worries about things. But y'know what? They're not. They won't ever be. So I've stopped worrying. I have my own guidelines I live by, I choose them for myself and try not to judge my brother too much (although I fail at that point, often.). After my truck got broken into, and my Stereo and CDs stolen, I can't shop in pawn stores because I always see CD wallets and Stereos that probably came from a source similar to the rat bastard that broke out my window. I don't want to encourage that behavior anymore.

Ethics are a personal choice, a lifestyle choice. The label guys spoke their peace in the article, and I see no errors in their thinking. The bands that signed their contracts chose these folks to represent them in the marketplace. What you think doesn't matter except for the couple of dollars they might not make from you. They'll sell a few hundred extra to teenagers who convince their parents to get a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah/New Pornographers/Burning Brides CD while they are there getting a camcorder.

I work with a local indie record store helping with their in-store performances. They are seeing the challange that Best Buy presents, and instead of whining, they are doing what they gotta do to compete. Better quality instores, full staff at peak times, unique products, developing reasons to come to the store and come back frequently.

I shop at Sams Club. I buy basic staples I need in bulk there. But I don't buy expensive things there. I bought a few bottles of wine from Sams Club and I won't ever make that mistake again- a high percentage of the bottles were corked, and I can see now that the bottles the stock tend to be poorly stored, which is probably why they are there- a distributor needs to unload a few pallets of wine that didn't move like it was supposed to and they have been just sitting in the warehouse- the broker called Sams Club knowing that if he cut a few bucks of the price, he'd move it all and not have to deal with any complaints from people who don't know any better. I've gone back to the two wine stores that steer me well. Sometimes I spend a few more bucks a bottle, but it's worth it. I would never buy Books or CDs there, and I prefer the quality of food/produce from the farmers market.

Well, that's enough outta me.

[Brian]

Hey! I've got a great idea. Let's everybody be the King, not Elvis, all at the same time. Then there will be no one to get the work done. When we get tired of running out of shit, if we have half a brain cell functioning, we might figure out that those "Little Ants Down There" are the ones who get it done, not the king.
If you revise history with a lie and remove all reference to the actual physical events, you can hoodwink the world and cause a lot of inappropriate chain reactions and none will be the wiser.
Conversely, almost, I you give respect where none is due it will be expected by the recipient (the king) and if you start giving it where it is due but never given, you get a happier work force.
By respect, I mean money and respect. If you don't have enough money you can barter for services, insurance for health and retirement investment. If you don't provide these basic things that absolutely will be reequired by the person that served you you are a slave driver. This is all dependent on you being a large multinational expanding corporation with officers that are getting salaries in excess of $100k each plus mega benefits that the workers aren't getting.
"I thought it up, so, I should get all the money and screw everyone else" is an infantile position to be promoting publicly and shows an extreme lack of charactar. How about a world where people like that get to have a life filled with "charactar building" events?
Now that our utopia is built it's time for public paranoia: there's too many people to feed! Aaaaaauuuuggghhhh!!!! Well, considering that there's a lot of food that has to be thrown out just in the USA from "spoiling" from overproduction, I'd say there are a lot of "red herrings" in the paranoid playing field, generally generated by the "Left" side of every equation.
The "Antagonistic system" shpiel doesn't hold water either. it's just another subversion to hide embezzeliung, pifering etc.
Once the "rank and file" hear about that there comes this thing called "time theft" where they ride the clock to get back at "the man", which basically just chokes the life out of profits, yet, somehow "the man's" salary never seems to dip. After a few years, 3, the man gets canned with a big fat severance package. No effect on the charactarless king of false adolation. He moves on to pilfer elsewhere.
It should be well known at this point that all these princes of capitolism are evil and that there is nothing you can do about it. There are alternatives and every one of them suck just as bad or worse, especially "the utopia of communism" as one of my friends who escaped that called it sarcastically.
So, you see, it isn't the ideas of these organisations that went awry, or that they would go awry by their design (matrix). It's that their administration is done by people who get greedy. Most people are pretty good most of the time. Once you remove them from their true peer group and put them "above" others in a different peer group, they feel insecure and will counter that feeling with money and material things. It never works. It causes a myriad of problems that chain react like a nuclear explosion on any and all communities everywhere. All the while, deep inside every single human on this planet, is one single desire,
"To serve mankind by serving another and to know by the change in another that they were truly served".
We just need to be the thing which we seek. The universe will back you up.
I got up close and personal with that when I "popped the cherry" on my first mic mod and it worked, this year. I always wanted to, but never did, then, voila!
Then I partnered with a guy to open a full fledged studio with six rooms well appointed, then I did it and , voila! I'm broke!, but jobs are coming in and better jobs than I was aiming at at first. Of course, the biz weants to go one way succesfully and it's a little different than the way I had thought it would, so, I must resist the urge to push the square peg into the round hole.
The unions are necessary against a corrupt corporate structure that is greedy by nature, not design. When the union officials become greedy and corrupt, and they will as their salaries rise, they are no longer viable/effective, don't serve, and become a parasite on the back of the company and the worker much like overpaid executives. It is once again up to the rank and file to prove that they have the strength, direction, charactar to bring things back under control.
The psychological effects of the class system on the poor when it is so disparate as it is now (no insurance or healthcare, no retirement, no makeup for lost wages or housing support, lack of quality mass transit sysatem, and a secret market of Methamphetamine, marijuana, X, and crack,) by the rich and the government to pacify the poor causes the violence that the children of the not so poor, rich, and poor, all suffer.
Money is the opiate of the people, not religeon.
You can still be on the edge of your seat and believe in whatever you want as hard as you can while staring into the great abyss of your impoverished future.
When you have money, everything is peachy.
Good is the root of all evil, not money.
Without Good you don't need evil as a descriptor, do you. Without black you don't need white either. So all things would be one thing without opposites and words and names and you pick your side or not either way you get an effect that you ARE responsible for whether you acknowledge that responsibility or not.
So, what do you pick?
Are you good, or, are you evil?
Do you serve, or, do you pervert?
Are you strong, or are you weak?
Will you stand up to the fuzzy looking inoccuous powers that destroy humanity, or will you help them by not fighting that fight.
YOUR inaction is the weapon of the perverse. You must do something.
Look at your world, what are you trying to save?
You see, if YOU don't actively promote a life that works then you can't see one or have one and there's nothing to like about existence or save.
If you do, or, if you now start to, then, existence is worth preserving, but, then there is work to do.