When I set up the miniblog “asides” section and decided to devote it, primarily, to links about layoffs, I set up a google news alert for the keyword layoffs. Quite unintentionally, that has been very useful in uncovering a hidden news story. The hidden news story is the Kmart layoffs. Kmart has made no press release about lay-offs. There were enough local stories about it that the AP made a half-assed attempt at reporting on it, but seemed to allow themselves to be stonewalled by noncommittal corporate-speak. Instead, this story has dribbled out in local news stories in papers across the country while Kmart spokespeople have given half assed non-answers to questions that suggest the lay-offs are just part of how individual stores are balancing their workforce. What appears to be happening here is a systematic removal of its fulltime workforce. I don’t have enough evidence yet to accuse them of any worse wrongdoing, but the impression I get from anecdotes in some of these news stories is that they’re getting rid of the longer term workers, perhaps to get out of expensive medical insurance and retirement obligations. It’d be nice if someone who does this kind of thing for living would investigate that.

This entry can be linked at:
http://www.policywank.com/2006/01/07/help-hold-kmart-accountable/

I would really like the big picture on this story to get out. I don’t want Kmart to just get away with this weasle strategy. I’m not a celebrity blogger with hundreds or thousands of readers. I’ve just got a couple dozen of you. I’m going to make a rare request of those of you who read this. I would appreciate it if you’d link to this story in your own blogs or forward a link to this story to people who might care via email. Maybe we can get the word out on this.
A sampling of news stories can be found below. In hindsight, I wish I’d kept links to all the news stories I’ve seen over the last ten days or so.

http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/wb/xp-47355
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/13549482.htm
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/01062006/business/81457.htm
http://www.wifr.com/home/headlines/2150202.html
http://www.austindailyherald.com/articles/2006/01/07/news/news2.txt

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 7th, 2006 at 8:11 pm and is filed under economics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.