Newsletter #13 (December 30, 2024)
Disney facepalm, Drax burning forests, Patagonia time off and Walmart in the news for reasons
1. Disney continues to NOT make dreams come true.
Agreeing to pay $233 million to settle a class-action labor lawsuit is yet another in a string of misfires for the company in how it treats its employees and talent.
I continue to shake my head at how this company’s image is so wholesome and family-oriented, yet it (allegedly) - and continuously - is found to mistreat its employees, going back to the days of people who worked for the founder, Walt Disney. Their tactics appear to remain the same, and yet the company continues to trudge along without apparent regard to cleaning up its people practices. Seeing Disney in the news yet again for stuff like this just reminds me of the faces that Michael Scott sometimes made in The Office:
2. A UK company called Drax wants to use US Southern pine forests to power its AI desires.
The continued thirst for avenues for companies to cash in on the AI craze is now running across borders for resources. This is another interesting development with the infrastructure being created around AI and the possible future with it.
This UK company, Drax, wants to burn wood chips and pipe the emissions out underground for (hopefully) carbon-neutral electricity generation for powering AI grids across the US. Their US subsidiary, Elimini, is already setting up operations in the US to begin operating the first plant by 2030.
I’m not sure really what this will mean long-term for the American South, but at minimum, a few hundred jobs being created in small towns in Texas is a worth development to consider.
3. First, the Great Resignation. Then, the Great Stay. Now, comes the Great Detachment.
So says Gallup in their latest research paper which came out on December 3rd. In general, some state of discontentment should be expected no matter what is going on in the world, though with a supposed new Gilded Age upon us, the Great Detachment should not really be a surprise. In fact, there are some people who say they flat are not engaged enough at their current company to want to be promoted, and there is research to back up why job hopping is more of the key to get promoted than staying where you are at (for those who do want to move up).
So, regardless of the reason(s), this latest research says a majority of employees are generally detached from the work they are doing and for the company they are working for. It is up to the employer(s) to dig into why this is for their own specific company and find opportunities to lessen the detachment with their workforce. You are never going to eliminate detachment, but finding progress in increasing motivation towards the work every employee does for their employer is a worthwhile target. Here’s a pretty good clue to one possible starting point:
4. Well… Honda and Nissan might make quite the pair after all.
This announcement was a surprise to me. While nothing is official – this is, after all, just an announcement that they will spend the next 6 months doing due diligence – I was convinced Honda would take the opportunity to kick the tires on a buyout of a distressed asset. Let’s face it: Nissan is in trouble. Their debt load alone should be enough to cause any potential partners to think twice about buying them. We’ll see if they end up coming to an agreement. I’ll still count myself as surprised if they do.
5. Walmart allegedly got caught pulling a Wells Fargo-type stunt with payment accounts.
In the allegations, Walmart allegedly required its Spark delivery drivers to be paid through an expensive-fee account setup through its fintech partner, Branch Messenger. The accounts required percentages to be paid from their wages owed, and fees for account transfers, among other allegations.
Reminiscent of a scheme Wells Fargo got caught doing (with a twist), Walmart allegedly “violated federal law by illegally opening accounts for drivers to receive pay and removing driver choice in how to receive pay, harvesting more than ten million in junk fees from drivers and deceiving drivers about their access to their earnings”, per the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the lawsuit by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
I’m sure there is more to the story, as many employers offer limited choices in how employees can be paid nowadays, usually through direct deposit to a bank OR a banking card set-up through a banking partner of the employer’s choice. Those banking partner accounts usually have stiff fees and percentages attached to them, with the hope of forcing employees to do direct deposit to their own bank. We’ll see what becomes of this suit as time moves forward.
6. In other Walmart news, new research indicates maybe they don’t have the effect we think they do where they operate.
That is according to the latest research, cited by The Atlantic, from two different researching bodies who dug into how the corporation benefits (or maybe does not benefit) the cities and towns in which it operates.
Per both research papers, when a Walmart moves into town, there is generally more poverty and wage stagnation amongst the working population than before the company arrived.
Color me shocked, but sometimes this feels like Homer Simpson hollering into the sky: no one is really listening and maybe no one cares?
7. Opposite Walmart, a big kudos to Patagonia for how it treats the holiday season for its employees.
Shutting down the company for the week between Christmas and New Years – and paying your employees for that shutdown – is an expensive proposition, as this recent Inc article describes appropriately. But, it is an investment in giving your people a break.
Paying people to take the week off is an amazing proposition by the company and let’s be honest, there are other companies out there who do this that just do not make the news. Yes, our businesses must continue operating in order to generate the cash flow every business needs to survive. But, there are limits to this production as people just get tired, especially this time of year, and clearly need a break from the grind. Letting them have a minute to breathe is a great idea.
8. Amazon forgot to do some homework before announcing their big RTO push.
Like, I don’t know, making sure they had enough office space to accommodate all the people is an important piece of information to have before making headlines with this kind of thing. Seems like they missed a step in their haste to get everyone to head back to the office???
9. LinkedInLunatic of the Newsletter belongs to…..
…… this guy, but it is a mixed bag.
10. It seems intriguing to me so many people put out their ‘best lists’ this time of year, so I figured I would so something similar.
My list is not a ‘best list’; moreso, it is just a list of completion. This year, I set a goal to read 20 novels/books, and ended up reading 24. Here is the full list of those books in alpha order:
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That’s it for 2024. I’ll be back in two weeks with the first Newsletter of 2025 with a modified format. Happy New Year!
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© December 2024 Brandon Caldwell, all rights reserved. Hyperlinks are used frequently for proper credit to source material on respective websites, news articles, social media or other sources. Images are used with and in credit to rights reserved to their respective owner(s). While it can be a useful tool, no ChatGPT or other generative AI was used in the production of this newsletter. Opinions are mine and do not reflect the opinion or policy of others including employers past or present.