We’ve seen massive problems now with the election of state court judges from special interest groups that want to affect the election…That was the reason why we went to elections in the first place, to get rid of special interests. But now they’ve come back with money, and so we have to re-examine again how we need to fix that.

- Sandra Day O’Connor
1/26/2010 Interview

“The cost of an Associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55% more than the cost of an Associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity, moreover, because we pay an Associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that Associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart.”

The horror! If we treat our people well, they might actually want to stay. This kind of thinking by a senior human resources executive at one of the world’s biggest companies is simply unconscionable. Over the years, there have been too many examples of this kind of pervasive thinking among Wal-Mart’s top ranks.

When you have to hire an army of people to help improve your image, you’ve probably been doing some things wrong. That’s a lesson Wal-Mart seems incapable of learning.

- Why you should hate Wal-Mart
by Megan Barnett for MSN
2009-10-09

Wal-Mart hires people like Gavin Gibbons (i.e. the type who are comfortable spinning yarns and towing the company line) because it’s cheaper and more efficient than changing their practices. Wal-Mart is not incapable of learning: it has learned the most important lesson of public image and opinion.

The truth is merely what you can convince people to believe.

You pay for insurance on the off-chance that your health fails.

Your insurance company takes your money and pays its employees a bonus to cancel your benefits when your health fails.

Your health fails – but look at it this way, some lucky drone just won a bonus. (Though he’ll doubtless lose his insurance, too, should his health fail… only fair, right?)

During the case, evidence emerged that Health Net had paid bonuses to employees to reward them based on the number of policyholders they had rescinded. The judge who awarded Bates the $9 million said in his decision: “It’s difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive.”

- Insurance Company Must Pay $10 Million
For Revoking Policy Of Teen With HIV
by Murray Waas for HuffingtonPost.com
2009-09-17

Perhaps life insurance companies have similar bonus structures – kill the policyholder but “make it look like a suicide” to claim your bonus…

The former workers of the family-owned firm based in Lynchburg, Va., said the problems were obvious and long-running.

“It was pretty filthy around there,” said Jones, 50, who said he worked in the sanitation department for eight months before being laid off.

Recalling rainwater leaking into the plant, he said, “It was coming in through the roof and the vents, but that didn’t stop them from making the paste.”

Jones said he earned $6.55 an hour but was happy to have the job, which included mopping water and setting traps that sometimes caught three or four rats a day.

- Ex-employees tell of ‘filthy’ conditions at Georgia peanut processing plant by Dahleen Glanton
of the Los Angeles Times

While I thought it was a worthwhile exercise trying to see through the eyes of Peanut Corporation’s staff, it is rather eye-opening to see their explanation for the sanitation problems which were kept under wraps, shipped, and delivered:

… employees often talked among themselves about the conditions, but that most workers did not complain to management because they wanted to keep their jobs.

Perhaps it is not wise to leave food preparation to the underpaid.

The Peanut Corporation of America product recall has the look and feel of another overblown public health scare/corporate malfeasance scandal with the inevitable punchline: litigators agree that it was preventable and, therefore, definitely worth suing over.

Let’s step outside the headlines for a moment and consider the inverse of the equation: you work in a peanut processing factory in Georgia. Every day – all day – you process peanuts. The $0.25/hr raise you get every other year is not exactly an inspiration toward imbuing every batch of peanut paste with your blood, sweat, and tears (though plenty of that ends up in the mix anyway). For the most part, your job could be done by a machine (and it is), with the conspicuous exception of the cleaning. Someone has to clean the peanut processing machines – and that’s where you step in (if you so choose).

If you were a peanut processing plant worker, there is a good chance you could think up at least a few excuses to go easy on the cleaning from time to time – after all, that $0.25/hr raise isn’t worth as much as it used to be.

Is it any surprise that cleanliness was an issue at the plant?

The New York Times reported Monday that Georgia agriculture inspection reports from 2006 and 2007 depicted a series of sanitation lapses in the Blakely plant.

Citing an inspection report from Aug. 23, 2007, the Times noted at least three incidences in which ”food-contact surfaces” were ”not properly cleaned and sanitized.”

- Inspectors find mildew in tainted peanut butter plant
(CNN Wire)

Your plant has problems with basic sanitation – it’s no secret to you, nor to the management. The peanuts must be processed if there’s any money to be made. Perhaps workers are disciplined, perhaps not. Perhaps workers are replaced. Replacements would be making less than their ousted counterparts (and would probably receive training from similarly disinterested workers). A change in standard operating procedure remains unlikely.

Culpability, however, could be a problem – if people get sick as a result of a dirty peanut processing plant, there will be questions to answer. The solution? In-house testing.

The Food and Drug Administration said that its inspection of the PCA plant in Blakely, Ga., found records of 12 instances in which plant officials identified salmonella in ingredients or finished products. The products should not have been shipped, the FDA says. PCA took no steps to address cleaning after finding the salmonella, says Michael Rogers, director of the FDA’s division of field investigations.

In some instances, the company had the product tested again by a different laboratory and got a clean test result, FDA officials said in a telephone conference with reporters.

It’s quite possible that a retest would miss the salmonella, says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety. The product should have been destroyed after the first positive test result, he says.

- FDA: Peanut processor found salmonella, shipped anyway
By Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit of USA Today

Destroying product does not do much for the bottom line, so management conveniently ignores the test results (particularly if a third party laboratory can miss them – “it would at least be hard to prove we did it”).

So, in the end, it is easier to make hay while the sun shines by selling tainted peanut products and then follow it up with an apology like this one:

“We deeply regret that this has happened,” said Stewart Parnell, owner and president of PCA. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are voluntarily withdrawing this product and contacting our customers. We are taking these actions with the safety of our consumers as our first priority.”

- Peanut Corporation of America Announces Voluntary Nationwide Recall of Peanut Butter

And the insanity of it all? This incident is considered newsworthy as though it were unique. The Peanut Corporation of America is not unique. A food processing plant failing inspections is not unique. Underpaid factory workers are not unique.

Out of an abundance of caution, may I remind you that this is just another isolated incident. It would be insane to suggest otherwise.

The federal agency that’s been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

- Risks of tainted food rise as inspections drop
AP Newswire – Feb. 26, 2007