Last week's guilty verdict in the trial of 28-year-old Brittany Norwood -- accused of first-degree murder in the grisly slaying of her 30-year old co-worker Jayna Murray -- has brought to a close -- for now, at least -- the latest ugly chapter in the history of Lululemon, the posh yoga apparel company whose suburban outlet on the outskirts of Washington, DC was the setting for a killing that seasoned homicide detectives have described as one of the worst they've ever seen.
It would be tempting to dismiss the savage murder -- Norwood stabbed and bludgeoned Murray an estimated 330 times over the course of 20 minutes, severing her spinal cord -- as a bizarre and random event. That's surely what the Canadian-based Lululemon, which seems to have nine lives when it comes to recurring scandal and controversy, is hoping for. But for the American yoga community, which extols the virtues of peace and non-violence, the killing raises deeply disturbing issues. How could two female "yogis" -- the Sanskrit word for devotees of the ancient Hindu practice -- arrive at a place where lethal force became an "option"? And what kind of workplace environment would fuel, or at least fail to ameliorate, such a dispute?
Lululemon is no typical workplace, in fact. It's highly competitive -- indeed, cultish -- corporate culture has raised serious ethical concerns for years, and so have the company's exploitative marketing and advertising policies. But those concerns have largely been ignored, or downplayed, because of Lululemon's position as the yoga industry's leading "pioneer," with net revenues of $239 million projected for 2011, six times the level reached in 2004. The company, with stocks publicly traded on Wall Street since 2007, has been in the forefront of re-branding yoga as a trendy, eco-friendly lifestyle, similar to the way an earlier generation of marketers exploited urban hip-hop to reap billions from suburban whites starved for "authenticity."
In fact, most of America's up-and-coming yoga "gurus" -- men like John Friend, a self-styled corporate mogul -- who are anxious to see their spiritual movement expand -- and their own celebrity enhanced -- have struck a Faustian bargain of sorts with companies like Lulelemon. They've largely stayed quiet, amid a string of controversies like this one, hoping to exploit yoga's commercial success, even if Lululemon's commitment to yoga as an authentic "wellness" practice -- in fact, even much of the pricey apparel it sells has no actual relation to yoga -- remains dubious at best.
The seeds of the company's problems were planted early, with its initial founding in Vancouver in 1998. Former CEO Chip Wilson, an avid snowboarder, said he came up with "Lululemon" because he delighted in the idea that trying to pronounce the name -- with its three syllables beginning with "l'" -- would pose a special challenge for the Japanese, whom he enjoyed making fun of. From that less-than-enlightened starting point Wilson went on to create a huge controversy in 2005 when he announced that the firm would rely on child labor and "sweat shops" in China, after three competitors in his native Vancouver went belly up due to rising labor costs.
Wilson, with characteristic elan, argued that Lululemon would be giving poor Chinese youth jobs, and should be applauded, not lambasted, for wanting to assist in Third World "development." Critics didn't see it that way, of course, noting that Chinese youth would be better off getting an education, and that sweatshop workers, usually young women, couldn't support themselves with the wages they'd be paid. But Wilson, still smarting from criticism from Canadian trade unions that his past use of local non-union Vancouver labor hadn't really demonstrated a socially responsible commitment to the welfare of his workforce, would hear none of it.
It took only a year for Lululemon to step into an even larger controversy. In 2006, the firm rolled out a line of "Vita-Sea" apparel bags that it claimed were made with seaweed fiber, and had health and medicinal effects for consumers, including stress reduction, through the release of amino acids and vitamins into the skin's natural moisture. But skeptics, including the New York Times, decided to sponsor lab tests, which revealed that Lululemon wasn't just misleading consumers: it was lying. There was no seaweed of any kind in the bags the newspaper tested. There was no difference, in fact, between the Lululemon bags and other bags made of cotton - except that Lululemon's, of course, were a lot more expensive.
Company executives, with characteristic arrogance, refused to issue an apology and privately chalked it up as a "growth" experience. But apparel industry watchdogs weren't amused: a major investigation of the eco-claims of a large number of mainstream companies ensued.
And then there's Lululemon and sex. Sex-based advertising has become increasingly
popular in the yoga world, even appearing in the pages of the industry trade magazine Yoga Journal. But Lululemon, as always, has been a trend setter. It's creepiest manifestation, perhaps, was revealed in early 2008 when a mother and her daughter unwittingly discovered secret messages woven into the fabric of Lululemon products that appeared to extol the virtues of getting high and having multiple orgasms. Lululemon had also included more traditional inspirational messages but the more risque adages had been placed underneath those, apparently to be digested subliminally.
How has Lululemon managed to fend off one scandal after another? Recording record profits year after year for your shareholders surely helps, but so does the firm's clever co-optation strategy. Most of its stores offer free weekly yoga classes taught by "neighborhood" yogis who often turn out to be specially recruited fitness pros new to yoga but who have already drunk the Lululemon kool-aid. The company calls these local yogis "brand ambassadors" -- currently, there are roughly 1,000 nationwide -- and often features them in Lululemon publications. It's a win-win deal: the yogis get free marketing, and a ready-made pool of prospective yoga clients. Lulu reaps extraordinary "word-of-mouth" and gets more shoppers into its stores, where they typically receive 15% discounts just for attending the free yoga class.
Lululemon is quite blunt in its assessment of the "typical" yoga personality. Wilson early on experimented with yogis who extolled the virtues of stillness and introspection -- genuine yoga, that is -- but found that as workers, hard-core spiritual yogis didn't move his merchandise fast enough. Wilson is also devotee of the Landmark Forum, a successor organization to EST "human potential" movement started by Werner Erhard in the 1970s. Wilson and his successors talk a lot about transitioning people from "mediocrity to greatness," and freely admits that he likes to recruit highly competitive "Type-A" personalities to staff and run his stores. That's great for business, perhaps, but the concentration of estrogen and ego, heightened by a faux Tantric mysticism that celebrates every woman as a reincarnation of Shakti -- or worse, Kali, the goddess of destruction -- has the potential to turn your company into a furnace of creativity -- or simply an emotional powder keg.
Which is why for Lululemon, the less said about the workplace murder, the better, perhaps. Last Thursday, in a bizarre public statement, the company's CEO Christine Day, who's anxious to do for the company what she previously did for Starbucks -- expand its empire overseas - personally thanked the judge, the prosecutor, the police, and the jury for their speedy resolution of the case. Her statement contains none of the language one might expect from a company genuinely concerned about the welfare of its employees, other than stating that Norwood's behavior was "contrary to our values." There was no mention of the incident as a "terrible tragedy" or the need for "healing" in the two families, let alone any call for "reflection" or a promise to review internal policies. Just the usual exculpatory language one might expect from a company that's boldly taking yoga where it's never gone before and that clearly doesn't want a nasty, still-unexplained murder conducted on its premises standing in its way.
Occupy Wall Street? That's the new rallying cry of yoga progressives. And why not -- that's where you'll find Lululemon's investors, extolling the firm's phenomenal growth and record profits amid the nation's rampant joblessness and recession.
But that's why protesting yogis might want to take their critique of greed and capitalism one step further, and end their semi-official silence on a company that's more predator than partner, more pariah than pioneer. The demand for corporate responsibility, like most things in life, begins at home. Physician, heal thyself.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that Werner Erhard was an "ex-Scientologist".
Sister Joan Chittister, OSB: In Search of the Divine Feminine
(excerpted from the "Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards," New York: Simon & Schuster, forthcoming (February 2012).
EXCERPT:
"According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems. Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. “Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said. “You can’t believe what’s going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, ‘You should be able to do this by now.’ It has to do with their egos.”
The book, entitled, “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards," and published by Simon & Schuster, will appear next month. Broad's summary of his thesis was published in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
Wed Jan 4, 2012
TORONTO (Reuters) - Shares of yogawear retailer Lululemon Athletica Inc rose nearly 9 percent on Wednesday after Goldman Sachs added the stock to its "conviction buy" list.
Goldman analyst Michelle Tan upgraded the stock on Tuesday, citing growth potential, and argued that unfounded concerns over the chain's inventory presented a buying opportunity.
"We continue to see (Lululemon) as one of the most exciting growth stories in retail, thanks to a combination of robust brand momentum, rapid growth with substantial runway, and competitive advantages vs. its competitors," Tan said in a research note.
The clothing chain was plagued by low inventory for most of the year, struggling to meet demand for its premium yoga pants and other products. But now that inventory is higher, Tan argues the stock is being weighed down unfairly by margin concerns.
"Management has rightfully cautioned investors that, while normalized inventories may be good for sales, they will negatively impact margins as markdowns normalize," she wrote.
"Nevertheless, we believe management's guidance and consensus more than adequately captures this risk, with potential for upside if sell-through proves robust."
Tan also noted that data from Google Inc showed a spike in searches for Lululemon during November and December, the crucial holiday shopping season. Search data has been a good predictor of brand momentum in the past, she wrote.
Vancouver-based Lululemon has been expanding rapidly, riding a wave of popularity for its apparel among young professional women.
People who have worked there do have different opinions, no question.
I'd be happy to send you comments from former employees who think, if anything, I understated the problem.
Yes, the Vita Sea was in apparel, not in bags. Someone else pointed that out.
The name "Lululemon" was NOT a public vote. Sorry. Other people here have confirmed how the cover story around the name has evolved. Which your story is part of.
Not a "conspiracy." Never said there was one. In my experience, most corporate venality operates far more conventionally.
Vitasea was not used in bags but was what the cotton for the shirts was called.
lululemon does NOT employ child labour in any of their offshore facilities, proven by hiring third party auditors showing the factories are beyond working standards, and allowing workers access benefits available to North American employees.
The name lululemon was chosen from a public vote, not by Chip. The origins being the alliteration of the "L"s represented luck in culture, not a racist ploy.
The "orgasm" comment was not woven into fabrics, but actually a rejected idea placed on the shopper bags. lululemon did not dispose of the bags but decided to recycle them and covered the remark; revealed by the thread coming loose during a wash.
Strawmaning that lululemon breeds a culture that can lead to a murderous environment is not only laughable but insulting.
No where in your article is an actual lululemon employee quoted about the working environment. Working in that very environment, and not a "type A" personality, I can tell you that it is one of the most accepting and fun work environments I have ever been a part of. There is no group thought or personality modifications, it's a job that is about selling black stretchy pants.
If you want to make up a conspiracy about this, please do not use a guise of journalism as your credibility.
Would love to hear that Lululemon is just such an industry pioneer, no one I know has seen any evidence of it. Lululemon does have a fancy web page that proclaims its commitment to labor rights and social responsibility. After all the past controversies, every apparel company says they are committed in this way. ,But beyond the web page, and statement of principles, it often turns out to be a lie, just as Lulu lied when it said its Vitsea apparal was "green.'
Your pals made that up because they knew it would sound good, and when they got caught, they shrugged it off, even after the Canadian industry board made them formally repudiate their claims. What's the difference here?
So here's the web page: http://www.lululemon.com/legacies/factories. Typically it ends in 2008, with the statement that LLL "auditors" would be reporting back their findings on Lulu's overseas operations in their blog. Except that there's no such reporting on the "blog."
There are a smattering of photographs, showing happy smiling employees, and clean factories, but we really have no way of knowing what this amounts to. Looks pretty good though, just like Vitasea!
Prove this and provide irrefutable provide concrete evidence for this please.
"lululemon does NOT employ child labour in any of their offshore facilities, proven by hiring third party auditors showing the factories are beyond working standards, and allowing workers access benefits available to North American employees."
As I indicated in my last post, this is a great claim, and if it's true we should be shouting these findings from the rooftops, and Lululemon should get a corporate social responsibility award.
The problem is, as everyone in the industry knows, the factories are notified in advanced that the
"auditors" are coming, and they just clean everything up nicely. It's like a Potemkin tour, and everyone gets to declare victory.
However, if there are actual reports, and not just the usual corporate PR on this issue, let's see the reports? So that we know they actually exist. You seem close enough to top management to obtain them?
Any report, even one, since July 2008 when the Lululemon web page last reports on its intention to rigorously monitor its overseas factories for labor and environmental health conditions.
I will forward them to the main organization that monitors labor rights conditions in the apparel industry
"As Patch reports, Jana Svrzo, then an Apple store manager, heard noises coming from the wall the store shares with Lululemon. "It sounded like something thudding, hitting or dragging -- grunting, high-pitched squealing, yelping perhaps," Svrzo testified.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/28/lululemon-apple-store-trial_n_1064570.html
Elevate your 'journalism' from mediocrity to greatness and take a yoga class.
You even put my name in your own name here. I do think that qualifies you as a stalker.
Actually there have been a couple of excellent articles written about the failure of the Apple employees to do more than just listen in. I never thought of linking that to Apple's organizational culture? Thanks for the idea.
Here you go Stalker, "Confessions of an Apple Store Employee."
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/confessions-of-an-apple-store-employee?click=pp
I wonder if every hot-shot retail company is building a power-mad, narcissistic cult of personality about its founder, and pledging absolute secrecy? Could it have been cult-envy at work?
Some excerpts from the article --
The Apple Credo
Sometimes the company can feel like a cult. Like, they give us all this little paper pamphlet, and it says things like—and I'm paraphrasing here—"Apple is our soul, our people are our soul." Or "We aim to provide technological greatness." And there was this one training session in which they started telling us how to work on our personality, and separating people into those with an external focus and an internal focus. It was just weird.
Working There Makes You Power Hungry
When I'm there, I get sucked into the competitive culture. Normally I'm pretty low-key, but when I'm at the store, it's all sell, sell, sell! I wanna work my way up, get promoted and eventually get to the Genius Bar—which is where you want to be. Who doesn't want to be a genius?"
Besides, those hot-shot security guards he references? Apparently, the one at the Apple Store had his walk-man head-phones on. He might have been listening to a Steve Jobs motivational lecture.
I think he was listening to "Material Girl",
This is a recent article on Lululemon's stock position, which has generated enormous discussion in the business world in recent months. Is the company stock overvalued? Can LLL maintain its high increases in yearly sales since 2009? Is it still a safe bet?
Make no mistake LLL is still growing very rapidly. If anything, it has a higher class of problems: a dwindling inventory, in part because the company has been focusing on opening new stores rather than creating new product.
Th article includes an embedded CNN interview with CEO Christine Day, formerly a senior executive with Starbucks, who discusses the reasons why Lulu still plans to cater primarily to women even though men now account for 12% of its total sales.
Poppy Harlow, the interviewer asks: "Why not go beyond 'under armor' for men and try to reach deals with major sports teams?"
Says Day: "The male model is very different from the female model. The female model is based more on relationships, building relationships of authenticity with yoga instructors....Who a female finds credible is their yoga instructor or that other woman in their yoga class. We'd have to change more of the model to go after [men]."
She adds: "Right now we have an opportunity to become number one among women. It's been an under-served market for so long We still don't know how large it is, and it's still growing"
LLL also asked the judge to dimiss Brown's claim "with prejudice." That would have meant she could never raise the issue again - nor could anyone else. However, the court refused, saying Brown could fille an amended complaint, if she and her co-plaintiffs could show additional cause, based on an implied or stated agreement about compensation for the off-clock activities.
Here is the judge's decision, which I have tried to sumamrize in a nutshell:
http://il.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20110224_0000450.NIL.htm/qx
For a separate take on the case, you might review this blog post by a labor law firm that follows such matters:
http://www.wageandhourlawupdate.com/2011/05/articles/wage-and-hour/hours-of-work/illinois-federal-court-rejects-plaintiffs-effort-to-breath-life-into-gap-time-recovery-under-flsa/
A second suit, originating in Illinois, was thrown out by a judge earlier this year It was brought by Lydia Brown, who alleged that LLL failed to compensate her for mandatory staff meetings and exercise classes, as well as Landmark video viewings at her home. These activities were over and above the time she worked in the store for which she was compensated on an houry basis.
Amazingly, in its defense Lululemon tried to argue that Brown and other employees like her - they sued as a class - weren't actually employees because they didn't have a written contract entitling them to compensation?
Maybe LLL was confusing the people it calls "guests" (the customers) with the people it likes to call its "educators" (the employees). In the LLL manifesto, Lulu educators are touted as the most important people in the entire Lululemon family. Apparently, when you sue, you're demoted to a "guest" of the company, and shouldn't even expect to be paid?
Fortunately the judge in the case told Lululemon, sorry, even if Brown didn't have a written contract, she clearly had an "agreement," so guess what, Lulu, you are still bound to uphold that agreement under Illinois law.
(continued )
The New York Post put together this short video on the event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEZlp2qMj9o&feature=related
"Toto, I don't think we're in Delhi anymore."
Now, if she really wanted to push the envelope, she could shave her public hair in the likeness of the great Indian yogi Swami Vivekenanda, who was chiefly responsible for exporting yoga to America. It would be like the "sighting" of the Virgin Mary that some see in simple cloud formations, wood bark patterns, and even accidental Coca-cola stains. We could even spin it as a Hindu yoga "stigmata" of sorts?
"It's a sign, it's a sign!"
This would be the ultimate in Corporate-Tantric performance art. And the fact that it all happened on Lulu property wouldn't be dismissed as a coincidence, like some grisly murder. The company could own it as a vital expression of its organizational culture.
Hell, if that happens, I might even buy Lulu stock.
Still others extol the marriage of money and mediation - and not just companies like Lulu, but many small yoga studio owners who see themselves as small business owners on the move, especially the women, who have positioned themselves as feminist icons of sorts.
I prefer to see real action. It's one thing for yoga to resist government regulation of any kind - rather ironic in light of how many yogis support expanded regulation when it comes to Wall Street, for example, but yogis have this tendency to think they are exempt from the laws of society and should be treated like a tax-exempt church - at the same time, resisting all implication, of course, that yoga is formally a religion.
That's quite a high-minded pretzel "pose"; we should probably have a name for this asana actually. Maybe from the regular Down Dog, you alternate cocking a bent leg to either side, simulating urination?
The earlier version of the URL included a period at the end, which makes it impossible to view. The above URL should be correct.
Here's the Bureau's warning on general claims about "green-friendly" products:
"The Bureau is watchful of increasing trends in the marketplace making claims about the use of sustainable fibres (e.g. bamboo, soybeans) and any related environmental, health, and therapeutic claims about their benefits and reminds industry participants that they must ensure that proper fibre content is being disclosed. Scientific testing of the fibres or fabrics is necessary to substantiate the claims."
Read the fine print. Some of these suppliers, including Manduka, a leading manufacturer of yoga mats, include caveats such as "whenever possible," or "to best of our ability" we base our products on reusable or biodegradable materials.
The truth is, we simply don't know who if anyone in the yoga world is actually adhering to their own high-minded code. Though they are certainly strongly marketing themselves as such while providing the wiggle room to back away from those claims, if necessary.
You can judge for yourself whether a company that so closely supervises the design and marketing of its clothing would or wouldn't know right down to the narrowest technical detail what was in their products. In any event, under pressure from the Canadian Competition Bureau, LLL agreed to remove all labeling in the clothing that made the product quality claims that LLL couldn't sustain.
Here is the statement from the CCB:
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/02517.html.
It's worth noting, perhaps, CCB's warning that all green-friendly claims by manufacturers like LLL need to be "scientifically verified." Many other companies operating in the yoga world - large and small - are now making similar claims. As far as I know, no one has taken the time to investigate these claims.
Last year, LLL agreed to settle one of the lawsuits to the tune of $2.1 million, not including lawyer's fees, and additional "enhancements" to the lead plaintiffs, Mia Stephens, Lucero Smith, and Kelly Busken.
The three plaintiffs, on behalf of hundreds of other employees, charged Lululemon with "lucrative, repressive, and unlawful business practices" by "engaging in a uniform policy and systematic scheme of wage abuse against their employees in California."
The specific issue raised in this suit was that LLL had paid part of the employees's wages in the form of gift cards (blatant violation of the California labor codes 450 and 212(a)(2)), and worse, these gift cards could only be redeemed through the purchase of Lululemon clothing. Furthermore, LLL was insisting that its employees needed to work in these very same purchased clothes as a condition of their continued employment.
The upshot? Lululemon was coercing its employees into repaying a portion of their wages back to Lululemon.