This is despicable.

[Hammer]

hahaha, good for walmart. i wish united did the same.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Megatomic
You know, most of the people I know that work at Walmart do it strictly for extra money, perhaps a side job or a PT job for the bored spouse who wants to get out of the house for a while. You people make it sound like some actually try to make their living working there.

Um. CLEARLY, since you know several people who work at walmart, you are qualified to speak for all of the company's workers. :disgust: How about night stockers? How about low-income workers? Don't forget many of these people are low-income persons working 2, maybe even 3 jobs to keep food on the table.

Your level of ignorance is shocking.

Sorry, my level is experience is what I was speaking from, not my quasi-intellectual humanitarian professor's latest lecture on the evils of corporate america. At least think for yourself. :roll:

 

[MeanMeosh]

hehe i remember, about 3 or so years ago, the deli department at the local walmart threatened to unionize. they just shut down the deli department.

 

[Amused]

It is shocking that no one sees the real outrage here.

And that outrage is that Walmart has to shut down, rather than have the basic right to simply fire the Union members.

A Union's ONLY leverage should be the threat of walking off the job en-mass and forcing the employer to saddle the cost of training a new crew. Any law that prohibits the firing of Union members or organizers is an absurd violation of an employer's rights.

 

[Megatomic]

That's a good point Amused, whether the employer is a popular automobile maker or some small electrical shop.

 

[jemcam]

Originally posted by: mwtgg

Originally posted by: spidey07
good for them.

unions = teh devil

Yep, I don't see their purpose in this day and age.

Agreed 100%!

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: mwtgg

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's too bad some of you see unions as evil... you usually only hear about the negative things (like when they fight for someone's job that deserves to be cut).. It's unfortunate that the positives aren't heard.

Yeah, we only hear about teachers going on strike for a month or two, or nurses at hopitals going on strike, leaving the hospital to hire temp nurses to take care of the patients.

How callous do you have to be to go on strike when you're a nurse?

Nurses work long difficult hours. There is a shortage of them. Welcome to a free market economy. They have power to wield and they will wield it. Its no different than walmart here, walmart can afford to shut down the store to also crush a possible uprising of union elsewhere. Whats good for the goose...

Or did you think the nurses were going to work out of the goodness of their own hearts and the company was paying them out of the goodness of their's? This isn't a communist utopia.

Unions make some stupid demands and do result in a lot of useless employees sticking around sometimes...but I'm not going to say they're all bad. And given the recent trend of slashing employee benefits to remain competitive, I think we will see more come into being.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Megatomic
You know, most of the people I know that work at Walmart do it strictly for extra money, perhaps a side job or a PT job for the bored spouse who wants to get out of the house for a while. You people make it sound like some actually try to make their living working there.

Um. CLEARLY, since you know several people who work at walmart, you are qualified to speak for all of the company's workers. :disgust: How about night stockers? How about low-income workers? Don't forget many of these people are low-income persons working 2, maybe even 3 jobs to keep food on the table.

Your level of ignorance is shocking.

Sorry, my level is experience is what I was speaking from, not my quasi-intellectual humanitarian professor's latest lecture on the evils of corporate america. At least think for yourself. :roll:

LOL. Nice one. :laugh: WHAT AN ORIGINAL COMMENT! :laugh:

You're a fool to assume that experience will yield the correct answers to all of your questions. You're also a fool to assume that I'm merely recycling another person's opinion. I am pointing out a large fallcacy in your comment: assuming that simply because you know a few Wal-mart employees that it is the case that all of their employees are working part-time as a "side job" is obviously false. How you can generalize from limited experience? Sheesh.

That's my piece.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: SampSon

Originally posted by: Orsorum
I applaud the workers in their attempts to unionize. People have the right to wield their assets in a legitimate and fair manner, and if Wal-Mart's business model depends on having superior bargaining power w.r.t. labor decisions, then Wal-Mart may just eventually go out of business.

Then many will lose their jobs, and cheap product won't be as readily available to the market. Sounds like a great deal!

The world survived for thousands of years before 24 packs of $1.99 mexican socks were readily available. The world will survive for thousands of years after they disappear. Walmart is hardly going to crush the economy if it collapses, as there will always be some one to fill the void.

 

[shortylickens]

I have to support many foks in their hate for Wal-Mart.
Am not familiar with how things work in Canada so I wont comment on that either.

As for the unions discussion I have one story to offer.

I have been in the US Navy for about 8 years now. When my ship was drydocked in Norfolk we saw exactly how big unions working for huge corporations do bussiness. The Navy had a contract with a large company to do an ROH (required over-hual) that comes around every ten years or so. It also involved dry-docking.
The original contract was for 8 months and 21 million dolars. When we pulled out after 9 months the DoN had already spent 45 million dollars and we werent even finished.
And I know why this happened.

Most welders there make about 50-75 dollars per hour. The senior supervisors get the high end of the scale.
When a welder completed a 15-minute job they would sit and stare at it for 45 minutes. This is known as a fire watch. Perfectly acceptable working standard. Then they would go start on their next job.
The problem with this system is they only get 2 hours of work done in an 8 hour work day. For those of you who have seen a Ticonderoga Cruiser you can imagine just how many welders we had going at any given time. Meawhile we have hundereds of poorly paid federal employees (like myself) earning approx 20 dollars a day who were over-qualified to stand fire-watch on our own ship. But the union said this was their work and who were we to steal work from union members?!?!
It was not this way with just the welders. The electricians, plumbers and other misc employees all made similar wages. And they all had similar slow-downs in their day-to-day work.
They would also goof off for a whole work-week and regularily come in on weekends to earn double (not time and a half) for their work. Triple on X-mas day and New Years day.
When you consider there are approx 600 ships in the Navy, (most of which are larger than cruisers), this can add-up quickly.

The problem I had with that union (and many others who suppurt the DoD) is that there are plenty of rules dictating how they get paid and what benefits are included, but NO policies on or if they should get work done.
Remember folks, thats where YOUR tax dollars are going. The Department of Defence gets more money than ALL the other departments combined.

If anyone wants to know what company this was, PM me.

 

[stephenw22]

I think that our whole economic model is crap. Walmart does what is best for its shareholders, which aren't anywhere near the location of the store. They don't care if the workers have financial hardship because of the low pay, and they don't care if they screw over suppliers to get the best price. All that matters is that the store makes a profit, at any moral or ethical price.

Same deal goes for most large companies - oil, autos, software, etc.

As far as unions go, I think they are a good idea in heavily-regulated sectors like education and healthcare (at least here in Canada). The government already tells them what they can and cannot do (and sometimes where they can and cannot work), and shouldn't be able to cut their salaries because they spent too much on 'promoting national unity' or because they just gave themselves a 20% raise.

If you want no unions in education, let all schools be private. If you want no healthcare unions, let that system privatize too.

BTW, where I work, we've had labour unions for 75 years or so, and no strikes. The union is sensible, and management is fair. Everyone is a shareholder in the company, so everyone cares about balancing profits with worker benefits.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Megatomic
You know, most of the people I know that work at Walmart do it strictly for extra money, perhaps a side job or a PT job for the bored spouse who wants to get out of the house for a while. You people make it sound like some actually try to make their living working there.

Um. CLEARLY, since you know several people who work at walmart, you are qualified to speak for all of the company's workers. :disgust: How about night stockers? How about low-income workers? Don't forget many of these people are low-income persons working 2, maybe even 3 jobs to keep food on the table.

Your level of ignorance is shocking.

Sorry, my level is experience is what I was speaking from, not my quasi-intellectual humanitarian professor's latest lecture on the evils of corporate america. At least think for yourself. :roll:

LOL. Nice one. :laugh: WHAT AN ORIGINAL COMMENT! :laugh:

You're a fool to assume that experience will yield the correct answers to all of your questions. You're also a fool to assume that I'm merely recycling another person's opinion. I am pointing out a large fallcacy in your comment: assuming that simply because you know a few Wal-mart employees that it is the case that all of their employees are working part-time as a "side job" is obviously false. How you can generalize from limited experience? Sheesh.

That's my piece.

Apparently I struck a nerve. My work here is now done.

ps - You take yourself and the internet way to seriously. You need to check this out:

Video - maybe NSFW

 

[kreb]

Oh the humanity :roll:

They're a lot better off without a Walmart anyways.

Also, it doesn't take a humanitarian professor to know that low-income workers need 2 or 3 jobs just to survive their paycheck-by-paycheck world. All you need is some personal experience, or if you're lazy, read Nickel and Dimed

 

[Deeko]

Good, I hate unions in all but a few situations(teaching for example). Walmart employees DO NOT need a union! Its incredibly unskilled labor that doesn't deserve the kind of demands unions want.

PS Walmart has squashed union attempts before. Why do people keep trying?

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: rufruf44
Its quite ironic and reeks hypocrisy that the average joe critizes CEOs for decisions like this, yet when the table turned and they're in the same position, they wouldn't think twice to do the exact same thing.

Thats the point everyone seems to miss. CEOs of companies make cutthroat moves to increase efficency/profits...people b|tch about this all the time.

But you mention the only thing that can allow the individual workers to combat this practice, Unions, and it invokes rage because there are some Unions that are models of waste. This is just the opposite example of the CEO run amok, the workers now have a disproportionate amount of power and are abusing it, just like the CEO did in another example.

Remember though, Unions aren't particularly popular anymore...if a management team is fair, there just isn't going to be any incentive to form one.

But wouldn't logically, a more competitive non-union shop show up...and run them out of business? Yeah, but its going to take awhile because they're entrenched. But it WILL happen because the economy loves to find efficency.

The cycle continues.

 

[catnap1972]

Those of you who keep saying that Wal-Mart isn't making much of a profit are really naive. I've seen some of their inventory sheets (the employees used to leave them around) and the profit margins on many of the items are obscene. They could drop prices even further and still make a hefty profit but there's no reason to when the sheeple will see that the item is 1% cheaper (if even that much--.01 cheaper gives some people a hard-on) than the competition and jump for joy over it.

 

[DurocShark]

I'm going to have to side with the anti-unionists in this case. There are appropriate situations for unions, but I don't believe that retail is a place for unions.

My personal story:

When I was 18 I worked for a unionized Sav-On Drugs. I made minimum wage, and had to pay $40 per month in dues plus a $120 initiation fee. I worked that store for a year before I moved too far away to commute for minimum wage. So I transferred to a store nearby, which happened to NOT be union. I got an instant $2hr raise.

The only thing I saw the union there do was keep a girl that really needed and deserved to be fired from being fired. Same with my grandfather who was a teamster. He worked on average 4 days per week, calling in sick (hung over, he was an alcoholic) the other day. He couldn't be fired because he was not only a teamster but a member for like 40 years.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: catnap1972
Those of you who keep saying that Wal-Mart isn't making much of a profit are really naive. I've seen some of their inventory sheets (the employees used to leave them around) and the profit margins on many of the items are obscene.

You are confusing profit for markup. Huge difference.

 

[BHeemsoth]

McDonalds does the same thing.

They stripped the franchise license away from a few stores who's employees wanted to unionize.

I believe these stores were also in Canada.

This was talked about in the Eric Schlosser novel, Fast Food Nation - Quite an interesting read.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Apparently I struck a nerve. My work here is now done.

ps - You take yourself and the internet way to seriously. You need to check this out:

Video - maybe NSFW

YOU struck a nerve? I was supposing it was the other way around. Oh well.

Incidentally, I DO have a life.

 

[moshquerade]

Originally posted by: Martin
Link

Wal-Mart (WMT:NYSE - news - research) said Wednesday that it will close a store in Canada where workers were close to establishing the retail giant's first labor union, according to The Associated Press.

The company plans to close the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, because it says union negotiators are making unreasonable demands that threaten the store's business.

Last week, the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada asked Quebec labor officials to appoint a mediator in its talks with Wal-Mart in hopes that it would help break a logjam in negotiations.

"We were hoping it wouldn't come to this," Wal-Mart spokesman Andrew Pelletier told the AP. "Despite nine days of meetings over three months, we've been unable to reach an agreement with the union that in our view will allow the store to operate efficiently and profitably."

Any success enjoyed by the Canadian union with Wal-Mart could have ultimately impacted the company's business in the U.S. One of Wal-Mart's competitive advantages is low labor costs. That was especially apparent throughout its recent foray into the grocery business, which prompted massive labor strikes across Southern California as traditional grocery chains attempted to cut health and other benefits to their workers in an attempt to compete.

"Is Wal-Mart sending a message here [about organized labor in its stores] ? It's too soon to tell," said Richard Hastings, retail economist with Variant Research. "It's all about expenses, and Wal-Mart is all about expense controls. The unionization of that store ruins the expense budget for that store, so Wal-Mart definitely looks at it as something to eliminate."

so Martin, you find this despicable. to protest it you should never step foot in a Wal-Mart again. deal?

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Apparently I struck a nerve. My work here is now done.

ps - You take yourself and the internet way to seriously. You need to check this out:

Video - maybe NSFW

YOU struck a nerve? I was supposing it was the other way around. Oh well.

Incidentally, I DO have a life.

Most of my posts are in the content-laden portions of AT forums. I can't remember seeing you participate in any of those threads.

And most people here would insist that they lead "real" lives, but most of you all just deceive yourselves.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: moshquerade

so Martin, you find this despicable. to protest it you should never step foot in a Wal-Mart again. deal?

I haven't set foot in a Wallyworld in some time. I've found with few exceptions most of their products entail a "savings" of about 10-20 cents/item, maybe a couple of dollars at best, and sometimes the items are cheaper on sale elsewhere. I can shop from Amazon without tax.

What Wal-mart has going for them is the quantity, diversity, and breadth of product selection and convenience...being able to shop for food and motor oil at the same time.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease
What Wal-mart has going for them is the quantity, diversity, and breadth of product selection and convenience...being able to shop for food and motor oil at the same time.

Good point, and this is why you'll have a hell of a time convincing harried and hectic working moms to shop elsewhere. They can do most/all of their shopping in one location. My wife is a prime example of this.

 

[moshquerade]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease
What Wal-mart has going for them is the quantity, diversity, and breadth of product selection and convenience...being able to shop for food and motor oil at the same time.

Good point, and this is why you'll have a hell of a time convincing harried and hectic working moms to shop elsewhere. They can do most/all of their shopping in one location. My wife is a prime example of this.

yep, that is their appeal. instead of going all over town to get the great deal on a few items at each store you have relatively good prices on everything under one roof.