Originally posted by: ExpertNovice
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
<BR><BR>I was just about to add it in here.<BR><BR>Simply put in English:<BR><BR>Walmart pays such low pay <$7 hr that Californians that work there cannot afford Health Insurance<BR><BR>They make so little they qualify for public assistance so the rest of the Taxpayers of Californians with real jobs that pay >$16hr pay for the public assistance for the Wally World Employees.Originally posted by: burnedout<BR>Hey Dave, here's another Wally World story for ya:<BR><BR>Study: Low Wal-Mart Wages Cost California $86 mil
I believe this link will serve you better. Study: Wal-Mart policies cost California taxpayers
In this report your <$7 an hour is way off. The University of California Berkley says they are paid an average of $9.70 an hour and Wal-Mart says they are paid $10.37 an hour. I assume your under $7 was for those who believe such nonsense.
The study talks about the lack of medical benefits. Guess what, insurance is optional as is savings. Wal-Mart can't force them to take the insurance benefits. Besides, since so many expect that medical care should be free why should they pay for it.
It seems to me that $9.70 and hour, or $10.37, is exceptional for unskilled labor. Why work for such low wages? No skills either yet learned or no desire to learn better skills. The desire to stay under a certain income level in order to avoid losing Government benefits. Retirees are working part time in an unstressful job. Students are working part time while going to school. Many valid reasons.
Just because you can't conceive of why someone would work for such pay doen't mean it is a bad situation. Nor does it imply that it is a great situation. So, all I"m saying is you shouldn't jump to conclusions. Nor should you fabricate information to fit an agenda.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
4-23-2006 U.S. Vs Walmart - Wal-Mart Evolves Into Big Political Issue
WASHINGTON - There is no candidate. There are no ballots. There won't be an Election Day. And yet it may be the hottest, highest-stakes political contest in America today.
It's the campaign against Wal-Mart.
Their campaign has all the markings of the Dean and Clark insurgencies ? a snappy Web site, volunteer action lists and an issues-based grass-roots campaign.
Among those lined up against the company at Wal-Mart Watch are Jim Jordan, campaign manager for 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, and Terry Holt, a spokesman for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Odd bedfellows: A Republican working for unions against Wal-Mart.
"Wal-Mart is giving capitalism a bad name," Holt explained. "It's lost touch with its small-town roots and has become a company that is depending on corporate welfare ... and an all-too-cozy relationship with China."
Under fire, Wal-Mart hired Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Bush-Cheney political director Terry Nelson and several Democrats, among them civil rights leader Andrew Young, former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros and campaign strategist Leslie Dach.
Talk about odd bedfellows: Democrats working for Wal-Mart against organized labor.
"We were being attacked. We wanted to hire people who knew how to respond," said Wal-Mart's McAdam, formerly a GOP aide on Capitol Hill and political strategist for the tobacco industry.
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Notice they are now calling anyone in the U.S. against the establishment "Insurgents" in the U.S. now
But does that really matter to you?By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer Sun Apr 23, 12:34 PM ET
WASHINGTON - There is no candidate. There are no ballots. There won't be an Election Day. And yet it may be the hottest, highest-stakes political contest in America today.
ADVERTISEMENT
It's the campaign against Wal-Mart.
A year-old effort to force the nation's No. 1 private employer to change its business practices has evolved into a Washington-style brawl: tens of millions of dollars spent by Republican and Democratic political consultants using polling, micro-targeting, ads, e-mails, direct mail, grass-roots organizing and strategic "war rooms" to ply their trade in the corporate world.
Their fight involves some of society's most vexing trends, including the rising cost of health care, the painful realities of globalization and the waning relevance of organized labor.
"Our opponents have organized the likes of a political campaign against us," said Bob McAdam, vice president of corporate affairs at Wal-Mart. "It would be nonsense for us not to respond in a similar fashion."
Wal-Mart's main opponents are the Service Employees International Union, which started Wal-Mart Watch, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which funds a separate campaign called WakeUpWalMart.com
After failing to organize employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. with traditional tactics, the unions decided to use modern campaign and communications methods to drag the company into the public square and try to shame them into change.
Both groups have hammered the world's largest retailer about its wages, health insurance, treatment of workers and proclivity for buying non-U.S. goods. Wal-Mart has responded with counterattacks and a multimillion-dollar public campaign to polish its image.
On both sides are some of the best political strategists money can buy.
WakeUpWalMart.com is run by Paul Blank, political director for
Howard Dean's 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, and Chris Kofinis, a former political professor who helped draft retired Army Gen.
Wesley Clark into the same race.
Their campaign has all the markings of the Dean and Clark insurgencies ? a snappy Web site, volunteer action lists and an issues-based grass-roots campaign.
Among those lined up against the company at Wal-Mart Watch are Jim Jordan, campaign manager for 2004 Democratic presidential nominee
John Kerry, and Terry Holt, a spokesman for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Odd bedfellows: A Republican working for unions against Wal-Mart.
"Wal-Mart is giving capitalism a bad name," Holt explained. "It's lost touch with its small-town roots and has become a company that is depending on corporate welfare ... and an all-too-cozy relationship with China."
Under fire, Wal-Mart hired Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Bush-Cheney political director Terry Nelson and several Democrats, among them civil rights leader Andrew Young, former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros and campaign strategist Leslie Dach.
Talk about odd bedfellows: Democrats working for Wal-Mart against organized labor.
"We were being attacked. We wanted to hire people who knew how to respond," said Wal-Mart's McAdam, formerly a GOP aide on Capitol Hill and political strategist for the tobacco industry.
WakeUpWalMart.com claims 212,000 supporters who can be mobilized with a computer stroke to recruit members and participate in media events designed to shine a bad light on the Bentonville, Ark., company.
The group also passes out UFCW-sponsored workers' rights material outside Wal-Mart stores.
A goal of the UFCW is to show Wal-Mart's 1.3 million U.S. employees ? many of whom have a low opinion of unions or fear retribution if they organize ? that unionized labor can change their workplace and lives for the better.
"For years, labor leaders were fighting Wal-Mart the old way, but times have changed," Kofinis said. "Instead of organizing workers, they're trying to organize the nation" against Wal-Mart.
In its own way, this campaign over Wal-Mart is as important as the congressional races this year.
Bringing Wal-Mart to heel with 21st-century tactics would signal a fresh approach for organized labor after a decades-long decline in membership.
At stake for Wal-Mart is the future course of a company with $312.4 billion in sales in the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31. Its stock has fallen 20 percent over the past two years, and the company has had trouble sustaining its historically high rates of profit growth.
Analysts say bad publicity from the union-backed campaigns may be hurting Wal-Mart, though unrelated business pressures are also a factor.
Wal-Mart denies that the union-backed campaign has hurt its bottom line. But the company sees the effort as a threat.
After Maryland's legislature passed a labor-backed bill requiring companies ? Wal-Mart in particular ? to spend more on workers' health insurance, the Arkansas company came out with improvements in its health care coverage.
Amid criticism, Wal-Mart also has announced plans to:
_Help competing local companies stay in business.
_Expand its share of the Hispanic market.
_Sell more environmentally friendly products.
_Increase diversity in its work force.
A multimillion-dollar advertising campaign featuring testimonials of happy customers and employees cast Wal-Mart as a good corporate citizen.
Nelson was hired to wage a grass-roots campaign by recruiting Wal-Mart shoppers and local leaders sympathetic to the corporation's cause.
In the union camp, both groups send opposition research on Wal-Mart to reporters, e-mail supporters and stage events such as rallies and documentary film screenings.
They have had an impact.
Maryland-style health care bills have been introduced in more than 30 states. Democratic candidates in Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania have spoken out against Wal-Mart, as have elected officials in Wisconsin, Georgia, Connecticut and several other states.
Then there is Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The potential 2008 presidential candidate served on Wal-Mart's board for six years when her husband was governor of Arkansas. Just two years ago, the New York senator called her time on the board "a great experience in every respect."
But now she does not want anything to do with the company. Her re-election campaign returned a $5,000 contribution from Wal-Mart, citing "serious differences with current company practices."
To this, Wal-Mart officials acknowledged that the company has become a political issue ? at least for Democratic candidates who need labor's money and organizing might.
"While not commenting specifically on Mrs. Clinton, apparently there are those who want to appeal to union leaders regardless of what office they're running for and whether they want to do what union leaders want done," McAdam said.
Will the company be a major issue in upcoming campaigns?
"I think there are those who want to make it so," the Wal-Mart executive said. "But I think the true test of whether that's true or not will play itself out in the midterm elections and the presidential elections to come."
Originally posted by: railer
I really don't understand all the fuss about walmart? Are they worse than k-mart because they're actaully good at what they do, and didn't file chap 11? Is walgreens evil too? How 'bout the dollar store? Only evil if they make money? What's the criteria? Can I eat at Mcdonalds? Thanks in advance....
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: railer
I really don't understand all the fuss about walmart? Are they worse than k-mart because they're actaully good at what they do, and didn't file chap 11? Is walgreens evil too? How 'bout the dollar store? Only evil if they make money? What's the criteria? Can I eat at Mcdonalds? Thanks in advance....
You don't see a problem here???????????????
4-26-2006 Walmart only has 615,000 employees of its 1.34 million employees enrolled in Health care
46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart workers were uninsured or on public health care.
The announcements reflect growing outside pressure on the company, which was exhibited in the state of Maryland recently. There, the state's legislature passed a law that requires companies with more than 10,000 Maryland employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on employee health care or pay the difference into the state's Medicaid fund.
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When and if we ever do wind up with a Universal Health Care system in the U.S. it will mainly be because of Walmart.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Bahahahaha Goodbye Dell, Goodbye Monarch
5-5-2006 Wal-Mart to sell build-your-own computers
With the build-your-own-computer counters, shoppers can choose between several different components.
Such components include central processing units -- the brain of the computer that powers its basic functions -- as well as monitors, keyboards and mice that customers can combine to create customized packages they can load in a shopping cart and take home right away.
Wal-Mart's entry into a category can raise alarms because the retailer's persistent price-cutting pressures competitors' profit margins. It has been blamed for bankruptcies in sectors ranging from groceries and toys.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Wal-Mart to sell build-your-own computers
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Bahahahaha Goodbye Dell, Goodbye Monarch
5-5-2006 Wal-Mart to sell build-your-own computers
With the build-your-own-computer counters, shoppers can choose between several different components.
Such components include central processing units -- the brain of the computer that powers its basic functions -- as well as monitors, keyboards and mice that customers can combine to create customized packages they can load in a shopping cart and take home right away.
Wal-Mart's entry into a category can raise alarms because the retailer's persistent price-cutting pressures competitors' profit margins. It has been blamed for bankruptcies in sectors ranging from groceries and toys.
Originally posted by: GoPackGo
If I remember right, Dave, Wal-Mart only became evil after Sam Walton died.
Originally posted by: smashp
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Bahahahaha Goodbye Dell, Goodbye Monarch
5-5-2006 Wal-Mart to sell build-your-own computers
With the build-your-own-computer counters, shoppers can choose between several different components.
Such components include central processing units -- the brain of the computer that powers its basic functions -- as well as monitors, keyboards and mice that customers can combine to create customized packages they can load in a shopping cart and take home right away.
Wal-Mart's entry into a category can raise alarms because the retailer's persistent price-cutting pressures competitors' profit margins. It has been blamed for bankruptcies in sectors ranging from groceries and toys.
Walmart Has no Service. NONE.
Also they are entering the least profitable market for pc hardware. Home computers.
Ainy going to hurt dell
Dave you are getting loonier by the day, You have no concept of reality. Do you know what a server or a san is? Is walmart selling integrated data solutions for network storage with high speed fiberchannel backplanes connected to chassis that hold multiple redundent blade servers in a cluster?
NO
Then STFU
No surprise here, Walmart high paid Lobbyists successfully pay off Federal Judge to keep Taxpayers paying for lowly paid employee health care costs.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
No surprise here, Walmart high paid Lobbyists successfully pay off Federal Judge to keep Taxpayers paying for lowly paid employee health care costs.
7-29-3006 Federal Judge overturns Maryland Wal-Mart health care law
BALTIMORE - A federal judge on Wednesday overturned a Maryland law that would have required Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to spend more on employee health care, arguing the retail giant "faces threatened injury" from the law's spending requirement.
In Maryland, where state budget writers were looking for ways to rein in a $4.6 billion annual Medicaid tab, the Wal-Mart law was seen as a way to encourage companies to keep employees off public rolls. It became law last winter when the Democratic legislature overrode a 2005 veto by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
It's been shown ad naseum in the thread as well as right in front of your nose in the article above:Originally posted by: Genx87
No surprise here, Walmart high paid Lobbyists successfully pay off Federal Judge to keep Taxpayers paying for lowly paid employee health care costs.
If you have proof bring it up with the states attorney general. Otherwise you are blowing smoke out your ass, like usual.