On the Wal*Mart cart "protest", why it would be ineffective and cruel...

OK, many people here seem to be completely ignorant as to how Wal*Mart operates on a daily basis. OK, first things first, soon enough it is going to be the busiest time of year, especially the day after Thanksgiving. This means two things, one, average floor associates are going to be working like mad, usually cleaning aisles and zoning, plus customer service, which takes up much of the day. The Cashiers will be stuck up front, lucky enough to have time for bathroom breaks, much less regular breaks. These stores, most of them, are 24 hour stores, the ONLY associates that ONLY stock shelves are the ones on 3rd shift(around 11PM-12AM to 8-9AM)that don't buff the floors or clean the bathrooms. Those associates do not do carts at all, that is the job of 2nd shift(3PM to 12AM, usually, though 1st shift(6-7AM to 3-4PM) does it often enough as well.

Now, there are a couple of things that are interesting about this time of year, one, some associates do get "unlimited" overtime, these are usually the Department Managers and those in Seasonal(Lawn and Garden), everyone else doesn't. The second thing is that Wal*Mart has a bad habit of categorizing time and a half as working over 40 hours in a single week, not working over 8 hours in a day. This means that if a 2nd shift employee has to work till 2 AM one night, they get sent home the next day 2 hours early, hence no overtime. I believe that in many states this is illegal, but then again, Wal*Mart is famous for taking advantage of their workers' ignorance.

This isn't even including the part timers(Majority of associates) and swing shift workers, not to mention the staffing problems in many stores due to Management's stupidity. I'll give an example of this type of problem, one Saturday morning in August of 2000 we had an understaffing problem at the store, there were three people SCHEDULED to work that day, me, a cashier, and an Associate Manager, with no relief expected till noon, and the shift started at 7! Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, the average amount of floor associates is supposed to be around 25 people, including cashiers and managers. Can you imagine how pissed off we would be if such a protest was staged on a day like that?

The point being that I have no clue what this type of "protest" would accomplish, besides giving overworked and underpaid workers more stress, I do find it telling that it would be done anamously by the ones staging it though, only cowards do that. Protest, educate workers on their rights, boycotts, are all fine, I do that type of stuff myself, but do NOT punish the workers themselves in such a way, just to make yourself feel better.

carts? or did that just not fit in with your outrage because you once had to work at wally world? the *leave a cart* protest has nothing to do with punishing workers and everything to do with clogging up wal-marts on some of their busiest , highest money days, frustrating the people the people shopping there and hopefully sending them somewhere else to spend that dollar. if we can organise it correctly we can also place flyers on windshields alerting the shoppers why their trip to wal-mart has been such an inconvenience and how it inconveniences so many other people in the world.

is it an ideal form of protest? of course not. is it likely to get some media attention? maybe.... as for the workers not getting OT and such, well, since it'll be the workers that will be the first ones to find the fliers left in the bottom of the carts there could certainly be some info on there informing them of their rights and a couple of phone numbers to the local labor councils. in the meantime, you got a better idea? because i got news for ya, a wal-mart boycott ain't working.

these are people who are just trying to get by each day to pay for basic needs. they work hard and are tired. they will not take the time to look into any info left to them by people responsible for their bad work day.

WTF are you smoking? How in the hell do you think a worker, who probably got written up because they couldn't complete all their jobs in 8 hours due to this stunt are going to feel? All this will do is piss them off and they will cuss out those who left those stupid assed phone numbers at the bottom of the carts. Being an asshole to Wal*Mart workers, because this obviously won't effect Wal*Mart's corporate bottome line, is not the way to make friends. BTW: the boycott is working, so can Union drives, and other methods that don't involve punishing the workers there. Look at the pressure Wal*Mart is feeling now, they are increasingly having a harder time pressuring towns to move in, with a more organized opposition. Also, there are more constructive ways to educate the workers about their rights than doing a juvenal stunt like this. Its pure idiocy from armchair "activists" who are too cowardly to even do it to their faces. If you do this, leave your address, what harm can it do? Let the workers themselves show you how much they "appreciate" your activism.

And frankly, if I worked at Walmart and you did that to me, I would hunt you down and place that note where the sun don't shine (figuratively speaking).

Instead of tormenting them with idiotic stunts, why don't we let the Walmart workers decide when the time is right for them to organize? Then we can stand alongside them, to back them up when they're strong, and pick them up when they're down. But don't make them chase your abandoned fucking shopping cart all over the store.

Seriously, why don't you get a job at Walmart for a few months? When you're an insider, you may be able to come up with smarter, more effective ways to stick it to the man.

You still don't understand how profoundly stupid an idea this is, do you?

Sigh...

Redstone

I'm sure that'll be effective :eyes:

the problem is not the people who work there but the way the company is run. much of the reason many of us who hate wal mart do so is because of their policy concerning workers.

boycotting and educating the workers and others is the best idea.

At my local Wallymart they usually do the restock/returns between 11pm and 2am. Most nights it's the nice lady who also oversees the registers and fixes it when they screw up.

We have had some fun conversations about what shoppers leave around the store. She told me about a chicken in automotive that was there for three days. The nice lady is also contantly harping about how the marketing smart guys are always moving things around. A few weeks ago they changed the chip aisle. Everything was somewhere else. She thanked me for pointing out that they had exactly reversed the shelf order for some lame reason. Everything is just where it was, think backwards.

This nice lady who likes Pepsi, has two dogs and an under-employed husband will just have to run faster if "protesters" engage in this stupid behavior.

But then again some nights the greeter lady has to has to do the restock chore. Hazel, the evening greeter lady at the local Wallymart, looks like a sweet grandmother but underneath she is profiling every shopper as they leave the store. She seems to take ethinic considerations into her decisions on what shoppers to stop and ask to see their receipt.

It might to be fun to watch the over-zealous granny Hazel restock a few extra carts of stuff. Hazel moves real slow and she doesn't have a clue where all the stuff goes back to on the shelf.

large pdf file but a good read.

http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=uvalwps

:)

:)

After working an 11 hour overnight shift at Target, exhausted from unloading two trucks and stocking shelves. Her comment was "I would hunt down whoever did that and stick the entire shopping cart where the sun never shines!"

This was a truly lame and asinine concept from the beginning, with no merit whatsoever.

I am merely an observer.

:eyes:

Have you ever worked at a Wal*Mart before?

Not opinion. Not mere 'fact'. "Truth"!! The burden of being Master of the Universe must be awesome! :eyes:

Let's just briefly review some basic information regarding discussion and logic. Attacking the background of the person engaged in a discussion is called an "ad hominem" - it's fallacious and largely irrelevant. The validity of an argument is not dependent on the background of the arguer. DU seems to be suffering a PLAGUE of fallacious thinking these days -- like people are taking 'stupid pills' and have lost sight of what rational, objective, and civil discourse is all about. Instead, we seem to be overrun by Grand Inquisitors hunting down heretics and treating all those who don't agree with their "Revealed Truth" as defendants in a New Inquisition.

Fallacy: Ad Hominem

Description of Ad Hominem

Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

Actually I was talking about real ignorance, my thread is a response by some people who talk about how the associates would get paid overtime and other such BS. The facts are laid out, simple as that, take it for what you will, but facts are facts, and the OP is how Wal*Mart operates on a national level. If you object to my use of that particular word, what other word would be appropriate for people commenting when they don't have the facts about how Wal*Mart operates?

You want to improve your NAME-CALLING?

What's wrong with the word "incorrect"??

Attack the argument, not the person!!

That's not rocket science.

First, being ignorant is NOT a general insult, at least I never used it that way. Its a word to describe a lack of knowledge in something. For example, I'm ignorant about cars, but I happen to also be particularly strict about the proper usage of words. Actually, I don't see how calling someone ignorant is an insult, it doesn't attack intelligence, like being called stupid would, nor did I use stronger language, like saying "you don't know shit!" which I would say IS offensive. Granted I could have used incorrect, or simply stated that they had a lack of knowledge, pardon my ignorance about the sensitivities of people. :shrug: