Wal-Mart

Any people here ever work for them? I just saw a commercial of man who claims to be a manager of a Sam's Club. It shows him walking down the aisles and talking to other employees.

What is the Wal-Mart experience really like? Is Ehrenich's portrayl of it accurate?

but I've talked to people who did.

The most anti union company you'll find and they love to make people work off the clock.

Scum at its finest.

But I really want to know what the real Wal-Mart experience is like.

Go fill out an application tomorrow :+

but I doubt I would work there. I already have a retail job.

I worked in a Wal-Mart for over a year.

When I met Ehrenreich that was the first thing I told her: "You got it absolutely right."

Shall I tell you about the morning meetings in the front of the store, with customers standing around while all the associates were led in the Wal-Mart cheer?

Shall I tell you about "CBLs," the computer training modules each employee, excuse me, each associate had to slog through within X number of weeks of hire?

Shall I tell you of the leap-frog promotions for white males?

Shall I tell you of being urged, by fellow associates, not to report on the job injuries because of promised chances at a huge bonus if there were no injuries for a month or a year? And the shunning of any employee, er, associate, who DID have an injury that couldn't not be reported?

Shall I tell you of getting off and clocking out 11 but not being able to leave the store because all the rest of the associates were locked in? not being allowed overtime pay? working on short-handed week-ends because too many people had reached their time limits during the week and weren't available for the week-end (how convenient!)

Shall I tell you of a store manager who blatantly ignored ordinary safety rules after lecturing the rest of us on his personal role as a "leader servant" and then fired other associates who made the sad mistake of following his example?

Shall I tell you of the corner-cutting on customer safety that nearly led to a five-year-old girl being hit by a speeding semi in front of my eyes?

Shall I tell you of the corner-cutting on customer safety that resulted in a six-year-old girl getting her hand caught in a check-out conveyor belt, and then listening to the on-duty manager try to talk the child's parents out of filing a report?

Shall I tell you of the favoritism shown day-time employees over the second-class evening and night-shift workers who always had to make sure the store was spotless at 7 a.m.? Day-shift people always got off on time, never had to "zone" late; evening and night shift rarely got off on time, unless they were sent home early so they'd be available on the week-end, leaving their fellows to make up the slack.

Shall I tell you of the ploys used to make the store look more profitable, like picking up empty boxes from the parking lot and recording them as "defective" merchandise so they would help the store's bottom line?

Shall I tell you of the unapologetic racism and sexism? "I need a male employee to Register 6 for carryout." "All register-trained female associates to registers for back-up." A white male with retail experience was hired as a department manager; a Latino male with retail experience was hired as a janitor. The only African-American male who worked in the store during my tenure was a security contractor with Wal-Mart, but not a direct employee of the store. This store is in a community that is approximately 25% African-American.

Shall I tell you about the lousy pay, the 10-cent-an-hour raises if you were lucky enough to get a "good" rating on your review? Regular associates started out at $6 an hour -- in 1998. A department manager could make as much as $7.25.

Shall I tell you about the co-worker who worked 40 hours every single week, but every other paycheck she took home was for less than $50? Her Wal-Mart family-plan group insurance ate up the rest of her bi-weekly check. And she had been with the company for almost 10 years. Think of all the 10-cent-an-hour pay raises she had received!

Shall I tell you about the cashier who came to work with huge bruises on her arms and face, who broke down in sobs when another cashier confronted her with the obviousness of her abuse? Shall I tell you how, when someone offered her the phone number of a shelter, the manager refused to give her time off to call this shelter, because Wal-Mart has its OWN counseling service? Shall I tell you that after she found out she would have to PAY for this wonderful Wal-Mart counseling service she was never seen again?

Shall I tell you about the constant surveillance, the requests to spy on our fellow associates, the praise for catching a fellow associate stealing and the criticism for catching a genuine shoplifter?

Shall I tell you what it's like to work with rude, tired, over-worked, underpaid, desperate people who are literally afraid that if they leave they will never get work anywhere else, because they're already there because the place they worked before has closed due to Wal-Mart's presence?

Shall I tell you what it's like to be a cashier for eight straight hours except for one fifteen-minute break and then be told at the end of the night that you're responsible for a $20 shortage? And when you keep track of who covers you on breaks and you find out that every single time you've been short, the same person has covered you, and then she gets led away in handcuffs, having been caught putting cash into her pocket, but the store manager never makes up to you the money you've paid for your shortages? I was lucky -- I only had that happen to me twice, and both times the same person covered me, a person who was later arrested for stealing. I hadn't had to pay for the shortages ONLY because the management knew I was their single most accurate cashier. Others, however, did have to pay. And for some of those cashiers, that $20 was a small fortune.

Shall I tell you what it's like to have the HR person ask you over and over and over if you know anyone else who would like to work at Wal-Mart, because the store is under-staffed and the holidays are coming up and everyone's going to be really stressed? Shall I tell you what it's like to approach the holiday shopping season with this kind of dread, knowing it's going to be hell and there's not going to be any help?

And shall I tell you what it's like to find out that your end-of-the-year bonus is $150 because the store exceeded its profit projections, but the store manager got $52,000? Shall I tell you what it's like to have the Wal-Mart stock price posted daily in the break room, to be encouraged to participate in the stock purchase program, and to know that even have the minimum deduction is more than you can even begin to afford? And then, on top of it all, to be criticized in front of your fellow "associates" as one of those who hasn't yet completely joined the team by buying the stock?

I walked into that store when it was nothing but a gigantic box -- ceiling, floor, and walls. The opening crew set up every shelf, every display. We assembled check-out stands and the snack-bar grill. I had steel shelves dropped on my head and was told not to report it. I saw other employees suffer severe cuts, and they too were told not to report. I saw blatant disregard for the safety of customers and employees alike. I saw rampant sexism and racism. I saw aisle after aisle after aisle after aisle of cheap plastic crap foisted on customers who in large part were too poor to shop anywhere else. They were suckered in by the "low prices" mantra, and didn't know (caveat emptor) they were buying garbage.

As an example, I spent a week or so helping out in the furniture department, where the dept. manager and I had to assemble several pieces of furniture -- a couple of entertainment centers, some bookcase units, etc. We opened every single box in an effort to find one that wasn't damaged or missing parts, and ended up having to cannibalize just to make the displays.

When I worked there, associates had a discount card that they could use at other Wal-Marts, but I don't think it was valid at Sam's. I'm not positive, but I think so. Anyway, I was in the market for a new printer for my computer and thought I would take advantage of Sam's advertised low-price guarantee, that if you found the exact same model for a lower price, Sam's would match it and give you an additional 10% off. of course, I knew Wal-Mart very carefully comparison shops -- it's part of the department managers' weekly routine -- and so it was highly unlikely I would find a better deal. But I did find a printer virtually identical at Office Depot and thought aha! I'm going to get the 10% discount.

But in fact the two models, though identical in every way, had different model numbers. I looked at everything I could think of, and finally called the manufacturer to see if there was any difference at all. In fact, the two printers were different and therefore not eligible for the discount -- Sam's ordered theirs special from Hewlett Packard so that no one else could have the same model. Sam's had a paper capacity of five more sheets than the standard model available everywhere else.

Wal-Mart sucks. Sam's Club sucks. Barbara Ehrenreich was 100% accurate, but she didn't work there long enough to get the full experience.

Tansy Gold, who qualifies for the pay-discrimination class-action suit.

nt

. . . . those who make their living trading on the labor of people like those I worked with.

Most of the people I worked with worked hard, every day. They often didn't get breaks, hoping their "dedication" would lead to promotions and better reviews. It didn't.

Few of them could afford any luxuries; most lived with extended families, parents, siblings, grandparents. Two that I know of worked full time -- 40 hours a week -- and lived in their cars.

One of the questions you're asked as a prospective Wal-Mart associate is whether or not you feel it's fair for managers to have extra benefits and perks than ordinary workers. You'd better answer "yes" to this one, or they'll know you're not good Wal-Mart material. You're expected to toe the line, look up to management and never question RHIP.

I believe it was Edward Abbey who said "Capitalism is the ideology of the cancer cell." Wal-Mart is that cancer metastasized.

What personality tests dit they give you?

Ehrenreich describes it pretty well in "Nickel & Dimed."

The questions are, if I remember correctly from six years ago, along the lines of

"It's all right to use drugs on the job as long as they don't interfere with your job performance."

and then you'd mark strongly agree, agree somewhat, neither agree nor disagree, etc., etc. Sometimes the question presented a scenario, such as finding out a co-worker is stealing, and then you had several courses of action such as telling management, ignoring the situation because it's none of your business, or whatever, followed by the same choices of agreement or disagreement.

Mostly they dealt with drug and alcohol use; theft; and respect for the corporate hierarchy.

Drug use was not tolerated, as Ehrenreich relates. If you had a drug problem and you went to management and confessed, they might allow you to enroll in a company-managed program, at your own expense of course. But if you were caught, you were out. Period.

Managers could get away with certain things. The manager of the store where I worked was arrested for assaulting one of the security personnel. We didn't find out the full outcome of the incident except that he was found guilty and fined. There was no jail term, but there may have been community service. It was kept very hush-hush until the notice of the citation appeared in the local paper. Nothing was done to him; he was a fair-haired boy within the Wal-Mart establishment. The security guy was just a contractor, no one of importance; he was reassigned to another store.

But frankly, if someone does come to work intoxicate, he or she should be referred to get help. And then if it happens again they should be let go.

Well I had to take a personality test at the department store where I work now.

...I thank you for taking the time to write this. I had every reason to stop shopping there, but continued to do so because it's a quarter-mile away and I'm currently poor. But this post of yours has convinced me to stop. I'll spend a little extra at Wal-Mart's competitors.

Thank you for this crash-course. I'll never shop there again.

Someone in another DU thread on the topic of Wal-Mart said that when he walked into the store one day he reminded himself who was really paying for his low prices: the prices were low because the workers' wages were unconscionably low. He walked out and didn't go back.

Thank you, Brad, for NOT shopping at Wal-Mart any more!

Tansy Gold, who is also poor and presently unemployed and losing sleep over bills but still won't set foot in Wal-Mart or cross a striking grocery workers' picket line

Your post caused me to realize there are things I want and things I need, and I can do without some of the wants in order to purchase my needs somewhere other than Wal-Mart. I've worked at a lot of jobs where the employees were treated like shit. So for me to continue to support an organization that treats its employees that way would be doubly-wrong.

This is one of my pet projects. :-)

For at least some basic needs, don't forget Ben Cohen's SweatX.com.

For wants ------

The holiday shopping season is upon us, and there will be lots of temptation to buy this and buy that and buy twenty-two other things. We end up with last-minute panic and find ourselves in some mall or hideous mega-store like Wal-Mart.

There IS an alternative. Okay, there are TWO alternatives, since the first one is to buy everyone on your holiday list a copy of Dude, Where's My Country?, Bushwhacked, Big Lies, Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them, or any other delightful left-wing bestseller.

The second alternative:

On any given week-end between now and early December -- or even later in some places -- there will be arts & craft shows at churches, schools, in the mall, in the park, at the civic auditorium. In many cases you can buy one-of-a-kind items made by the person you're buying from. Not mass-produced plastic junk shipped in from Taiwan or Bangladesh and made by some person whose paid even less than a Wal-Mart associate.

Cut out all the corporate middlemen, go direct to the source.

Hand-knit sweaters. Hand-pieced quilts. Garden gongs made from acetylene tanks. (Don't laugh! I've seen these and they are like way too cool!) Pottery. Jewelry. Wood-carvings. The practical and the fantastical.

And don't forget to save a little something to donate to your favorite charity.

You'll be helping a lot of micro-economies and taking just a little tiny bit out of the already over-fed corporate maw.

Tansy Gold, who really has spent much more time than she should have on this

Look, I support not shopping at Wal-Mart. I don't go there ever.

But there are other people working for other retail outlets who desperately need their jobs. And not shopping puts them at risk.

I work in retail at a department store--not Wal-Mart, thank god. However, low sales ultiamtely lead to workforce reductions.

So please take that into consideration. There are a lot of peope--educated people, those with degrees--who need those $7/$8 hr jobs.

But there are other people working for other retail outlets who desperately need their jobs. And not shopping puts them at risk.

Should we shop for our "needs" at these department stores -- even when the department stores sell goods made primarily with sweatshop labor, and we can instead buy goods someplace else that are made by socially responsible companies?

Secondly, if we are no longer talking about "needs" but "wants", are you saying that we should just buy more junk that we don't need -- junk that contributes to the degradation of our planet -- in order to support those $7-$8 jobs?

See, this issue is not independent of the other issue of preserving the environment for future generations. These issues ALL overlap and intertwine at various times. And, to be quite honest, I think we'd ALL be better off if we could focus our efforts on shaping a more just, sustainable society that didn't focus so much on mindless material "wants", one that shared more equitably to ensure that everyone's "needs" were filled AND that took a vested interest in stewardship of our planet for future generations.

Just a thought.... :shrug:

And frankly I don't want to lose it. That $150 a week I get from it, working part time, is keeping me afloat.

I understand your preaching about sweatshop labor, but I need to pay my bills. I don't like it either, but believe me there are many other people like me--folks with advanced degrees--who are working in those position. Believe me, if we had our way, we wouldn't be working there.

You claim to be for working people. Doesn't that include those people working at department stores? Should they lose their jobs or be put in a position to be laid off?

I see the problem with sweatshop labor, but I need to work too. Maybe that's not the right answer, but that's how I see it.

I don't want you to get laid off, I don't want you to not be able to afford your bills. What I want is to do what I can to help foster a society where we can meet the basic needs of all people in a more cooperative manner, and we can stop ravaging the very planet from which we are sustained.

As for "supporting working people", I would fail to see how advocating that working people spending excessive funds to buy a bunch of junk they don't need (which is essentially what fuels the consumer goods economy today) is in any way remotely supporting them.

I realize that you're in some tough straits right now. All I'm suggesting is that you take a step back when discussing issues like this and look at the bigger picture. That's all.

But taking it out against those souls who are making $7/$8 and, in some cases, getting only commission is not the right way.

I'm not trying to take anything out on anybody here. I'm still having trouble seeing how you are perceiving it as such. Is it simply because I have made a conscious decision in my life to live much simpler and to try to seek out more substansive pleasures based on human interaction and relationships rather than worthless material "stuff"? Is it because I think it is important to encourage other people to do the same?

I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm genuinely curious.

in which DUers will again be urging people to "boycott all reatilers".

I am just thinking of the Christmas season in which DUers will again be urging people to "boycott all reatilers".

I'd love for you to tell me what color the sky is in this alternative universe of yours, because it's obviously a different color than the blue sky that the rest of us see. :eyes:

The overwhelming sentiment by those who oppose rampant consumerism (myself included) is for people to stop supporting a system in which they spend dollars they don't have on junk they don't need. It's also a case of that junk helping to destroy the very planet we live on as well.

Since we're talking about caring for others, riddle me this. Are YOU comfortable with people coming to buy stuff that they can't afford from your store, running up debt in the process, all so that you and your fellow retail clerks can hold on to your jobs? Is contributing to the financial ruin of others an acceptable price to pay for your continued employment?

But hey, I guess none of that stuff is directly about YOU, as Tansy Gold pointed out earlier, and therefore it doesn't matter. After all, it's all supposed to be about YOU, as you have repeatedly demonstrated throughout this thread, whether you realize it or not (probably the latter).

I used to defend you against charges from others that you were a future Republican in the making, but I've given up in that endeavor. More and more when I look at you -- how every single argument you make boils down to a question of how things will affect YOU -- I see you turning Republican as soon as you have a salary in the top quintile, and then you will only rant against those who "aren't working hard enough" to make it in this world.

Have a nice day.

Look, it's not my fault if people spend more than they can afford to. If they open the store charges it's their responsiblity not to spend more than their means. I do have concerns about it--it does pain me when people spend more than they can afford to.

So, IC, let me ask you this. Are you going to give me a job? Are you going to pay my bills for me?

I am not going to be a future Republican, though I find it richly ironic how you are singling out people barely making ends meet and judging them.

You, in your usual fashion, completely misrepresented the views of others -- "DUers are going to encourage people to not buy anything from retail stores" -- and then refuse to respond when you are called on your bullshit. It's a familiar pattern for you, one with which the vast majority of other regular posters are well-acquainted by now.

I can only make judgement calls based on what I see. And what I see from you is a constant willingness to twist words, to look at things only from the perspective of how they affect YOU, to engage in black/white thinking, to misrepresent the views of others.

IOW, once you climb out of one of the lower income brackets, a perfect candidate for a Republican. Especially if the way you view everything in the world continues to be about how it affects YOU.

This has nothing to do with your personal situation. For that, believe me, I am still quite sympathetic. What it DOES have to do with is your continued intellectual dishonesty, your repeated displays of two-dimensional thinking to discredit others, your oft-witnessed instances of thinking of issues in a wholly selfish manner.

As soon as you show me something different, then perhaps I'll come back to believing that you aren't a future Republican in the making. But until that day comes, you give me no logical reason to change my viewpoint.

The people who are working in retail at Mervyns, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or wherever are also putting cash money into the hands of the stockholders. The vast majority of stockownership is in the hands of the very wealthy who do not "work" and who pay a paltry share of taxes and -- AND -- who are set to see their estates pass intact to their heirs if the bushnazi tax plan is enacted in toto.

If there were equitable distribution of the profits of these companies, and I can only assume the department store Carlos works for is one of them, so that the workers received a fair share, then we might not be having this conversation.

But the outrageous profits of the Wal-Marts of the world go to people who do not even come close to needing their multi-billion dollar incomes. Did the children and grandchildren of Sam Walton come up with his ideas for expanding his retail empire? Do they do ANYTHING other than cheat everyone who works for them? If not, then what entitles them to their entitlements? Tradition???? Capitalism? Greed?

I have an advanced degree, too, Carlos, and I'm unemployed. I learned a long time ago how to be happy and comfortable without a lot of excess cheap plastic crap in my life. Capitalism is essentially a ponzi scheme (and this isn't the first time you've heard that comparison): it constantly needs a new influx of investors, of consumers, and of cheap workers. Eventually it will run out, at least on this planet, unless something is done to stop it.

Ayn Rand, nutcase that she was, did have an inkling of how the world really runs, and that all it takes is for someone to stop the merry-go-round. In her classic "Atlas Shrugged," which is the veritable bible of the neo-cons, her premise was that the people of the mind, the thinkers, the innovators, the owners of capital should go on strike until the world paid them the adulation they were due simply by the grace of their existence.

Rand was a "big picture" thinker. The problem was that she had to invent science fiction supports for her utopia, and she never understood that those supports completely nullified any possibility of her vision being turned into reality. And the power of her fanatic belief in the sanctity of economic capital as well as intellectual capital swayed her followers. I know this for a fact, because I was one, but like Robert Byrd's fling with the KKK, my fling with Objectivism didn't last long. Routine scrutiny cured me of that delusion.

What the more liberal, progressive, or left wing "big picture" requires is that we move our individual selves out of the picture for a while and see how various policies would affect it -- but not how we would react if we were personally affected. Yes, it's possible that certain changes in the economic paradigm might cost some of us our jobs. And that is a personal price. But once we are able to move out of the picture and remove our emotional reaction, we can often see not only how much better the picture would be, but also how many other opportunities we might personally find, either in the altered picture or outside it altogether.

A singular focus on "jobs" isn't enough. I think what has allowed the RW to achieve its success is that it has a lot of people who cannot see the big picture, but instead they focus so narrowly, so clearly, so intently on the small picture that collectively they succeed. Those of us on the left of that VRWC aren't quite able to divorce ourselves from the big picture and as a result sometimes our efforts get blurred and fragmented and scattered. RWers can focus only on the issues that affect them. "I don't care about tax cuts for the rich so long as Candidate X is against abortion! No more baby killing!" or "Candidate Y supports gun rights, and that's all that matters to me!" We on the left, even the moderate left, don't deal in single issues.

So when you express your defense of department stores in the context of your own personal needs, the big picture fades completely away. That kind of selfishness is more suited to the right than the left. Ayn Rand believed in the virtue of selfishness, and in the right of any individual to defend his/her personal desires as rights, and the rest of the world could go hang. In "Atlas Shrugged," it did.

If you're on the "right" side in this Randian economic armageddon, you'll come out on top. The moochers and second-raters will all be blown away, and even the honest, hard-working, but non-elites like Eddie Willers will be left to cry in the wilderness as the socialistic world crumbles around them. Then the Dagny Taggarts and Hank Reardens, the Dick Cheneys and Dick Grassos, will emerge and take over the world, with no thought for "the little people," the environment, or social justice.

I think what was amazing about the 60s was how the struggles of the have-nots were taken up by the haves, the white college kids who really didn't have to fight for civil rights or peace or environmental protection. They did it just because they knew the world would be a better place for everyone. That's what happens when you look at the big picture.

Sorry for the rant.

Tansy Gold

I beg to differ. I don't see what's "selfish" about wanting to hold onto my job. I understand the focus on the "big picture", but I am not sure that putting people out of work is the right answer either.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart either. Hoever, trying to extend that to all retailers is unfair.

Selfish, as in concerned with self. Can you deny that you're worried about your own self, your own job, your own ability to pay your bills?

As I said, Rand made selfishness in and of itself (pun intended) a virtue, and made any kind of concern about anyone else a vice.

But we've had this discussion before, Carlos, you and I, and I'm not going to argue with you again. Someday, maybe, someone else will get through to you, but I know I won't, and I'm not going to waste any more time or energy trying.

Edited to fix typo in header

Because that's what you're advocating. I won't shop at Wal-Mart. I fully agree with you about that chain, but you can't then project that out against the whole retail industry.

Are you going to pay my bills and other debts? Will you be paying my rent if I stopped working at the department store where I am now?

So what are the rest of us sales associates in retail outlets besides Wal-Mart to do if you want us not to work there?

But once again, the focus is all on you, you, you, your needs, your wants, what you should do.

Because what you are saying is that all of us need to keep shopping, even if it's bad for the planet, even if we're buying cheap crap that we don't need and can't afford, even if it's made in sweat shops that employ little girls and little boys, and even if most of the profits go to slimebuckets like the Walton heirs. We should still keep shopping, keep buying, because Carlos and his retail sales clerk colleagues are existentially entitled to their retail sales clerk jobs and have no responsibility to see the world otherwise, while we have the same existential responsibility to see it your way and only your way.

There are other ways of making a living, Carlos, than by being a retail sales clerk. Maybe not right now for you, but for the world. In fact, there are other ways of making a living than by having a job.

When you've grown up a bit, Carlos, when you've had a little more experience of the world and can see things through eyes other than your own, then we can have this conversation again, maybe.

Tansy Gold, who knew this thread would end up going in this direction and contributed anyway because there were other people on it besides Carlos

But you write:

In fact, there are other ways of making a living than by having a job.

Okay what are these "other ways of making a living"?

Is it my fault that clothing is made in sweat shops? I am sure that some of your wardrobe is from sweat shop labor. I don't support sweat shop labor at all.

However, many people in these jobs need them to make ends meet. And frankly attacking them is not fair.

. . . . absolutely right, and I won't give you that answer.

I'm not "attacking" anyone, not even you. All I'm saying is that neither you nor any other retail sales associate in any department store has any moral claim on my or anyone else's consumer dollars. As someone posted in another thread several days ago, muggers need to make a living too, but that doesn't mean I have to walk through Central Park alone at midnight.


As far as not having a "job" to live: Self-employed people are not wage slaves. They make their own work. Whether they are business consultants, lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians, hit men, farmers, street-corner preachers, fashion models, private detectives, or hookers. Sometimes it's damn hard work, it has few fringe benefits, it has a lot of stressful uncertainty, but believe it or not there are a lot of people who prefer it to being wage slaves. And a lot of them make a damn good living.

Some of them don't do so well, but there is no guarantee that a wage-earner employee will always do well, either. There are such things as lay-offs and bankruptcies and the boss's daughter needs a job more than you do. There's the boss you simply can't work for, and the co-worker who can't stand you and stabs you in the back (metaphorically, of course, although sometimes literally). There are promotions you get passed over for, and the promotions you were't qualified for. There's the "you're being transferred to Schlockton" and your spouse says no way unless you want to sign divorce papers.

But i'm sure you will have a dozen excuses why you can't do any of the altrernatives to wage earning and the only option for you is to be a retail sales clerk and therefore the rest of us have to shop corporate-owned department stores so you'll have a job. And that's what I meant by the selfishness of your response.

There are alternatives to sweatshop-produced clothes. I make most of my own clothes, as a matter of fact, and I refuse to buy anything with an external logo. No GAP, no Old Navy, no Tommy Girl, none of that shit. NONE. My family knows not to buy any of it for me because I won't wear it. I do not wear sports logos either, not since Jerry Colangelo of the Diamondbacks started his obscene anti-choice campaign.

If I wear any sweatshop produced clothing it must be my Fruit of the Loom undies. I go barefoot -- and braless -- more often than not; I buy on average one pair of shoes a year and they usually last me six to ten years. I believe pantyhose are one of the most evil inventions since steel leg traps. (mild sarcasm, but I still won't wear the things.)

I do not own a heavy coat. I have no need for one living in Arizona. When the weather is chilly, I have my choice of several hand-crocheted shawls and sweaters.

I have been married 34+ years. We are still using the stainless tableware we were given as a wedding gift; we bought new dishes for the first time about 15 years ago, but the old ones -- another wedding gift -- are in our 1977 model motorhome for use on our (rare) vacations.

The blankets on our beds are either handmade quilts or handmade afghans. In the past 34 years I have actually purchased only two blankets, once when we were on vacation in the motorhome and the weather turned much colder than we expected and we'd have frozen otherwise, and the other time when we had unexpected out-of-town visitors and didn't have enough quilts and afghans to go around.

Much of my furniture is handmade: eight bookcases, two dressers, a credenza, three end tables, night table, dining room table, coffee table, and three lamps. Two chairs, another dresser, a desk, and a cedar chest are family hand-me-downs. No, make that three chairs; I forgot my great-grandmother's chair that's in the other room. Two other chairs and another desk were purchased second-hand. Only the beds, sofa, and one chair were purchased new; all were U.S. manufactured.

My husband and I do not live lavishly, far from it. Buying things for the sake of buying them -- or for the sake of someone else's job -- has just never been part of our lifestyle.

I'm not saying we don't buy anything. We do. Obviously, a computer, and this isn't the first one. A television. A radio/CD player. Oh, wait, those last two were gifts. As was the DVD player. But we did buy a radio once -- back in 1969. It still works, and we still use it when the power goes out.

We have a cell phone and we have DirecTV satellite service. We have a microwave and a washer -- but no dryer. Too much free sunshine in Arizona. I don't use the dishwasher; the two of us don't dirty enough dishes.

We shop at a chain grocery store because there isn't a decent mom-and-pop within 40 miles. We buy brand-name toothpaste and dog food and bird seed and toilet paper and taco shells and frozen shrimp, ice cream and English muffins and canned soup and pasta and cheese. We eat very little meat. We eat out occasionally, usually local restaurants rather than chains, but now and then we catch a fast-food bite.

In general, however, we try to avoid shopping in the corporate retail sector whenever possible because we prefer to spend our consumer dollars where they will directly benefit working people more than stockholders.

I have nothing personally against the people who work in department stores or even in Wal-Mart. Most of them are perfectly decent people, honest and hardworking and usually grossly underpaid. But I would in all honesty much rather see the whole corporatist -- which is NOT the same as capitalist -- economy collapse and something new and better rise from the ruins than to continue to support a system that serves only the stockholders. It does not serve the workers or the planet, and it is my choice not to be a corporate enabler.

Am I perfect? No, not by a long shot. Short of moving into a cave in the mountains and living as a gatherer-hunter, I'm contributing to the trashing of the planet. But I make an effort not to contribute heedlessly, and if there are ways I can mitigate the effects of my presence, I will do so. I will not consume simply for the sake of consuming.

But consumption for its own sake is the ideology of Wal-Mart, which is where this thread began. I reject it entirely, and will whenever possible encourage others to do likewise.

Peace,

Tansy Gold

I don't expect to be a retail sales clerk my entire life. This is only a temprorary stage for me.

However, to open a small business, it requires a lot of upfront money and financing--a barrier a lot of people can't meet.

However, to open a small business, it requires a lot of upfront money and financing--a barrier a lot of people can't meet.

Perhaps then you could tell my how the overwhelming majority of new small businesses in my town are actually owned by Latin American immigrants. If you really want to do your own small business, it takes things outside of an initial investment -- there are loans out there to take care of that. What it takes is a willingness to take risk, to work INCREDIBLY long hours, and a base of human capital to work with (i.e. an extended family who all work in the business with you).

Personally, I'm not a small business owner because: 1) I don't want to work the incredibly long hours that it entails, 2) I don't have the "risk tolerance" necessary to put everything on the line, 3) I can't think of a business that I would really like to get into, 4) I don't have the extended family to provide the immediate labor required.

You write that "there are loans out there to take care of that".

Yeah, but people have to qualify for them first. And most small businesses fail within the first few years after they open. What banks are going to give out loans to people with risky businessp proposals/

For example, a local delicatessen in my town was purchased by an immigrant family. You can't tell me that these people had a lot of capital to put up for it.

Nobody said it was easy or without risk, Carlos. If that were the case, then everybody would be doing it. You simply said that you have to have a lot of capital to start up or buy a business. I was simply refuting that assertion based on personal observation of people who obviously DON'T have a great deal of capital starting up businesses in my community.

. .. .one fucking hell of a lot of fucking hard work.

I can't put it any plainer than that.

It means doing without a lot of luxuries, sometimes for a long time. It means stretching every red cent to the max. It means working twelve, fifteen, twenty hours a day, day after day after day.

Talk to the people who really DID the work to build up a fortune out of nothing, and they will tell you the same thing. They worked for it. THAT is the American way, not the inherited tax-free from my daddy right wing way.

"Family values" isn't about not getting your abortions in clinics where anyone can find out about it. "Family values" is about getting the whole extended family to work in the business, to crowd into one tiny apartment to cut down on expenses and plow all the proceeds back into the business.

It's about starting with a tiny little restaurant that makes the best damn chimichangas and serves the coldest beer in the whole west valley, and having your daughters wait tables and your sons wash dishes because you know it's going to be a success and they can go to college and not have to wait tables. It's about getting to the point where you can pay someone else a LIVING wage to do the work, and make sure they're good at it so they make a COMFORTABLE wage from their tips and can send their kids to college, too.

It's about not whining.

What's happened, though, is that the repukes have made exactly the kind of entrepreurial endeavor that they hold up as the American example virtually impossible. There's no money to be had, because it all belongs to the untaxed repukes. There are no vacant buildings to buy, but you can rent them at exhorbitant rates from the repukes, who will up the rent as soon as they see you're successful. That's just what Wal-Mart does, too, only they do it by pushing out their competition and then raising their prices.

These are the basics of political economy, Carlos, and the basics of democratic/progressive ideology. I don't think you understand them, and I think sometimes there's a very stubborn and concerted effort on your part NOT to understand them.

I also think you kind of want to be a democrat (small d) but it's a painful decision and it creates an enormous cognitive dissonance that immediately puts you on the defensive. And what you're defending is even right of the DLC.

Maybe when you're older, and have had a little more experience, maybe when you've had someone else dependent on you, like a spouse or a partner or a child, maybe then you'll learn not to think solely in terms of your wants, which are different from needs and maybe that's a difference you'll learn someday, too.

Am I being condescending? I plead guilty. I find your responses every bit as argumentative as you claim they aren't, and I find your statements frequently ill-informed, not just on this thread but on many others in the past.

Tansy Gold

Tansy Gold, who knew this thread would end up going in this direction and contributed anyway because there were other people on it besides Carlos

Interesting thing about Carlos's arguments, how they all come down to basically being about how things will affect HIM, everyone else be damned. You know, I used to defend him against charges from others that he was a future Republican in the making. I'm tired of defending him in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I instead have come to believe those detractors of his who predict that as soon as he gets a job in which he is making a decent salary, he will turn Republican and rant about those who are "wasting his tax dollars on their laziness" and denigrating anyone who hasn't "made it" as "not working hard enough". :shrug:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/print.asp?id=915

I have never figured out how to paste pictures into DU posts, but here's the link.


A friend sent this to me a few minutes ago. I'd have let this thread fade away, but couldn't pass this up.

I never heard of Horsey before I read the book Affluenza, but he sure sold me with his cartoons in that one. He's one of the more clever "beneath the surface" cartoonists out there.

And I am sympathetic to your situation.
The question I run into though, is what
does backing the winner in a race to the bottom
in labor standards really do to help laborers?

It would be far better for walmart to be shredded, because
part of the economy of scale that helps them
is that they use less labor to sell more goods.
The have the purchasing power to buy these goods
at sweat shop prices. So for Wally world to hit the skids
is a win win situation, as more smaller stores mean more retail staff
and less amoral peonage forced on developing nations (which is
a term my old poli sci prof used with a brutally sarcstic tone).
That is because they were already Political entities before they were 'colonized' and should actually be called 'recovering nations'.

Right wing power cults in most parts of the world seem to generate patronage/peonage systems. (Think Peronists, for example) It just seems to work best for laissez faire corporatism. The problem with doing that to a developed economy is that the system is predicated on demand, which the corporatists themselves throttle. Their only resource then is to captivate a market (such as your Walmart 'councilors' or in bygone days, the company store). The difficulty?
It is best expressed in a scriptural injunction not to muzzle the ox that treadeth the corn, I believe. And if a Wiccan like myself sees it, why can't such are regular conversation partner with Jesus like Dubya?

What did our fearless leader tell us to do after 911? Oh yes, fly and spend... that's the patriotic thing to do... if you are a corporatist.

The realization of this trend in American society is the major difference between mainstream Greens and mainstream Democrats. And as a Democrat, I say this with a great deal of sadness. Because it appears to me that BP and Unocal may start WW3.5, Monstanto may sterilize the Earth, and WalMart may enslave millions, and all for the same reason.
If I remember correctly, Christians like Bush call it Mammon.

I was talking about other retailers.

you've got more character than all of Wal-Mart management put together. I am wishin you luck with your job search.

DU needs a "blushing" icon!

(yay!!!) and I hope you will find a job you want soon.

I'm fortunate that my husband makes (almost) enough for us to get by and I fill in the gaps with freelancing. Yes, he has a wage-slave :-) job for a small local company in a semi-manufacturing industry, so it's not sweatshop and it isn't in the grant corporate scheme of things. And we have different personalities, so he's reasonably content in a routine that would drive me nuckin' futz, and I tend the homefires mostly.

But I'm not against people holding jobs working for other people or working for corporations. I'm just ideologically opposed to workers defending their masters as though the masters had all the rights, and the workers' only right was the right to need a job.

I also understand that people, even at minimum consumption levels, need some kind of income -- to pay the rent, the electricty, the water, etc. I just get upset when people who ought to (in my humble opinion) know better take the side of the oppressors.

But then, I'm weird.

And I'm also, sometimes,

Tansy Gold

I've never liked Wal-Mart stores. But after reading this thread, I'm done with ever considering shopping there. And I'll send an email to corporate, too. It may not change things but I'll feel better.

... to everyone they know who might read it.

Anyone who can read this and still shop there, knowing how badly they treat their employees, is completely beyond the pale, IMHO.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us, Tansy Gold. :-)

money-grubbing ways. Experiences like that aren't ever forgotten.
:shudder:

. .. .ain't it the pure fuckin' truth.

She said that things underwent a drastic change when Sam died and his greedy spawn took over. Prior to that it wasn't a bad place to work, and better than most retail.

She said that when the spawn took over, they brought in obsessive labor cost-cutting, to the point that customer service suffered because there were never enough people on the floor. Her manager began going to great lengths to work her as much as possible while keeping her just a teeny bit under 40 hours. For example, in order to keep her at 39.75, they would make her work split shifts toward the end of the week, where she was expected to drive all the way across Jacksonville, FL, a very big place, in order to work two hours in the morning, and then come back again to work another two hours in the evening.

Right about this time she quit.

nt

When I worked for them a long-time employee told me exactly the same thing. I worked for them for over a year and was paid a pittance for the hard work I did. During one of these annual meetings with the store manager, I brought up the fact that, with the re-assignment of the only female assistant manager, the women who worked there no longer had a female manager to go to if we had a problem and didn't wish to discuss it with a male manager. He completely shut me down on this topic and told me this was not a problem. This was the Deep South and I guess the fact that I thought it was a problem was not a factor for him.

She comes home from college and tells them shes back and they give her hours. She making around 10.50 an hour but she does this only to get some funds for college. Walmart, like anywhere, hires whoever they believe will tow the line. She knows it's a temp job for her and since we don't own a business for her to fall back on then she does what she has to do. While I perfer she work somewhere that treats her better, they are the ones who hired her and keep a slot open when she comes home.

However, it appears likely that she will be working for Honeywell shortly in the IT dept.

I thought Wal-Mart paid less.

Got the job during my pre-DU days in high-school. That's the only way you can have a job like that and survive, because you CANNOT support yourself or your family on those types of wages.

It used to be halfway decent with our old manager (he lets us get get extra hours during Christmas, how fuggin' generous :eyes: ) but under the new management we don't even get that anymore. So the danger isn't overworking, it's not even having the option to work for a sustainable wage.

If they train their workers, I haven't seen it. I'm frequently forced to do musical chairs in different department that I don't know shit about (electronics, sporting goods, automotives, garden center).

I suppose it's worse elsewhere, and I cope by only working there on the weekends.

Why haven't I cut and run yet? Am I a masochist? Or perhaps the jobmarket is so fragile and so meanspirited towards workers that I just gave up and focused on my school.

Says they are downright evil...

I've listened to a few of there employees talik about the place and it is chilling...

---

Seach for the article on Wal-Mart that was in Business Week (a few weeks ago)

One of the most anti Wal-Mart articles that I've ever read.

Good people work at wallyworld, and upper management could not care less about their struggles at sub poverty pay.


http://pub182.ezboard.com/fcensorthis91899frm10

Did Wal-Mart change after Sam died?

If you read his biography you'll find an astounding lack of regard for the "associates," and a frequent tendency to look upon them as nothing more than means to an end. He has this delusion that this "open door" policy, where in theory any associate can talk to any manager about anything without fear of repercussions (HAHAHAH), precludes the need for unions.

There are no mentions of the words wages or salaries or pay in the index to his book Made in America.

Sam Walton is the Vladimir Lenin of Walmart.

I won't even shop there.

Used to do contract work for the corp. constrution department. I would see the opening managers brain wash the willing minions. All the fools that thought they would get rich the wallmart way. I was disquesting.

At one point they had all these new hire (people so broke they take a job at walmart) puting dollars into a sack for one of the managers. They were all chanting and clapping, playing some disco hits of yester year. To the point it was creepy.

What I saw was not only did you have to work for substanderd wages with no health care. You had to think the walmart way too.

nt

I worked there over a year, and my dad worked in two other stores for a total of seven years. Both of us took pride in the fact that we never once did the cheer.

I think it's meant to be dehumanizing and humiliating.

you should not have got me started on this subject.

But mostly I hid in the back because I thought the whole thing was so goddamned humiliating. Also, when the store wasn't open yet (I was also one of those who put a new store together) we kept hearing how they were going to give us some Wal-Mart "culture" Sounded a lot like brainwashing to me.

for many of the reasons listed. I've witnessed the brainwashing sessions and it just didn't seem right for me. If push comes to shove and I must work in survival mode, I hope the carwash and the panhandler positions aren't all taken.

has its time of tremendous growth, then a peak followed by a leveling off. Then comes the decline. Will anything bring Wally World to its knees?

nt

to put a dent in their profitability. A good job market would make working at WW much less attractive. Unionization of their workforce would give employees a bigger slice of the pie.

Granted, they were only working for a contractor for Wal-Mart, but when something like this hits the news, it comes across as a warning. And/or other steps are likely to follow.

Notwithstanding the fact that members of the current *maladministra-tion wouldn't mind having all employees treated like Wal-Mart's, there's a countervailing pressure too. The guys in at the top get worried when _any_ other corporate or organizational entity gets too powerful. That's one reason behind the Microsoft antitrust suit in the 90's.

The best strategy might be for a lot of Wal-Mart's suppliers to contact their Congresspeople about Wal-Mart's extortive practices.
There are 16,000 suppliers and surely some of them have lobbyists of their own--not to mention campaign contributions that they can make
wisely -- or otherwise.

If people just flat-out refused to work for them.

That would be my utopia....where no one had to work at Wal-Mart.

Even at their low prices, they have to rely on volume sales, and there's a point at which people have all the cheap plastic shit they can afford. As more and more people are laid off and those who are working are getting paid less and less, consumption will fall.

Wal-Mart will be one of the last to go. They have the reserves of capital and can afford to close a lot of stores and lay off a lot of workers. People who are sliding down the economic scale will eventually find their way from upscale department stores to Mervyn's to Target to Wal-Mart, thus sustaining the beast to the end.

But even like Abbey's cancer, it will eventually -- eventually -- eat its own.

Other retail giants have come and gone -- Woolworth/Woolco, Montgomery Ward (I worked for them, too, a billion years ago), Kresge/K-Mart is having trouble, J.C. Penney has closed some stores. I doubt that another behemoth will come along to dethrone Wal-Mart. I think it more likely that the entire economy will collapse and small local businesses will pick up the pieces. But that is in some distant rosy future that most of us probably won't see.

is spot on. I would love 2 C the end of wal-mart. At some point the chronic expansion collapses. But as U state it is some rosy future most of us will miss.

From personal experience....

They opened up a store, closed it down and relocated the SuperCenter 30 miles away...after 15 years of driving everyone else in the area into bankrupcy.

I'm not "their" biggest fan....

In late 1994/early 1995. I said it then, and I still say it now... it was the worst job I've ever had - hands down. And I'm no stranger to working low paying, somewhat degrading retail jobs... I've also worked at KMart, Belk Simpson (high-end department store in the south), Mervyn's, Perry Drugs (now defunct drug store chain in SE Michigan), even a brief stint in fast food. Those were all jobs I worked right after I graduated from high school, between 1991-1995.

Wal-Mart was sickening. No, I never participated in that inane cheer and actually thought I had stepped into a parallel universe the first time I witnessed one. Wal-Mart has the worst employee training program I've ever seen. They spend more time finding out how "honest" you are with a battery of what I like to call 'idiot filter tests' than on actual training. They have a unique way of either making you feel like a moron by constantly pointing out the obvious or making you feel like, you guessed it, a moron because you're not catching on fast enough. For example - 3 days of training. 2 days were mostly a variety of tests and pep-talks on the Wal-Mart Way 'o Life. 3rd day was a variety of things, with a small window in the middle to inform you how to actually like, do your job. I felt so sorry for the fellow trainees who were absolutely flabbergasted when they threw them out on the main registers without a clue of how to run them.

I was paid the current minimum wage when I worked there (I can't recall what it was at the time). Despite that I had at the time a few years of retail experience under my belt (which is sort of impressive when you're talking about a job that has such a high turnover), and had worked at assistant management positions (Mervyn's) and head secretarial positions (Belk's). But minimum wage was as good as it got... because all other competition in the area paid minimum wage because, of course, Wal-Mart did.

I'm fortunate that I'm not forced to take such menial and degrading jobs for minimal pay today. And while I admit there's no prestige in any of the jobs I had between 18-22, I feel I can be somewhat objective on Wal-Mart because I did have jobs that I enjoyed during that time. Both Belk and Mervyn's were a joy to work for and Mervyn's in particular paid a very fair wage with raises. Even KMart beats Wal-Mart hands-down in the training department in particular. I've never, I mean never, spoke to a current or former Wal-Mart employee that liked their job whatsoever. Most agree it is/was the worst job they've ever had. I wish I could boycott that company altogether, but in the small KY town I live in now they've run all competitors out of business and the only discount department store option other than Wal-Mart around here is over 2 HOURS AWAY. I loathe Wal-Mart.

I work for one here in Florida. I like it so far.

But around twenty years I needed the extra cash and worked for an auditing company that WalMart outsourced their inventory checking to. We would travel all over the South and Midwest counting crap in identical big box stores(at the time, WalMart had only five generic store plans, I still think that's all they have). All of us on the auditing crew were absolutely horrified at how the workers at WalMart were treated. That inane cheer(we usually got to the stores early enough to hear this) put all of us in the mind of cults. One time one of my fellow auditors slipped and fell, and was driven to the local hospital, then the hotel we were staying at. The WalMart workers weren't sure which to be more astounded by, the fact that our worker reported an injury or that our manager actually did something about it. We were constantly having to withstand managements pleas to undercount certain products or overcount others. Generally at the end of the day we would have to stand around for an hour while WalMart managers haggled with our manager about a certain sections count. It wasn't unusual to have to recount a section three or four times before the Wally world manager would finally accept the same damn number we gave him the first time. Obsessive people they are. Apparently it was a well known practice to (depending on how the manager needed his count to come out) either hide big ticket items or to put up empty retaped boxes for counting. When we caught on to the empty box trick, they started filling the boxes with gravel or whatnot to add weight, trouble was, then they rattled. One of the more bizarre places to work in, I felt sorry for all of the employees.

Eventually WalMart canceled our contract. Officially they said that WalMart had found a better priced competitor(HAH!), when in all reality the owner of our company refused to take a bribe to throw the audits whichever way WalMart wanted.
I've never shopped their since experiencing that.

Unfortunately I now live in a town where the Walton spawn(the Lorries and the Kronkes) have decided to come and roost.
They have, in the short time they've been here, managed to wrap both city and state governmnet around their finger. Example: A major east-west road that runs in front of the Lorries property was due to be expanded to five lanes. It would have shaved a total of a fifty foot slice off the front of their property. If it was you or me, the city would have seized it under eminent domain. For the Lorries however they built a brand new five lane east-west corridor about three blocks over, running it straight through a nature preserve. The old road they blocked off and dead-ended it, thus making it effectively a state subsidized driveway for the Lorries. Just one of many examples. This is my hometown, and those filth have desecrated it so much, that I'm quite happy that I've gotten land out in the country, far away from their grasping hands. If any of you folks are going to be coming through Columbia Mo on I-70, well in a few years, watch out for the west side. That other Walton spawn, Stan Kronke(whose son Josh made the Mizzou basketball team, wink wink nudge, nudge) has gotten the go ahead to put a "special" overpass and exit in that leads straight to his new mall. This exit is within a mile(actually a half mile) of another major exit, something expressly forbidden by state DOT regs. Well he got a special exception to the rule, so now I-70 on the western edge is going to be even more of a nightmare.

There's much more that I could rant on about these assholes, but I've got other things to do.

and he owns the Pepsi Center, the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanches. I want him to sell it to someone else decent. In fact, I want his grubby Wal-Mart hands off my teams and my city.

I saw him last night at Patrick Roy's retirment ceremony - he had on the UGLIEST piece of shit suit EVER. Where did he find it? In some sewer drainage underneath Wal-Mart?

Hawkeye-X

for folks on small limited incomes, people on food stamps, unemployment, etc, those low prices help them. And WM's prices are very low.

for contributing to the climate in which so many people need food stamps or other government assistance.

Are you really proposing that Wal-Mart is a part of the SOLUTION to those who are in poverty? I hope not, because if you are, I (and countless others here) would counter that their predatory business tactics that bankrupt every locally-owned business in a town, coupled with their extreme anti-worker workplace policies, CONTRIBUTE far more to the problem of poverty than they could ever help to solve!

Also the fact that in many of these small towns WMT is the only place for miles around.

Still, though, I don't shop there.

WalMart is directly contributing to people being on food stamps, unemployment, etc. For every job that WalMart creates, 1.5 jobs are lost in the surrounding community. Also, while WalMart prices may be low initially(the better to drive off the competition), after the store has attained monopoly or near monoploy status in the community, up go the prices. If you live in even a small city like I do(population 100,000) you can find lower prices than WalMart for most items if you just shop around.

...I loathe Wal Mart for all the reasons described above and more and was having an argument with a person who should have known better about the evils of shopping there. She kept coming back to the 'but the prices are so low' argument. I clipped an op-ed piece today and have printed Tansy's post for more backup. Thanks for providing it.

This is not happen to my knowledge at the store I worked at, but I have heard "urban legends" and it's been posted in another thread here on DU, in some connection with the California grocery workers' strike.

In some Wal-Mart stores the pay scale is so low that many workers qualify for food stamps and other public assistance, to the point that store management offers seminars on how to apply. In other words, we taxpayers are subsidizing Wal-Mart's low wage policy.

I'll repeat the story I wrote in another thread --

One of the guys my husband works with has been a staunch Wal-Mart customer for years. Although we have persistently but gently urged him and his wife to shop elsewhere, they have just as persistently presented the low price mantra as their justification. The California grocery workers' strike and the laying of at least part of the cause at the doorstep of Wal-Mart has started to open this guy's eyes a little bit.

One night some weeks ago (he and my husband work a night shift) he was showing my husband some pictures taken during a visit of his young granddaughter. One of the pictures was of the little girl, age seven or eight or so, in a lovely dress. "We got it at Wal-Mart," the proud grandfather beamed. "Couldn't have got it at one of them fancy department stores for that price."

"No," my husband responded, "but Wal-Mart is able to sell at those cheap prices because some other grandfather's adorable little granddaughter is paid ten cents an hour in some Bangladeshi or Philipine sweat shop to make those dresses for Wal-Mart."

the next night, the guy came up to my husband and said he had told his wife about that remark.

"I don't think we'll be doing too much shopping at Wal-Mart any more," he said.

that is a powerful statement, Tansy_Gold

Wal-Mart, Safeway, or Albertson's

Are Safeway or Albertson's any better?

At least the employees at my local A&P in NY are all UFCW. In my mind, that is a HUGE difference.

http://www.westvalleyview.com/WESTVALLEYVIEW/myarticles.asp?P=689940&S=365&PubID=11600

Goodyear is part of the mushrooming suburbia west of Phoenix, AZ. Avondale is another town immediately contiguous to Goodyear; Avondale already has a 24/7 Wal-Mart supercenter, with the new store being proposed for 3 miles west of this existing store.


<snip>
Twenty-five citizens then addressed the commission, limited to three-minute presentations. All but two spoke against Wal-Mart’s being allowed to place a supercenter at one of the premier gateway entrances to the city.

Most cited traffic congestion and air-quality concerns, crime statistics at other Wal-Marts, the depressing effect it would have on other retailers in the city and the proximity of Avondale’s Wal-Mart Supercenter less than three miles away at Interstate 10 and Dysart Road. Still others referred to Wal-Mart’s history of paying low wages and not providing most of its employees with medical insurance benefits, as well as for being sued for paying unequal rates to women compared to men.

<snip>

“Wal-Mart has the reputation of imploding a city like Goodyear,” Jim Douglas said. “I don’t want Goodyear to turn into a South Phoenix.”

<end snip>

Both Goodyear and Avondale have lost considerable retail base since Wal-Mart moved in. The "old town" commercial district of Avondale is kept barely alive with small speciality boutiques; there is not a single supermarket in the district.

Are they upscale suburbs?

Originally, they were workers' communities for employees of the defense plants and related industries during WW2. With the upscale community of Litchfield Park, they formed a kind of triangle, but there was both a geographic as well as economic divide.

LP was always upscale, consisting mainly of retired executives, comfortable retirees, and retired military. LP abuts massive Luke Air Force Base.

Separated from Goodyear and Avondale by a couple miles of cotton farms, LP had its quaint little shopping district and little more.

Goodyear and Avondale were farther down the socio-economic scale. There were some good-paying jobs at the defense plants, which continued into the 1980s and even early 90s. Some of those plants are now closed, others are converted. Some other industry has come in, but not much. Many of the people are African American and Latino; they work traditional jobs in light manufacturing, service, and retail. I would venture to guess most of them fall in the lower 40% of the income distribution.

There has been a boom in retail development and residential development in both Goodyear and Avondale since about 1995. Most of the residential development has been moderate income, located conveniently south of Interstate 10, the main route to Phoenix; the upscale development has been closer to the established Litchfield Park community, north of I-10. The proposed Wal-Mart location is in the heart of the moderate-income residential development; they wouldn't have a prayer of getting into Litchfield Park.

These communities sit approximately 20 miles due west of downtown Phoenix and have been bypassed for development for decades, as residential and commercial development grew into the east valley: Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe, Apache Junction. When development in that direction hit the brick wall of national forest, Indian reservations, or undevelopable mountains, the developers finally turned to the west valley.

What will happen to all these little boxes made of ticky tacky in five or ten years, I don't know. I do know that many of the HUGE apartment complexes that were built in the late 90s in the same area are now offering six months' free rent and other incentives, because homes are as affordable and plentiful as apartments. If and when the housing bubble bursts, there's no telling what will happen to this entire area.

Recent reports in the Arizona Republic indicate that the housing boom in Arizona is continuing unabated. There are no jobs, however, so I have no idea what these people are going to live on. I guess they can all just work at the department stores. Kohl's just opened up a few weeks ago.

Tansy Gold

Are these new arrivals Republicans?

I don't live in Avondale or Goodyear or Litchfield Park, though I am in the same legislative district.

These housing developments are literally being built as we speak, and I would estimate that 90% or more of the people in them haven't lived in them long enough to have voted in a national election yet, meaning since fall 2002. Voter registration is a major objective of the Democratic party in Arizona and especially in our LD because of the explosive population growth.

Most of them are probably "white flight" leaving places like Orange County and San Diego. That's what I would guess.

I use to love the Super K in Lincolnshire/Vernon Hills area. You could shop for everything at 4:00am and not be bothered by other people shopping.

They had decent prices and the people that worked their were nice.

Walmart came in and they were gone within 1 year after that.

to the Ehrenreich article about Walmart?

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=nickel+and+dimed&userid=2XRHRCE65E&cds2Pid=946

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Barbara Ehrenreich


From the Publisher
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. So began a grueling, hair-raising, and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America.
Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything -- from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal -- quite the same way again.

I personally have never worked for the company. My ex mother-in-law works for Sam's and my next door neighbor works for Walmart. The mother-out-law started at 6.00 an hour and works in the office and the customer service desk. She was really proud of that 6.00/hr, it's a good retail wage for this area. She counts money at night and is under a lot of pressure to get it right or face the consequences. I don't remember the maximum hours she can work (it's well under 40/wk) and the store manager makes damn sure that none of them EVER go over it. She's said she clocked herself and cashiers out at the request of the store manager when the store was packed and closed late at Christmastime.

The neighbor works as a cashier or anything else they need her to be on any particular day and she makes minimum wage. She says its the "worst fucking job" imaginable but there's nothing else here for her.

I have worked with Wal-Mart Headquarters and they demean the people at corporate as badly as they do in the stores.

One of my peers was at their site and told me that work starts at 8am but ...the parking lot is full at 7am because people are so afraid of being late or being labeled as lazy or not "a company guy".

They are big brother, they limit your access to computers, and tools that you need to do your job. The fact that they do get anything done is a miracle because they don't TRUST anyone!!!

When you don't trust people...you have all kinds of silly checks and balances to prevent people from cheating you...all because Wal-Mart knows they are screwing people over!

I am waiting for the day they implode...it will be great!

Power to the people!

nt