It is time to break up WalMart.

One store at a time.



With Axes!

don't sue me, but I shop there. I know someone who works there. She started off at $9.75 and is now up to $10.50

All I know is...$9.75 is a DAMN GOOD salary for entry-level work!

They could easily pay the minimum wage of $5.15, but instead they virtually double it. It is a great wage for low skilled workers. If you work there, you also have the option to buy health insurance for around $40.00 per week. No it isn't "free" coverage, but I have a feeling if it were mandatory "free" coverage, the average wage would drop down to $7.50 or $8 overnight to compensate.

Wal-Mart employs more than a MILLION people folks and offers very low prices for everyone who shops there. It's time to end the hate! ;)

*ducking*

I have read many reports of WalMart blatantly cheating workers on hours. They make you work overtime, but they only pay you for the time you were scheduled, for example. They have violated child labor laws. They hire illegal immigrants to clean their stores, and then LOCK them into the building in violation of fire codes. There have been a number of instances of sexual coercion by management.

These are just a few examples. You can research this if you like.

Google is your friend.

Of course, once the news of a single abusive store hits the net, all stores are tainted by it. I seriously doubt those practices are widespread.

Spend several hours today researching it.

Then post here what you find.

I think you will change your mind as I have observed you to be a honest and caring person.

Here are some links to assist your research of the matter.

http://www.walmartwatch.com/index.cfm

http://www.walmartvswomen.com/

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

http://www.1worldcommunication.org/Walmart.htm

http://walmart.purpleocean.org/

http://www.petlibrary.com/goldfish/walmart.htm

http://www.walmartswaronworkers.com/index.php

They have been red assed more times then the guy on the left here :spank: for worker rights violations, pay shortages, discrimination against women, you name it. Do some research on the real cost of walmart coming to town, then decide how much they appeal to you.

Eagle food workers were union around here. They had pensions and health care, and topped out around 14 bucks an hour. I guess th Walton kids being worth 75 billion apiece IS MORE IMPORTANT TO SOME.

It would certainly be nice if they were paid more, but you need to look at the average market wage for this type of work. I used to work at Kroger and they paid $7.50 for grocery baggers and cashiers. Paying $2-3 more makes Wal-Mart plenty attractive for people in those professions. Going higher just doesn't make any sense when people are willing to work for less. That is the reality of the market.

Just sayin....

that have had to close their doors because of this behemoth.

They are destroying our economy, one competitor at a time. If you can't see it, you're blind.

FSC

All Wal-Mart stores have a little three-cornered lazy susan bag holder at each staffed register. This device allows the cashier to bag your order while she rings it, eliminating the need for a bagger.

If Kroger pays (total cost here, not salary) $12 an hour for a cashier and $9 for a bagger, Wal-Mart can pay $18 an hour for their cashiers and still come out $3 ahead because they have no need for baggers. In reality, Wal-Mart is probably paying $14 per hour for their cashiers--which is saving them a fortune over Kroger's $21 combined cost.

Wal-Mart's evil effects go up and down the supply chain. They squeeze every cent out of their suppliers. They are so large they act as their own wholesaler. (This is not a Wal-Mart innovation--actually, Home Depot invented it to speed up the movement of product from manufacturer to store.) They own one of the largest trucking lines in the world--I think it is THE largest freight line. They demand all sorts of tax concessions from the communities they plan to destroy. They pay so little that they train new hires how to apply for public assistance during orientation. And they put up a map when the store opens and stick pins in it when they drive a competitor out of business.

It is a nasty company. And people LOVE them because "they have low prices." Shows you what advertising will do--some of the things they sell are very expensive compared to the rest of the local market.

You have to work more than 34 hours a week and have been at Wal-Mart for over 6 months. With Wal-Mart's turnover (around 50%), it is very rare for folks to make it over 6 months...

Most companies have much lower qualifications for obtaining health insurance.

Wal-Mart is not the biggest private employer in Connecticut (I believe that is United Technologies or Aetna), but Wal-Mart leads the pack in number of people applying for state assistance when it comes to health insurance, costing the state over $5 million to cover those that cannot get insurance through Wal-Mart.

See this article in today's Hartford Courant and notice that neither UTC or Aetna are among the top 25 in cost to the state for insurance. UTC has a lot of union workers... the second link lists the top 25 in cost to the state's health insurance:

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-husky0304.artmar04,0,2810054.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

http://www.courant.com/media/acrobat/2005-03/16545272.pdf

to force them to provide better and more health care to employees. They are the only large company that provides less than what legislators are asking for as minimum requirement for health insurance

Don't know why it's so high where you live, or so low here.

The checkers here are lucky to get $7.00 per hour. Between that, the union-busting, dead peasant insurance and their predatory pricing practices, they'll get no money from me. Voluntarily that is, I can't help the tax money they take from me to support them. :grr:

His family founded Monet Arkansas over 100 years ago. A small community that was turnedinto a ghost town when Wal mart came through the area
More than half the businesses closed up, people had to move to get living wage paying jobs...

I WILL NEVER shop at a Wal mart. They are the worst outsourcer in the country.,

When enough folks follow our lead, they will change or go away.

The average wage of a Wal-Mart Associate (they use the term "Associate" because "Grinning Lackey" was just too demeaning) is $8.00 per hour -- could be more or less depending on what part of the country you live in. The average "living wage" for the U.S. just shy of $10 per hour. So if you work fulltime at Wal-Mart, and few of their Associates do, you'd be earning about $4,000 less than what is necessary to provide adequate living expenses for a single person.

By comparison, the undocumented foreign workers Wal-Mart was using as contract custodians were earning less than six dollars per hour, and the Chinese factory workers that make their products earn less than fifty cents per hour.

Wal-Mart's "benefits" are virtually non-existent. Not offered to many less-than-fulltime employees, they consist of 401(k) plans vs. a guaranteed benefit retirement plan. And some Wal-Mart employees can receive only a "limited benefit" health plan that provides only $1,000 in annual coverage in return for $520 in premiums. Where better plans are available, the majority of Wal-Mart employees simply can't afford the premiums.

James Dobson's grandma!:puke:

This is a lounge thread because I was trying to be funny...

Moved away, out surced or been out sourced.

Here's the answer:

Unions. Think of what a Unionized walmart could do. Sure they'd make a few less billion but every grocery store/retail outlet would have to respond in kind with their own unions and voi la we got our unions back and the middle class can breath a little easier.
Instead of breaking them up let's force in the unions. If they resist impose massive taxes on them.

Supposedly, there is a mirror in each store and if you break it, the store will collapse on itself. :P

I wish it were that easy!

We need to do a maximum effort to force Unions on as many of WalMart's operations as possible, and we need to play dirty if they force us to.

We need to force our states individually to sue WalMart for predatory pricing, and for Antitrust violations.

We need to boycott WalMart, and deprive them of air.

We need to litigate against WalMart on zoning issues everywhere.

Either WalMart changes their practices, or we destroy them, root, branch and seed.

Wal Mart ignores them and nothing is done about it. We stupidly passed a "right to work" law here a few yers ago. Effectively handed the keys to the state over to WM. Thgey have moved a shitload of their operation here since then.

Demonstrations.

Sit-ins.

Posters.

Recall efforts.

Etc.

Force them to enforce the predatory pricing laws.

The time has come to declare open warfare on WalMart while we still have something left to save.

The only things you can get a whole bunch of Okies to march and protest about are abortion, school prayer and gun rights. Most people here have the Stockholm Syndrome so bad they can't be reached.

If you approached 8 out of 10 people here about breaking up Wal Mart, their answer would be <whining> "Nooooo, you'll chase away all the jobs". When you point out that the jobs aren't worth having, you get a blank stare,ie. "does not compute".

A small motivated cadre of rabble rousers can work wonders.

...lost 2 grocery store chains and seen big cutbacks in 3 department store chains as a direct result of Wal-Mart. The solution is for local governments to restrict the number of Wal-marts and where they can be built, in the interest of economic diversity. Since this is a GOP area, that doesn't happen. Consequently, tens of millions of dollars and a bunch of good jobs have left the local economy as a result of Wal-Mart building news stores here. And that has a ripple effect, from vendors to the media who rely on ads from those stores to the folks out of work who cannot support other local businesses.

Government intervention is the only way this can be stopped. But absent that, you can't buck an economic trend, and Wal-Mart is on a roll.

Maryland legislators are writing laws targeting Wal-Mart

...or the courts will toss the laws.

I am very upset that some communities are actually trying to use eminent domain laws to take land for big box stores to build on. That's just not right!

That taxes based upon the number of square feet of the store and the portion of the workforce that is full time.

Could apply to anybody, but in practice only WalMart is covered. CostCo would be too, but I think they are at or close to the number of full time employees required to avoid this.

but it is the only employer affected

I hope they stick it to the Waltons and break off the handle.