Just called Lowes. They claim to be taking Sinclair very seriously.

I called 1-800-445-6937 and spoke to a consumer rep named Cynthia. She was very nice, listened very carefully, and expressed concern.

I told her we have a group of 50,000 people on this board who are very, very disturbed by this un-American action by Sinclair, so much so that we are very seriously intent on boycotting advertisers who continue to spend money at Sinclair.

I told her I personally--and I believe literally thousands of others on this forum--recently switched from Home Depot to Lowes in view of Home Depot's right wing activities and Lowe's relatively enlightened policies. I told her that switch is now in peril. Ace and True Value begin to look more attractive.

She said the company is taking this very seriously and have under consideration what action to take, and feedback from consumers is extremely important to them, and my comments would be passed along.

I urge others to do the same. If we can get Lowes to publicly pull out of Sinclair, it could be a terrific coup.

I'm sure they don't want us going somewhere else. :)

I just spent another $300 bucks there this weekend relatively guilt-free.

Let's hope they consider this as carefully as they seem to be, and stick with a good decision.

FSC

why Lowe's is a better place to spend my money than Home Depot? Thanks

--I can't tell you details (hopefully another DUer will post something more in-depth) but the HD CEO has apparently sponsored Bush fundraisers. They also have lousy personnel policies, I believe quite a bit worse than Lowes.

Bush has used Home Depot for his rallies.

making them the 5th largtest Republican donor in the 2004 cycle.

http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=RPC

The whole corporate tax cut package that the Republicans just crammed down our throats included a $44 million dollar tax break for importers of Chinese ceiling fans. Home Depot just happens to be the largets single retailer of those particular fans.

And interestingly enough Home Depot is based in Zel Miller's district.

Lowe's personnel policies are worse than Home Depot's.

OTOH, Bob Nardelli (our CEO) is a HUGE Bush backer.

It's strange we got him, because (1) he didn't know shit about selling what we sell before he came to work at Home Depot and (2) the two men who started Home Depot, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, are both Democrats. (Bernie Marcus singlehandedly ended the practice of price-gouging after disasters; ask me how sometime.)

I am sorry to hear it because I had thought well of Lowe's, where I do quite a bit of buying, until this Sinclair business. I have this morning informed Lowe's (by e-mail) that I will be doing business at Ace Hardware until they pull their ads from Sinclair.

Every trade has its own Free Publications full of ads, and ours is Home Channel News.

http://www.homechannelnews.com

They recently did an anniversary special on Ace, who are starting to do some really neat things. One of them is drive-through lumberyards. These I like--they have a big building with cantilever racking on both sides of a 24-foot-wide aisle. You drive your truck down the aisle and put product in it like it was a lumber cart, and at the end a person with a cash register rings up your purchase. It's quick, it's efficient and you don't have to handle the product twice. You'll never see that at either of the big-box stores--I don't even want to think about people who have lumber carts interacting with people who have Ford F-350s. But if you have a special building to do it in, it's fine.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1600

http://thehomedepot.blogspot.com/

http://www.nodepot.org/ (Check the flyer here in left margin)

http://www.democrats.us/beta/forum/view_topic.php?id=1904&forum_id=3

http://www.publicintegrity.org/527/search.aspx?act=com&orgid=3390&comid=496c

http://www.nohomedepot.us/

we just bought a house and i find myself at lowes every other day.

Have emailed them from it.

Look what I just found while searching for Home Depot stuff, guys.

I'm targeting Lowe's because Robert Strickland, a longtime executive with the company who helped build Lowe's, is on the business advisory board of the Federalist Society. The society is celebrating 20 years and has brought us such closet Nazis as Antonin Scalia, Ted Olsen, Kenneth Starr, and Robert Bork. Moreover, the society has continually hounded Clinton with frivolous lawsuits and pushed for many un-democratic laws to benefit an elite few. The group is a cancer on our country.

This is from http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020905Thoreau.html

I'm not sure how much say Strickland has over day-to-day business. If they cave on the the Sinclair thing, perhaps it's not as much as Thoreau believes.

Looks like it's True Value for me until I find out.
FSC

We are about to build a small barn. I was just pricing lumber at Lowe's. Perhaps I will use the local Mom n Pop store instead, even if the wood is a bit pricier. Keep us posted on this, folks....

Strickland doesn't appear on their website in the list of top officers, or on the board of directors.

Then again, Lowe's doesn't list their global product merchants, their department vice presidents or their regional vice presidents on their website.

This is ours:
Bob Nardelli, Chairman, President & CEO
Carol Tomé, Executive Vice President, CFO
Frank Blake, Executive Vice President, Business Development and Corporate Operations
John Costello, Executive Vice President, Merchandising and Marketing
Bob P. DeRodes, Executive Vice President, Information Technology & Chief Information Officer
Dennis M. Donovan, Executive Vice President, Human Resources
Frank Fernandez, Executive Vice President, Secretary & General Counsel
Millard Barron, Senior Vice President, Store Merchandising
Troy Rice, Senior Vice President, Operations
Bruce Merino, Division President, Western Division
Bill Patterson, Division President, Central Division
Eric Peterson, President, Strategic Markets
Jim Stoddart, President, Home Depot Supply
Tom Taylor, Division President, Eastern Division
Annette Verschuren, Division President, Canada & EXPO Design Center

(Home Depot Supply is one of our newer businesses. It is an industrial supply house. We are attempting to compete with Grainger; this is the way we shall do it.)

Strickland could be one of the division presidents--which means he controls probably 200 stores. He could be a "lines" vice president--garden, plumbing, lumber--which means he would control all purchasing and merchandising for every store.

owned businesses for exactly this reason! The big corporations I don't hear/find anything negative about aren't in my market. I'd rather my money stay as much in the local economy as possible anyway.

I thought you meant Loewe's Cineplex.:dunce:

There should be a low (I mean law) against companies using the same names!:P

there should be a law that states any company that dares to use similar names which are already taken. It will state that a $1 billion fine be placed on the insolent company that dares to do this (Dr. Evil Laugh with the pinky near the lips)

Now then back to work on my "Death Star"

no matter what the outcome.

you'll need to!

http://www.homedespot.com

(and no, it's not an anti-orange-box site, but something else entirely)

The closest one is in Lumberton--right across the street from the shopping center that contains the Wal-Mart and the Lowe's Home Improvement Center.

And the two companies are NOT related.

Because it sure as HELL ain't the way they pay their associates!

Lowe's pays its assistant department heads, department heads and assistant store managers on the "Salaried plus Overtime Eligible" compensation plan. It's better known as Chinese Overtime. Here's how it works:

We'll use a base salary of $500 per week. That's for 40 hours. That's $12.50 per hour.

Now, let's say you worked 52 hours in week 1 of the pay period and 61 hours in the second because the division vice president's coming down and he decided the kitchen department should be where the lumber department is now.

Take that $500 and divide it by 52 hours to get $9.62 per hour. Half of $9.62 is $4.81. You will receive 40 hours at $12.50 per hour and 12 hours at $4.81--NOT $17.31, which would be time and "a half," but $4.81. Your average hourly wage is now $10.71.

The second week is even uglier: $500 divided by 61 is $8.20; half of that is $4.10. You'll receive 40 hours at $12.50 per hour and 21 hours at $4.10, for an average hourly wage of $9.61 per hour.

Now, let's get really extreme: The division vice president decides to temporarily close your store and completely reset it because Home Depot is killing you in your town. (Do NOT laugh--there are two Lowe's in Fayetteville; one is now closed for a complete reset and the other will close for a complete reset as soon as the first one opens.) You work a hundred hours a week for three weeks straight. Forty hours at $12.50 per hour plus sixty hours at $2.50 per hour equal an average hourly wage of $6.50 per hour.

Let's move to a more realistic salary level: the average department head at the Fayetteville Lowe's stores is on $375/week base salary, or $9.38 per hour. When the Big Reset comes and you're working a hundred a week, you'll get forty hours per week at $9.38 and sixty at $1.88 per hour, for an average wage of $4.88 per hour. On a 55-hour week, your average wage is $7.74 per hour. And these are people who have been with the company for years--the guy who first explained this to me was a Lowe's employee for seven years before he came to work for Home Depot--where we STARTED him at $12 per hour, no Chinese overtime bullshit.

And better: the store managers at Lowe's punch a clock. There is a time clock at Lowe's headquarters in North Wilkesboro that is used by everyone there, including the CEO.

This, apparently, is something Lowe's only does in Right to Work states. No state that allows closed union shops would ever allow something like this, mainly because the employees would vote themselves a union in about two seconds and Lowe's would be fucked.

It is also something Home Depot does not do--our department heads are hourly and our assistant managers and other salaried people aren't "eligible for overtime." (They don't punch a fucking clock, either.) And when we're authorized overtime we get time and a half--which is why authorized OT doesn't happen very often.

If you folks can't bring yourself to shop at Home Depot, there are several franchise systems that are worth shopping at: Ace, Do It Best and True Value are the three most common ones. Also try Golden Rule Lumber, although that's not as common. Just don't shop at Lowe's, okay? They really suck.

i used to work for homedepot so i dont shop there just because i know how things work and they give to the GOP. I hope Lowes does something about this.

told them I won't be using them any longer etc.

Talked to them this morning -- woo hoo! I asked them to post it someplace! :) Best, Ida

This company needs to be really promoted here for all they're doing. They support Democratic candidates and aren't "Rangers" like Home Despot.

I gladly drive the extra 20 miles here to do all my business with Lowes. I wrote them Friday when they announced their boycott of Sinclair (which took a LOT of balls) and thanked them.

We're so quick to condemn here, let's applaud a company that really does good.

Understand that Sinclair operates in primarily small and medium markets. They reach large rural area and are one of a handful of signals in a region that can be used for targeted advertising.

Lowes needs to use these stations to reach their prime markets since they know their competitor Home Despot will be there...and will gladly pick up any lost commercials (revenues) from Lowes.

So, yes they have had ads on Sinclair stations, and it's a sound business decission. They probably will have ads on those stations after this thing blows over as well, since it's not the company they're using, it's the transmitters they own that reach their customers. Again, the price you pay to do business.

Now the best solution is to make sure Sinclair doesn't control as many transmitters and licenses, but that's another issue.

Dear Valued Lowe’s Customer,

Thank you for your comment regarding concerns about advertising on the Sinclair Broadcasting network. Lowe’s does not advertise in political programming. We will not advertise within this political documentary, nor will the company’s local advertising appear anytime during the day this documentary airs.

As far as advertising on the Sinclair group of stations as a whole, Lowe’s advertising agency is in contact with Sinclair to learn more about the program, and our company will make a decision about future advertising at a later time.

Lowe’s has a strict company policy specifying that its advertising is not to run in controversial programming. The company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on select local stations and cable outlets. Because Sinclair owns 62 television stations reaching 24 percent of all television households, some Lowe’s advertising may appear on those stations from time to time, but again, not in close proximity to the controversial documentary you mentioned.

We appreciate your contacting us, and hope this information addresses your concerns.\

Lowe’s Customer Care

It just dawned on me over the weekend that I still had a Lowes account that was opened when I built my home. Though I haven't used the account since the home was completed I never bothered to close the account out. I contacted Lowes today to close the account and voice my unhappiness that there weren't taking a more aggressive approach with SBG. I was transferred from the CSR to a manager who claimed NOT to be aware of the SBG issue. I suggested he do some fact finding so he could better discuss the issue with the next customer.

Thank You DU for keeping me informed.

It's unbelievable that Lowe's wouldn't let their CSRs know about the controversy so that they could better handle phone calls.

And yeah, I get my news from DU also.

Welcome to DU!

I've been a dedciated and supportive lurker at DU for a long time. I've become quite the angry activist this year as a result of my exposure to DU. I gave up on network and cable news shotly after the 2000 election.

The nice customer care person at Lowe's told me they would not advertise "during that time period".

Apparently, there have been many calls to complain about Sinclair as she had a response prepared. GO, DU!

I wrote them a snail mail letter, telling them I had plenty of choices for getting my building materials and that I'm a demographic they don't want to turn off!

So if Sinclair is not planning to have sponser's ads on during this viewing anyhow, just what does it mean when Lowes says they will not have their ads on during that time frame???

Sent them an e-mail to let them know their Houston sales will fall 50% if I stop going there