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Wal-Mart Responds To Striking Workers And Assorted Hangers On
From a Press Release issued by America's (and the world's) largest employer (except the US government of course) in response to sporadic strikes by its workers:
"This has been the most successful Black Friday in Walmart's history, with customers receiving bigger and better savings and an overall safer shopping experience. We're proud of the hard work our associates have put into making this a great Black Friday for our customers, and we're pleased we can provide them with holiday pay equal to an additional day's work, as well as a 25 percent discount on an entire basket of goods for their extraordinary efforts.
"Black Friday is a big stage, and we're one of the biggest players in the retail industry. We're not surprised that those trying to change our industry are using this platform to get their message out, and we respect their right to be heard. We expect some demonstrations at our stores today, although far fewer than what our critics are claiming and with hardly any actual Walmart associates participating.
"For our part, we want to be absolutely clear about our jobs, the pay and benefits we offer our associates, and the role retail jobs play in the U.S. economy. Walmart provides wages on the higher end of the retail average with full-time and part-time associates making, on average, close to $12.00 an hour. The majority of our workforce is full-time, and our average full-time hourly pay is $12.81 an hour. We are also proud of the benefits we offer our associates, including affordable health care, performance-based bonuses, education benefits, and access to a 401K.
"Of course, we have entry-level jobs and we always will. The real issue isn't where you start. It's where you can go once you've started. Retail is one of the few industries that has jobs at all levels and ongoing advancement opportunities. Walmart promotes on average more than 430 associates a day. By year's end, we will have promoted 160,000 associates, including 25,000 this holiday season alone. It's businesses like Walmart that can create opportunities for career growth and greater economic security for families."
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oooh $12.81 an hour. Back up the Brinks truck!
"You are free to take from the employee food bank, and that's our last offer. Now get back to chanting!"
We are proud to do our part to ensure the lack of small business opportunities anywhere there is a Walmart store.
One small step for Walmart. One giant step for permeating mediocrity where there once might have been excellence.
why not include Dell, HPQ, IBm and many more in the mix to this?
This is what happens when production goes to the lowest bidder, yet wages, entitlements, and benefits remain high in the "advanced economy". Walmart and others are exploiting cheap labor in Asia to bring in cheap goods, and to keep costs down, make every effort to pay as little as possible to domestic employees.
The fact that we buy the lower priced items is why this is happening. China is slowly chipping away at the American middle class, producing cheap items that Americans can't compete with domestically. Since jobs and production have been moved to Asia, the middle class's fate has been sealed. Entitlements, benefits, and pensions will all be under severe pressure going forward.
"Global economy" has its disadvantages to the previously dominant nation, and obvious advantages to the emerging nation, as the cost-of-labor imbalance is forced into equilibrium by customers voting with their wallets.
this is happening all over the globe........
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/world/19848011/cheap-chine...
Attention Walmart shoppers, there is a complimentary build-your-own Cheetoh nacho bar next to the barrel o' shrimp.
Unless there are free 32 oz refills, I'll be staying right here.
She protests too much, methinks.
it would cost you 12.81 to buy 2 1964 silver quarters.....now how much are they being paid again?......seems like fiddy cents
I haven't run into a pre-65 in a long while now. Have seen a few '65s recently, but nothing older. Out of everyone I know, I think I'm the only one who looks at the year of mint anymore.
why bother looking at the year or even squinting to detect a copper band in the rim? Dropping them on a hard surface is the quick signal. Silver has a beautiful ring (hence the use in forging bells and musical instruments)
I come up with three silver quarters, a dime, and a few copper pennies. So, like 90 cents.
Walmart management spouting out averages is a huge mistake. Now every employee below the average is now emboldened to ask for more.
Idiots.
Today's lesson in statistics concerns the mean average:
Boss makes $1100 per week. 9 employees make $100 per week. Average wage = $200 per week.
You're welcome.
It's almost as if the price of the unskilled labor has changed, but the value of unskilled labor has remained the same since 1964.
1964's $1 per hour wage is equal to today's $20.00.
1) Globalization requires cheap transportation costs to bring in products from distant locations.
The result is clearly illustrated by what happens when 'Big Ag' corporations take over local markets. The local food producers are squeezed out, farming skills are lost, and everyone becomes dependent on distant food imports (typically from mono-crop suppliers using pesticides heavily).
A rise in transportation costs creates a crisis (as has occurred recently most markedly in the poorer nations).
2) When global corporations take over, wealth and power is concentrated upward. That, along with destruction of local middle class, causes a concentration and change in political power.
The corporate heads and their bought political acolytes formulate and implement policies to control finances, markets and resources throughout the world, with energy and transportation coming first to mind.
Any business that fails because WMT is taking their market share fails because it cannot deliver the same goods and services in a cost efficient manner the way WMT does. So, what's your idiotic solution, to subsidize inefficiency and reward failure? By the way, I'm sure low income people who can't afford to pay more for basic neccessities aren't complaining about WMT's presence. If people pay less for essentiall goods and services they have more disposable after tax income, which means they can either purchase a greater quantity of goods and services there or elsewhere or that they have more money to save and invest which would make the productive process more roundabout, increase porductivity, create jobs, etc. It doesn't susprirse me that your sociology degree and total ignorance of elemntary economics blinds you to simple facts, but the world would be better off if you stopped making assinine statements on subjects that you know nothing about.
Doesn't everyone know that people like low prices AND high wages? Much better than low prices OR high wages.
I saw it on a TeeVee commercial.
I got it! I really, REALLY got it! I know how to increase wages without creating enny inflation wot-so-ever. I got the idea from a very successful retailer!!!!! I know this plan will succeed becoz it involves bankers and bankers always win and get their way no matter what even if they have to change laws to do it!!! Walmart workers can charge their boss $20 per hour for their wages interest free and no repayments for FOUR YEARS!!!!!!
NOW EVERYWUN CAN GET ANY JOB THEY WANT FOR ANY WAGE THEY WANT AND THE BOSS WILL "ALWAYS" BE ABLE TO PAY THEM!!! Why would a boss pay you $7.50 per hour now when he can pay you $20 per hour, except he doesn't have to pay you any thing for four years interest free!!! Don't delay! Talk to your local branch manager at JPM or Goldman Sachs! I'm sure they are willing to help you out!
Why didn't we think of it before? The evidence has been there for, how long now?
Yum! My idiot pills are extra tasty today.!
chrissy88, you've got some learning to do. walmart is taking market share because they utilize slave labor to build the junk they sell, and expect me and you to subsidize their employees. i would rather subsidize inneficiency than subsidize slavery. i'm not impressed that people who don't work can get an 80 inch tv cheaper with their EBT card. of course you might think that's a basic nessesity. on the other hand there has been an influx of the young and dumb on these boards lately, and to you all i say welcome. this is a great place to sort out the crap they taught you in b school from the things we need to do if we are going to prosper again as a country. put it out there, see what flies. may the force be with you.
Why wouldn't you rather address the real issue, currency depreciation via the Fed's magic checkbook.
False dichotomies are NOT your friend.
.
The REAL issue is this:
Unions want dues from WalMart employees. THAT is the real issue. Currently, WalMart workers do not pay union dues.
Target pays its workers the same in each location in which it competes with WalMart. But Target gets a Free Pass. Unions don't picket Target.
Why is that?
It is because Target extracts union dues from its employees, and forwards those dues to the union, while WalMart does not take union dues out of its workers' paychecks.
As a 4-term President of my Local, and the elected statewide Secretary-Treasurer of my International union before I retired, I know how unions work.
They pay their High School graduate (if that) Business Agents $100,000, plus better benefits than the workers they represent — and they have to get that money from somewhere. So it comes out of the paychecks of the low paid, unionized workers.
If anyone wants to help the downtrodden WalMart workers, you can simply hand them some of your spare dollars. But don't fall for the union's propaganda. The attack on WalMart is ALL about getting union dues out of WalMart employees' paychecks. But it will not get them paid more; the market (and minimum wage laws) determine their pay. That is why both WalMart and Target workers get paid the same in the same locations.
Call your local Target store, and ask how much they pay sales clerks. Then call WalMart with the same question. You will understand why WalMart is being picketed — and why Target isn't.
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Please state your definition of "slave labor". Also, give specific examples of Walmart slave labor.
appreciate the interest. just google "walmart slave labor" and read the ones you like. if you want to learn, it's an embarrasment of riches
So ... not anything like slavery at all.
Seems really bizarre that you'd even have to make such statements here at ZH.
But, it seems those who do not understand that the REAL issue is the Fed's destruction of the structure of production, exist everywhere these days.
WMT is an EBT sh*thole. If it wasn't for EBT/foodstamps - WMT would be hurting in a big way. Crony Capitalism/Fascism.
Chris88,
From your comment also with your screen name I assume you were born in 1988 and thereby know nothing as to how much better the goods sold in the U.S. were before Walmart spread its miasma everywhere.
+1. While cleaning out grandma's garage last spring I came across some of my toys from the early-mid 80s. Every single one of them were stamped Made in USA, and in great shape considering how rough we played with them. I actually brought some of them home so my son could play with them. Those old American made toys, purchased at a local Mom & Pop, have outlasted a lot of those cheap Chinese trinkets we buy from Wal-Mart.
Chriss88
Contrary to your claim, paying lower prices at Walmart does not necessarily result in more disposable income elsewhere. There are a host of intervening factors including job loss, health, taxes etc.
But the basic problem with Walmart is not centered around the so-called competitive prices of their goods or wages,
no more than are the problems of Goldmans Sachs or Monsanto mollified by the presumably good salaries they pay their workers.
Many are the cultural myths of ECON 101. Forgotten is that political economy (aka economics) is essentially an attempt to describe and predict human behavior. It is neither science nor law, as in physics or chemistry. The belief in, and the attempt to create a sustainable society based on myths about self-serving individualism coupled with individualistic control of property and resources is doomed to failure.
Wal Mart (like McDonald's and so many others), passes much of it's cost onto the tax payer who picks up the cost of their workers healthcare, welfare, section 8 housing, etc. Please spare us.
When Walmart opened pharmacies in the state of Oklahoma, they priced their medicines below cost to kill off the mom & pop drug stores, and then raised them above market after their competition was crushed. I know, I was a wal Mart manager for 6 year in Texas.
Please get you head out of you ass.
According to Wal-Mart, "The real issue isn't where you start."
Maybe that is not an issue to WMT but it is a big issueto employees when there are bills to pay and food to purchase.
I'm not sure if that's true any more. I checked on Zillow the other day and my house is now worth 525K. I had an uncontrollable urge to run out and buy a Salad Shooter! Fuck bills, I'm WEALTHY.
Miffed;-)
A Salad Shooter??? I think Mr. Miffed deserves a new set of golf clubs. And, of course for you, that nice diamond tennis bracelet you have been eyeballing. You're rich...Act like it!!!
This is my problem. I never think BIG and SHOWY enough. I'm ever fated to be branded poor and a loser. May be if TSHTF, the showy others will get their most deserved attention.
Miffed;-)
Poor losers have less to worry about. Imagine having paper 'assets' everywhere and trying to save them while the banks take a few holydays.
As a poor person, my labor is my wealth, as is yours.
If the striking workers and unions really want to better their lot they should make a public service anouncement that they wish to be paid in Bitcoin and set up a donation address.
or perhaps create a new race/religion that always deals with each other exclusively
GFY.
That's good money. I was earning that in a pork processing facility.
Between a choice of dealing with idiots all day, and dealing with idiots all day who can stab you with knives (accidentally, of course), which would you choose?
I've seen too many fingers mangled by conveyor belts, and too many injuries to make this question easy.
what like 50 years ago?
My grandmother made more per hour working for Sears in the mid 70's!
Does that $12.81 average include the $100,000+ management ???
and the CEO et al. at $10M+/yr
The Wal mart exec. in charge of bribing local officials probably does quite well.
Of course it does silly.
Just look at the high rates of compensation for Department Manager, at $11.22/Hr, or Sales Associate, $8.86 / Hr.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Walmart-Salaries-E715.htm
The MEDIAN salary would be a more honest measurement, but mathematics is not a strong point for most people.
Median salary of a Wal Mart employee is $22,400, or translated to the endagered 40 hour week, about $10.77/Hr.
http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-income
Access to a 401K. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME ?
ACCESS DOES NOT MEAN THAT WHAT YOU ARE PRESENTED IS A GOOD DEAL !!!
I have access to ALL the cheap shit they serve at McDonald's . Is it a GOOD deal for my body or my health ?
SO..... GREAT !!! You have access to a self-funding retirement plan that you can sock away fiat Benny-bux that are depreciating EVERY SINGLE YEAR !!!!
Yeah..... "I'd buy that for a dollar !"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14tIBa1f70
+1 for Robocop reference!
Besides.....what's the use of having ACCESS to a 401K.......when you can't even afford food on your "competitive" Wal-Mart wage....(competitive, where? CHINA ?!)
http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-employee-food-drive-2013-11
with 2.2MM employees it would also be of interest to know what the median employee is paid (...and where the 2nd sigma begins and the 3rd...and the 6th)
edit: argh, thx uber vandal. reading would help me. missed your post somehow.
Strikers to stand clear of stampeding herd.
Wonder how long it will be until the comments on this post get invaded by Bibletards too?
jesus said, judge not, lest ye be judged!
Of course, that was meant as "Judge not, lest ye be judged by the same measure".
So, when the original poster calls people Bibletards, I get to call him a godless heathen. It's only fair!
Judging people cuts both ways, if you aren't careful about it.
The "original poster" might just support another religion. There does seem to be a wide selection out there, and a characteristic of most (if not all) is the followers' belief that their "God" is (or "Gods" are) the only TRUE Deity (or Deities).
Whatever the individual feels most comfortable with.
Religion is just another attempt by humans to seek the outside affirmation they so desperately crave. Money, knowledge, religion, all the same. The amusing thing is that the acceptance, adulation or whatever, is simply created in the mind, it exists often without any need for justification. 'I bet the babes think I'm hot in these jeans'.
The only thing you can be sure of, is that you are a point of awareness having some sort of experience. Everything else after is perception and supposition. You can't even prove that there is anyone else here but you. So where does that put these beliefs that sooth the ego and feed the need to be somehow better than others? Again, it's just outside affirmation being sought by way of human insecurity. It is the root of all of our failings.
I'm not religious, I'm not atheist. I just am. Everything else is likely bullshit. Hey, at least it's most honest view possible..
He also turned water into wine so they could partayyyyy!!!
This is one thing I don't get about these "Holier Than Thou" types who scorn drinking when Jesus and the guys were obviously very fond of some good vino... blessed or not!
And I need to turn some water into ice here real soon for a needed "blessing" myself!
Those are the people who just want to order you around and tell you how to live. They aren't doing what Jesus did, and are often the worst kind of people.
It's sad that that happens...
Hey I don't mind them trying to order me around to not imbibe for my health and safety of others on the road, etc..
But it's when they do it fore the sake of their own sense of self worth and spiritual esteem.. Oh well..
damn right. I'm an atheist but enough has been confirmed to say Jesus was a real man.
If I could time travel & meet him when he was alive I bet I'd have more in common with him than so-called Christians today.
The real Jesus was all for the love for one another, joy, merriment, good wine, and fat doobies.
The "Superstar" version as played in that 70's movie?
seems to me that one school of though tis that the water:wine thing was a metaphor explaining that he allowed the common folk to be served wine at a party (where they would normally have been served water). This was a radical act.
Similarly, 'raising Lazarus from the dead" was a metaphor for welcoming him back into the community. "You're dead to me" was an expression in that community then as it is now. A community-approved method of punishing oneself at the time was to dig a hole and hop in for some prescribed amount of time. Jesus lifted him out long before his judicially-imposed time was up. That was an affront to the PTB.
My christian father was abhored to hear this interpretation (which was well-referenced as I recall). my jewish grandmother was silent as I recall. this alternative explanation might have come from Holy Blood Holy Grail (who got it from i have no idea). I forget.
"jesus said, judge not, lest ye be judged!"
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I have been judged every day of my life, and a lot harder than I ever judged anyone else. Not only have I been judged I have been sentenced and punished as well.
I wish the people who did me wrong were punished as badly for their sins as I have been punished for nothing.
Personally, I got nothing against Wall Mart.
If the society wanted a basic standard of living for everybody it could be done by letting the IRS handle a reverse income tax.
Eliminate all the Federal social programs and just give people the difference between what they earn and whatever the minimum annual amount is supposed to be.
If companies didn't pay enough people wouldn't bother working. If nobody worked, the sociopaths running the various companies wouldn't be able to screw their customers, so they'd be forced to pay more. Those who didn't want to work would have to be satified with the minumum amount.
Seems to me if you just acknowledged that humans are just assholes trying to screw each other, and built a system around that concept, everybody would be allot happier.
We had a system that acknowledged that humans are just assholes trying to screw each other, so the sytem had a structure with checks and balances. Lets be real, we have not followed that original system for a very long time. We allowed it to erode and eventually replaced it with the central planned system we have today.
I have read stories that some Walmart employees (among others) qualify for government subsidies (Medicaid, SNAP, etc.). I wonder what the total paid by taxpayers is (or would be if we didn't just print the fiat) to subsidize Walmart to make up for the low wages. I wonder how competitive the prices would be if that amount were prorated to the items they sell. Would their prices be less competitive? Apparently every time someone buys something at Walmart, one can surmise that the taxpayer paid part of the actual price. Somehow it seems wrong that I, as a taxpayer, should pay for Walmart's cheapness.
Why is Walmart so unique to your argument? That can be said for any employer who pays below whatever wage you are discussing.
Re: Apparently every time someone buys something at Walmart, one can surmise that the taxpayer paid part of the actual price.
Everytime you use an airport the taxpayer paid. The taxpayer pays to build roads and water projects for developers, pays farmers not to farm, pays for airports, pays for sports stadiums, ... The purpose of government is to create a system where the smart-n-savvy people screw the dumbass taxpayers and move loot upward. What ELSE is new?!
"Somehow it seems wrong that I, as a taxpayer, should pay for Walmart's cheapness."
You're not subsidizing Walmart so much as you're subsidizing the central planned system. They then redistribute your taxes to the top and bottom of society. I think the "cheap" prices at Walmart however have more to do with international trade and global currencies than Govt subsidies. Those cheap prices for US consumers are not guaranteed if the Dollar loses it's position.
> Those cheap prices for US consumers are not guaranteed if the Dollar loses it's position.
According to Ron Paul - coming sooner than many would "prefer" - http://dailyreckoning.com/the-end-of-dollar-hegemony-part-i-2/, and China is certainly interested in diversifying its investment platform - which means a move away from being a major holder of T-Bills http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/10/17/usa/us-debt-crisis-prompts-china-rethink
Re: We allowed it to erode and eventually replaced it with the central planned system we have today.
Yeah, the asshole always win. I just threw it out there to keep the discusion going.
The smart-n-savvy people form monopolies. The government trys to break-up the monopolies but becomes bigger in the process. The smart-n-savvy people notice how powerful the government is so buy some politician. the smart-n-savvy people own the government and monopolies but have the politicians create bullshit for the dumbasses about how having monopolies is really good for competition and the dumbasses should really complete more to get richer.
I don't quite remember the exact quote, but...
The more power you give to Government, the more businesses will try and use the Government. --John Stossel
They had a system in place. Then Management did an end run around it, via China, India etc...
"Seems to me if you just acknowledged that humans are just assholes trying to screw each other, and built a system around that concept, everybody would be allot happier."
I was telling my girlfriend last night that they ought to just bring back gladiatorial games.
Give the football players sword and shield and let them have at each other.
It would be more honest.
Emperor Onero can give the thumbs up or down for the losing coach.
The referees will have their jobs cut out for them...
Badum-tss!
$12+ per hour MY ASS. Walton heirs are the freaking devil in drag.
They included the store and district managers in that calculation I'd bet (and excluded themselves).
No shit!...if i was relegated to working at walfart i would 'borrow' at least $12+/hr on top of my wage.
"If you like your job, you can keep your job."
untill the robots take over.
Don't know what you're talking about, Roger-Roger
http://iahymnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/new-study-shows-liberal...
But most of them are more gullible.
Re: But most of them are more gullible.
Bullshit test: Explain why the anti-gov'ment freedom-loving Red Team dumbasses haven't demanded Snowden be recognized as hero of the Constitution. Explain why the "Liberals" and "Conservative" dumbasses working for NSA haven't resigned en-mass. Bonus question: is there any difference between "Liberals" and "Conservatives" in their love for Big-Authoritarian government?
Re: New Study shows Liberals have a lower average IQ than Conservatives
Doesn't matter what IQ people have. All that matters is how easily their brains are manipulated with bullshit.
Here's a test of how your brains processes bullshit: "ObamaCare is the same a RomneyCare."
Just open your eyes.
Here in the UK the Conservatives (GOP-ish) are seen as representing the Middle Class, business owners, private enterprise, achievers, high education, producers, tax generators......where as the Labour party (Democrats) is the party of the welfare takers, civil service jobs, immigrants, low education, tax consumers.
If the welfare takers living in socially provided housing living off food stamps have all the answers, why can't they adapt and cope in the real world? If they are so bright and clever, why do they end up working at McDonalds for 18 years?
Those that can....do.....those that can't, moan and cry and open their beaks like birds that never figured out how to leave the nest.
Survival of the fittest, bitchez.......
Re: Survival of the fittest, bitchez
And how long can a society last like that before a supreme sociopats manipulates all the below-average dumbasses into violence.
We've been down this road before (actually, it's the only road available, but to keep the discussion going we can pretend there's another road). The 1880 & 90's were a "survival of the fittest" society, which ended up in socialism, fascism, & communism for large numbers of people. The US got SocSec and it's own welfare state (sort of).
If the Libertarians want "survival of the fittest" they have to figure out how to restart the game when the "most fit" have everything (eg win).
both demographics are fake.
There are no real liberals today, only ass-hats who want to scream at people AND perhaps over-legalize a bunch of drugs just to piss people off.
There are no real conservatives today, only asshats that want to scream at people and to over-illegalize body functions, bedroom activities & force demon-church into the lives of people smart enough to know there is no god.
New study shows most studies are propaganda.
http://suckthis.com/this-is-a-fake.html
Wow, I knew the anti-free market capitalists were piling into ZH, but didn't realize that wage labor lecturers and the morality police were also here. OH WAIT...You're all one in the same. Piss off.
The ad-hominem anti-walmart screed is tiresome. Wage complaints...also long in the tooth. Defending people who choose to be wage serfs with amazing retail skillz is very noble. Just get your union card laminated so you can show your kids what kind of man their daddy really is and was down the road. And these no-value Wal-Mart lecturers, get a fucking clue about socio-political corporatism and be sure to hit that downvote arrow on your way out.
What is that sound? Ahhh, that would be the sound of me giving no fucks about how a retailer chooses to pay...when there is a global marketplace full of choice.
Re; sound of me giving no fucks about how a retailer chooses to pay
I don't care either, but at some point society has to figure out if it can survive when the top 10% own 95% of the country (and own 100% of the politicians).
At what point does the bottom 90% become debt serfs of the top 10% and THEN what do you do about it?
The contract between an employer and an employee is not predicated on who owns what and mythical percentage splits between the two parties. There are no guarantees in life, and now we face a global marketplace with wages so dramatically lower than we can imagine, with populations so much more desperate for wages of any sort that our poor are middle class by comparison. So let's lose these convenient splits like 90/10 and such. Take any business owner, and ask them who owns them. See what answer you get. Talk to business owners every opportunity you get. Big, small, in between. Ask them about your alleged 90/10 just to see what answer you get. Ask them about your monopolistic ownership scenario.
I own, I pay, I share, I make payroll, I donate, I save, I grow, I think, I strategize, I partner, I earn. And as long as that "I" is in my equation, I won't tell anyone what is fair for their company. I love the competitive marketplace, I love that I can have and share something of value both intrinsic and monetarily. But many here can kiss my ass on the way out of my office after lecturing me and all of the other business owners via this "let me get all up in your business and tell YOU what you are going to do." Oh really? You and what army? LOL.
To the nannies who want to push businesses around to suit some inner bully, fuck off. Get your own company, then see what works for you. You want to pay $20/hr to stock a shelf? BE MY GUEST AND GOOD LUCK. I'll be the first to welcome you to the global marketplace and do everything I can to help you succeed. But sit on the sidelines and tell me what I can or cannot do or should or should not pay? Ha. As I said in my original post, Piss. Off. Take some risks in life and let us all know when you think you've discovered something new. Meanwhile, the transition from maker economy to knowledge economy is going to be very very bumpy.
Re: I won't tell anyone what is fair for their company as long as they are not doing the same for me.
Well, the reality is people ARE telling you, and will continue to do so, and you'll lose this argument unless somebody figures out how to keep the bottom 90% happy. So, it can either be you "heroic" bidness people coming up with something or the (evil) socialists are going to do it for you. But, it will be done.
Re: Meanwhile, the transition from maker economy to knowledge economy is going to be very very bumpy.
What are you going to do with the 50% of the people who are below average intelligence? Educate them until they become "knowledge workers". I think we heard this joke from the "Liberals" 20 years ago. Don't tell me the "Conservatives" are falling for it again.
Hmm, still stuck on the 90/10. Can't help you there. If you insist on this 90/10, realize that I see it just the opposite. 90 percent of the population contributing, and 10 percent taking. I actually think it is the job of the individual to keep themselves happy. It is not my job as an employer to ensure your happiness. I will certainly do everything I can as a fellow human to make sure you don't file a hurt feeling report against me, but really...this goes to the heart of the employee/employer relationship. Is it the job of the emplyers of the US to make the employees happy? Really? And yes, I agree the socialists are going to do everything they can to make that employee happy via massive redistributionist policies. It is like a game of "He has too much and he will still be happy with less, so here you go...now are you happy?" And that cycle just escalates.
As to the second item. The knowlege economy is here. It is real. That's the business I am in. Keep in mind that I view skilled labor as part of the knowledge economy. I am not referring to unskilled labor. It doesn't matter what I think we are going to do with the people who cannot profitably sell their knowledge to others. They will be left behind to exist on subsidy and wage. Eventually, I think it will be even more subsidy if the social dems have their way. It just means I have to grow and expand fast enough to get to the size where it offsets assanine taxes. It is already happening for over a decade. The costs of logistics and transportation have become so cheap that third world economies are pulling the rug from under them. They are in a squeeze play above and below them and do not realize this. I subscribe more to Huxley than Orwell. Huxley has the soma, we have the paxcil, the ADHD drugs, etc. Medicate the masses starting when they are children, ensure their fealty to government, and that goes a long way toward tamping down any of that nastiness of an uprising.
Thanks for the exchange. I saw you are a prolific poster all over the place. Interesting reading your comments. Cheers, mate.
I must have missed the memo that elevated business owners from normal people to unquestionably divine status. The attitude that you have (one of extreme arrogance) only invites extra action to bring you back down to Earth.
For all the unappreciated troubles that you experience, you seem to think you're entitled to be treated better than everyone else just for being a business owner.
It isn't about special treatment or arrogance from my perspective. Grenade throwers exist all over the place. Trolls, too. No matter. It is about folks sticking their noses into the corporate wage game. Don't like Wal-Mart, don't work or shop there. Vote with your feet. But to chime in and tell them how to run their legal business and particularly to treat their market driven wages as something that can and should be changed because you believe they are too low? NOW THAT IS ARROGANCE AND ENTITLEMENT. See what I did there? PS. God works for me, lol.
I logged in to tell you that your comments were great today. My favorite was, "Get your own business!" LOL. I'll add to that, "And then MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!"
People seem to think that business owners OWE people a job. Guess what, idiots, businesses are not created to provide jobs. However, many businesses DO create jobs, which is great. Walmart is the largest employer in the world (or second largest, at least). They are given NO credit whatsoever in that regard.
I, too, hate this ridiculous 90% / 10% BS. It is, simply, BS.
I also hate the notion that Walmart has displaced millions of small businesses. That is simply not true. It IS true that small mom and pop shops (the monopolies of the day in small towns) were run out of business on a rail, since they had never had competition before. I've read The Walmart Effect, and look, it wasn't pretty. HOWEVER, if you go to those same small towns today, they are thriving mini-metropolitan areas. Would people rather live in a pitiful declining old manufacturing town or one that is thriving? And by the way, every town I've ever been in (large or small) that has a Walmart in it has hundreds of small businesses also thriving, from clothing shops to car dealerships to you name it.
Ifj you don't like Walmart, don't spend your money there. It is as simple as that.
sethstorm,
Wow. You begin your comment with unmitigated attitude and arrogance, and then claim that the business owner has the attitude and arrogance. Typical Leftist.
Yes, the business owners are elevated in society from the normal people. Why? Because they tend to PAY the normal people. Not everybody is equal, no matter what your liberal friends have told you. Your condescending attitude tells me that you already believe this....you just believe that you and your liberal friends are the ones who are superior. YOU ARE WRONG.
I'm OK with them paying so shitty, but let's also have market forces in the housing market. Prices will need to drop by 50-60% to allow for the new working class to buy a house. We should all need to face the pain of wage deflation.
let's guess that you are still stuck in an apartment when all the rage was to live in apartments until the big crash right??
getting tired of hearing your neighbor snore I presume?
low-wages for Walmart aren't free market: they know their employees live off food stamps & other government benefits which means corporate profits are the product of corporate welfare. Take away the welfare & walmart would shut down or raise wages (or no one would show up) so they'd have to raise prices.
Shopper or not, you pay for Wal-mart wages through your taxes.
You like that? You think that's pro-freemarket?
So let me get this straight, you are saying that anything under an arbitrary hourly wage number, let's say it is $15.00/hr in this case, a few bucks more than Wal-Mart's claimed "average," results in that employee to "live off food stamps and other government benefits"?
I would suggest you get down in the trenches and meet some Wal-Mart employees. No, they do not live off government handouts. I am sure there are some, hell, there are some at almost every corporation with hourly jobs under $20/hr or in the part-time wage economy at higher hourly rates as well. But no, they do not line up at the welfare office, they do not take handouts like they are going out of style. Handout seekers are the overwhelming exception, not the rule.
Hourly wages will not rise until assistance is cut across the board. But the irony is that low wage earners are overwhelmingly socialist in their self-preservation. Take from them and give to me. So, in a perfect world, it would take reduced assistance opportunities to pressure higher wages. But what we have now is a system that wants BOTH higher wages and plenty of assistance. This is the connundrum of the socialist democrats in the political arena. So no, it isn't solely the wage serfs, or solely the corporations...it is the contract that exists between them based on outside forces. The rise of the feminist ideal, The Single Mother (praise be her name), the absence of the Two Parent Households (and income earners), the influence and rhetoric of the "taker" mentality...the list goes on.
As to the fact that business in general is subsidized, the answer is overwhelmingly yes. The roads they use, the power they consume, the tax abatements they receive, etc. All corporate "welfare."
So what? At the end of the day, people still seek goods and services at a fair price. If that fair price is achieved with the penalties spread over a nation of earners, then so what? That is the contract WE have made. Doesn't mean WE can change it any more than the wage serfs at Wal-Mart can. Free markets have to work through these things unfettered. But as I said before, when you have your cake (high wages) and want to eat it too (welfare for all) that is a restriction on the free market that is untennable.
That is all. Thank you for your reply.
Re; That is the contract WE have made.
Nice words "the contract". Implies a grand meeting of equals hammering out an "agreement".
The reality is this, the top 10% isn't equal to the bottom 90% - they are far far far MORE equal. The US society is built on a patch-work of "fixes" for the bottom 70% (roughly) to accomidate the fact that the top 10% get most of the loot. Should the top 10% get most of loot? Well, the top 10% ARE smarter. They are more politically connected. They did inherit more money. In a survival of the fittest system there's no question that the top 10% DESERVE to win.
The problem is - over time - how long can America stay "American" and not turn in an Indian style society if more and more loot keeps moving upward.
What what point does society stop functioning? And, do you want the Blue Team "Liberals" to determine the restribution or somebody ELSE to do so.
85% serfs, same as it always was. We are just regressing back to the historical mean. The middle class is vanishing like a mist.
Yup. Tax cuts do not work to create US jobs. That's why I spent 8 years callling George W Bush and Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell's wife, liars. I still say if you're unemployed or underemployed, you should be in a Republican politician's office conducting your job search.
No, I think MDBogus means that since walmart has people in their human resource department signing up their employees for every welfare program possible. they don't have have to go yo the welfare office. it's built in.
conspicio,
Your comments are spot on. We just went through this SAME thread debate the other day about McDonalds. Most people have zero understanding of fundamental economics, which is frightening.
For example, they don't even think about what happens if you start giving a $10/hour Walmart worker $15/hour. The $15/hour secretary demands $20/hour, and the $20/hour paralegal demands $25/hour, and the $25/hour associate demands $30/hour. Get the picture?
What do you people think that does to PRICES? Wage and price controls DO NOT WORK.
Employers do not go into business to provide jobs. It is not their duty to provide jobs.
The Walmart employees are FREE as birds to go start their own businesses.
Not everybody gets to be an astronaut.
90% of them absolutely do live off handouts. They have no choice. The wage itself doesn't cover food + rent. Failure to make one or the other is starvation or homelessness & homeless people don't show up for work since they have no place to keep food, clothes or to take a shower.
A free-market in jobs hasn't existed for at least 100 years, you have no idea what it would look like. A proper estimation would say no walmart could even exist.
No one seeks a fair price anymore: the weak seek a wage that just barely pays the bills & the strong seek a wage that is partially earned off the fraud / deception based theft of others wages. Nothing free-market about it & certainly no fair prices since fraud is baked into the cake along with bribery & graft.
Why do so many tools like yourself pick on Walmart? What about every retail business that pays the same wages? Ah, the media yells and rants and raves about Walmart so your pea brain just keeps on chanting.
Nobody is putting a gun to the head of employees of Walmart or any other low wage job.
Read up on the idea of oligopsony and find out why your point about force doesn't hold water.
Simple. The Left despises Walmart. Walmart started in the South. Walmart shareholders are largely conservative.
Costco (with a Leftist CEO, if I recall correctly) pays its cashiers $11.50 on average, and you never hear word one about how evil they are.
It is ALL about politics with the Left. Never forget that.
Next time, don't recall...research.
http://hbr.org/2006/12/the-high-cost-of-low-wages/ar/1
http://www.businessinsider.com/costco-ceo-supports-minimum-wage-hike-2013-3
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-06/costco-ceo-craig-jelinek...
You think Bloomberg is research? Ha. I did my research on the average cashier wage at Costco. Did you think I made that up?
My "recall" was that the CEO of Costco was a Leftist, and obviously I was right.
You Leftists are idiots. You support Costco and hate Walmart, and have NO idea why.
it's not - there is no left.
There's kings & serfs but no left and no right. That part is all theater for dumb murrikinz.
the ARTICLE was about walmart. I don't know if other retail outlets pay less per hour, many do give less hours per week than what is sensible but then again, one could just use the gaps to add to full time by working 2 or 3 of them. One girl downtown today was saying, as I was walking by, she gets only 2 shifts a week at American Apparel. So be it: that's plenty of time to get more shifts at another job.
Another guy I met before getting home was looking for work & I suggested he do the conference work I do (for example, those oh-so entertaining Facebook earnings calls). He's GOT a job. He just wants another one, one for the day, one for the night, to add up to full hours he can properly live off of. Good for him.
And yes, someone is putting a gun to the heads of the wal-mart workers: other jobs have been removed that pay more BY walmart AND by greedy city-level bureaucrats / politicians who changed zoning, property taxes & allowances / disallowances for certain businesses to exist of a certain size in a given city. They were bought: the gains in the pocket of those bribed people are the wage-losses for people who now must work at wal-mart or work NOWHERE.
It's rigged.
how gullible are you?
Did you maybe think dollars are honest money?
Or maybe tha gold markit ain't maniperlated(tm)?
Retail has never paid very well. If you're making it a career, you'll be on starvation wages until making store manager, even then it's not big money. Wally World is no better or worse than their peers in that regard.
BTW, the Wally in Williston, ND was paying $20/hr for overnight stockers last I looked. Of course, Williston has a cost of living approximating NYC, so......
Robots are taking human jobs now. Increasing the minimum wage will only drive more business to replace Human workers with Robots.
Why the future doesn't need us.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
Places a "firm date" of around 2030 on Ray Kurzweil's vision of the singularity.
Unfortunately, the future reality painted is a far less pleasant one for a species that might well become redundant overnight. It is interesting and I believe pretty salient to compare current technologies with those "predicted" in Asimov's "The Last Question" - written not quite 60 years ago. "Interesting points' include his "prediction" for Molecular valves (which arrived about one thousand years after the development of the Multivac (2060's technology)), then the "Galactic AC Contact" - developed around Twenty Thousand years from "now" - which seems on a rough par performance wise with our present "smart 'phone" / Tablet globally ever-connected wireless Internet technologies . . . . . .
My point is that many key elements of Asimov's "far distant" technology have arrived far, far sooner than even he could envision (and Asimov was a pretty far-ahead thinker). Molecular-scale electronic systems are here now, and there's a lot of interest in biolological / machine hybridisation technologies for real-world problem mitigation, e.g. - http://bel.reading.ac.uk/
Maybe the 2030 date will turn out to be pessimistic; maybe not. Maybe we all have an entirely different end-game scenario to meet - http://www.smh.com.au/business/beware-the-financial-crisis-of-2015-20110331-1cnd5.html
"We're not surprised that those trying to change our industry are using this platform to get their message out" Considering that we have the global stage, congress, media, and ear of the general populous for the other 361 days and 15 hours of the year.
"and we respect their right to be heard. " Just because we say we respect it though, does not mean actually we give a fuck, or will we stop in our pursuit in the compete dominance of the general working class plebulation.
"For our part, we want to be absolutely clear about our jobs, the pay and benefits we offer our associates, and the role retail jobs play in the U.S. economy." - We take more than we give, we'll keep taking it until there is nothing left, and it couldn't be more clearer than that. We facilitate.
"Walmart provides wages on the higher end of the retail average with full-time and part-time associates making, on average, close to $12.00 an hour. The majority of our workforce is full-time, and our average full-time hourly pay is $12.81 an hour." Though we have factored in managerial salaries into that number because we want make it look nice.
"We are also proud of the benefits we offer our associates, including affordable health care, performance-based bonuses, education benefits, and access to a 401K." But admittedly if an employee were to take us up on all of them, they probably couldn't afford to eat.
"Of course, we have entry-level jobs and we always will. " We are constantly striving to make all positions entry level, we don't want to risk any member of staff having intelligence, as they might blow our cover.
"The real issue isn't where you start. It's where you can go once you've started. " We particularly like this line, as once we have dumbed you down for 20 years, you'll forget you ever heard it.
"Retail is one of the few industries that has jobs at all levels and ongoing advancement opportunities." AKA, retail is one of the few avenues we have left to fleece Americans through a global corporate rape machine.
It's businesses like Walmart that can create opportunities for career growth and greater economic security for families." Until the money runs out, and its not. Then we dont give a fuck because we are now global.
"...and we respect their right to be heard, just as they had better respect our right to say YOU'RE FUCKING FIRED."
it has nothing to do with being global. at this point, even mcdonalds is goverment subsidized, because their employees can't afford to have a family.
and YES - i do know. those were jobs for a few months for teens, with one or two adults being the 'managers' and making an actually family can feed living.
but - there aren't any jobs. so - if you keep eating and shopping at walmart and mcdonalds and starbucks and any of the global corps - you are putting yourself and all your neighbors at peril.
the sucking at the government tit - and i don't even follow the defense contractors - jpm gets a fee for loading the snap cards, most of it spent at walmart, mcdonalds teachs it's worker how to get the various welfare programs - obama phones is loved by verizon and att. that's the dow maybe!!! no wonder it's going up. and it's not going to stop the free shit because those are obama's voters.
"...and an overall safer shopping experience."
And they expect us to believe anything else they say after that blatant lie?
LOL! higher-end of average!
What a laugh.
They think no one can even read numbers anymore much less words? Really?
Do you have any data, or just a dismissive attitude to back you up?
My daughter-in-law got her first job there, with benefits, making $11/hr with a HS degree and no skills. With no manufacturing jobs and not enough make-work government jobs, just where do you expect people like her to work?
Maybe you employ people and pay them well, but I doubt it. More likely folks that rail against low end employers also rail against the only industrial success left in this country too - the oil biz.
Re; just where do you expect people like her to work?
Survival of the fittest is a bitch when it applies to people you know.
That's what the folks that outsourced all the jobs overseas thought like.
I would not be surprised if there are quite a few co-workers of your daughter-in-law who paid good money to get a college degree hoping for better jobs and/or wages... now they have significant debt and few prospects to leave walmart.
The manufacturing jobs are STILL leaving the country for that 30 cents an hour labor elsewhere (but maintaining that American economy price of course). You probably know that until something happens with trade policy that enabled this disaster for US workers (Germany doesn't allow it), there will little to no socio-economic mobility for anyone including the ambitious. I read a 'success' story when I was in Florida about a walmart employee who went and got her 2 year degree (I forget what but it wasn't ethnic studies or anything like that) and so she was 'promoted' to being in charge of the card section and I think got 50 cents more an hour. Though that may be anecdotal case, we all know that is not what economic mobility is supposed to be in the so-called 'free market' model we live. The biggest problem on ZH is somehow ppl still think this is a 'free market' except for the enefits the bbankers got from the f'g politicians .... i guess the 24/7 'programming' has done its job wildly successfully.
it's not like we don't have a walmart where I live: no one there gets $11/hour, not one (non-manager).
That's because WMT goes to some legal team to fire nearly all of them for a "safe" reason. The remaining few are the ones that have not have been identified. You really think that the same company willing to write off a store or to pit its associates against each other is not going to find the legal way to do a prohbited action wrt criticism?
That doesn't mean much if the composition of the workforce favors a zero-benefit tier that requires government assistance(or in the case of Lancaster, OH, a food drive) to get by.
Given the push towards 29ers(and no subsequent redefinition of instant full-time status), that is some weapons grade bullshit. Those benefits are there to be quoted, not used, given the uptake in government assistance.The issue is how you're treated once you've started. Being treated well as an employee at WMT depends on two things:
1: You're not flagged to be terminated with a "safe" reason.
2: You're one of the few "Potemkin Village" employees used for PR purposes.
Regular employers (ones of the Northern model of labor relations) consider their employees as valued contributors to the success of the company. WMT, on the other hand, adheres to the Southern model of labor relations where citizens, employees, and government officials are to "know their place" - or risk being on the receiving end of scorched earth warfare.
"Regular employers (ones of the Northern model of labor relations) consider their employees as valued contributors to the success of the company. WMT, on the other hand, adheres to the Southern model of labor relations where citizens, employees, and government officials are to "know their place" - or risk being on the receiving end of scorched earth warfare."
Well, you just proved a previous comment I made. The Left despises Walmart because it started in the South and has conservative shareholders. Costco pays its cashiers $11.50 on average, and the Left never tells you how evil they are.
"The Left despises Walmart because it started in the South and has conservative shareholders. Costco pays its cashiers $11.50 on average, and the Left never tells you how evil they are."
Hilarious. Hillary Clinton was on its board of directors of WALMART for 6 years you moron... here is a picture of her in 1990 with the rest of the board on the 'leftist' rag new york times (another lie commonly believed):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html?pagewanted=...
Here, I got a truck load of blue pills I'd like to stuff down your throat and I know you'll gobble em up and ask for more ...
I said the Left despises Walmart. I didn't say they don't take advantage of it.
You won't be stuffing anything down my throat, asshole.
Southern != Conservative.
As for WMT, their practices only exemplify the Southern "know thy place" ideal that has existed since before the Civil War.
I have just installed the new bullshit translatation extension on my browser and the above came out as below.
"This has been our most successful Black Friday in Walmart's history, with customers being successfully duped, through marketing ploys, into thinking they have received bigger and better savings and an overall safer shopping experience. We're merely satisfied with of the hard work our wage-labourers have put into making this a profitable Black Friday for us , and we're pleased we can provide them with holiday pay equal to an additional day's work, as well as a 25 percent discount on an entire basket of goods for their extraordinary efforts which will see any extra wages earned return straight back to us. We love sly jokes at the intelligence of our employees like this!
"Black Friday is a a disgustingly manufactured orgy of mass consumption for the benefit of the flagging retail sector solely, and we're one of the biggest players in the retail industry. We're hugely pissed off that those trying to change our industry are using this platform to get their message out, and we are disgusted their right to be heard was allowed by a police force we expect to work for us only. We expect some demonstrations at our stores today, although far fewer than what our critics are claiming and with hardly any actual Walmart associates participating given the Mohawk Valley formula is as powerful as it has ever been.
"For our part, we don't want to be absolutely clear about our jobs, the pay and benefits we offer our wage-labourers, and the role retail jobs play in the U.S. economy. Walmart provides wages on the higher end of the retail average with full-time and part-time associates making, on average, close to $12.00 an hour, but we refuse to put any of these numbers in context and will always defer questions as to the size of Wallmart and therefore our own very significant role in defining the average overall for the whole sector. The majority of our workforce is full-time, and our average full-time hourly pay is $12.81 an hour. We are also satisfied that we can still make large profits given the level of the benefits we offer our wage-labourers, including woeful health care, performance-based and therefore non-existant bonuses, education benefits which can never be cashed in due to the hours you have to work, and access to a 401K, as a joke given if you can't live on the wages how are you going to save!
"Of course, we have entry-level jobs and we always will. The real issue isn't where you start. It's where you can go once you've started, which of course is nowhere but we'll always dangle the carrot for our horses so long as they're profitable for us. Retail is one of the few industries that has jobs at all levels and ongoing advancement opportunities which is only believable if you're the sort of person who believes in fairies and ghosts. Walmart promotes on average more than 430 wage-labourers a day, and by promote we mean move to another part of the same store on the same money, if not less. By year's end, we will have promoted 160,000, wage-labourers including 25,000 this holiday season alone. It's businesses like Walmart that can create opportunities for career growth and greater economic security for families whose surname is Walton."
They probably take out taxes on the 25% discount on the basket of goods too.