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WalMart Workers Take "Plumbing" Mystery To Labor Board
Last week, we documented the mysterious case of WalMart’s move to shutter multiple geographically distinct locations across the US for “plumbing issues.” According to the company, five locations need extensive repairs to fix “clogs and leaks,” a situation which purportedly necessitates that the stores be closed and all workers be laid off (unless of course they can find “placement” at another WalMart location).
That sounded suspect to us and our interest was piqued once we discovered that in fact, no plumbing permits had been issued for work on any one of the shuttered stores. Our contention was that the retailer, facing pressure to retain its “low price leader” title, may be using leaky pipes as an excuse to quietly close stores as it seeks to cut costs in the face of pressure on its margins from a recent across the board wage hike.
Once we dug a bit deeper into the history of the affected stores we noticed that one store in particular — the Pico Rivera, CA location — has been at the forefront of wage and working condition protests for the better part of three years. In fact, employees at the Pico Rivera store staged strikes, pickets, and walkouts in October and November of 2012, in November of 2013, and most recently in November of last year, with the latter episode culminating in the arrest of some two dozen workers. Furthermore, these demonstrations were supported by The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union or, UFCW, which coincidentally dealt the company a bitter defeat in Canada’s Supreme Court last year in the culmination of a decade-old dispute which began when WalMart closed a location in Quebec after workers voted to adopt UFCW as their representative.
Given all of this, and given the company’s efforts to cut costs in the face of pressure to raise wages for its low-paid employees, it didn’t seem entirely unreasonable to ask the following question: Did WalMart close a California store to punish employees who protested wages and working conditions?
Sure enough, the UFCW on behalf of the 2,200 or so employees that have been laid off nationwide is reportedly set to file a National Labor Relations Board claim today seeking an injunction that would require the company to rehire all of the affected workers and alleging that WalMart did indeed close the Pico Rivera location in retaliation for workers’ long-standing position on wages, working conditions, and, ironically, retaliatory actions against employees who raised concerns to management.
Via NY Times:
A group representing Walmart workers laid off after the abrupt closing of five stores last week planned to seek an injunction on Monday from the National Labor Relations Board that would require the retailer to rehire all 2,200 affected workers.
Walmart said that the closings were temporary and were prompted by plumbing issues at the five stores, in California, Texas, Oklahoma and Florida. Officials at the retailer said they would do their best to rehire the workers at other stores or at the five stores once they reopened.
But a claim set to be filed on Monday by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union with the National Labor Relations Board says that the closings were in retaliation for a history of labor activism at one of the shuttered stores, in Pico Rivera, Calif. The union is acting on behalf of Our Walmart, a group that has helped the stores’ workers air their claims, but is not a union itself.
The Pico Rivera store was the site of the first strike at a Walmart store in the United States, in 2012, organized by a workers’ group backed by the union. The strike was over pay and working conditions for the retailer’s hourly wage workers. Since then, store employees have led actions demanding changes to Walmart’s hours and pregnancy policies, access to full-time, consistent work and at least $15 an hour in pay for workers at the retailer’s 4,500 stores across the country.
“Walmart has targeted this store because the associates have been among the most active associates around the country to improve working conditions,” the claim says.
It asks the labor relations board to compel Walmart to immediately rehire all 2,200 associates laid off across the five stores, either by reopening those stores or by transferring workers to other stores without any loss of pay…
So again, we leave it for readers to decide whether WalMart — in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone by eliminating a "problem" store while simultaneously giving an incremental boost to a nationwide cost cutting effort —created a problem which didn't really exist as an excuse to shut the doors, or whether somewhere, deep beneath the now empty California location, the pipes are truly clogged up and leaking:
From WalMart, via the Times:
The retailer may decide to do additional work to remodel the stores, which Walmart called strong performers, ahead of the year-end holiday season. The chain said it had not yet obtained permits for the work because the extent of what might be needed was unclear.
From the UFCW, via Reuters:
"City officials in Pico Rivera say that nothing has been brought to their attention and no permits at all have been sought for any work.”
Meanwhile, in front of the Pico Rivera location...
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Meh, I would believe that theory if all of the other locations had protests as well.
probably just closing due to minimum wage increase.
jade helm resupply outlets.
I wonder if the Obama administration will rule against the rich white bidnussmans?
I thought they closed these stores because there are massive tunnels underneath for when TSHTF. Sounds like government. If TSHTF, don't you think Walmart is going to be one of the first places looted? Derp!
The guy that invented the razor would say that this is an easy way for Walmart to close stores without all the press about doing so, as well as the laws against shuttering a business. Yep, laws against that shit in the land of the free.
Maybe Walmart hired some fat people to fall down whilst they were drilling those tunnels underneath the place as well?
pods
... as well as the laws against shuttering a business.
If one buys into the whole "You didn't build that!" meme, it stands to reason that the government can force any business to continue operating. This is, after all, Soviet America. Logic has no place here, serf!
only Rayciss folks shutter stuff.
Haha, it's actually funny/Ironic if you think about it. Folks claim it's a shitty job for shitty pay, they get laid the fuck off and then bitch that they want their shitty job back.
Oh, well, those shovel ready jobs will soon kick in and they will all be singing "Big Rock Candy Mountain".
i thought you were going to end with something like....
the irony about those "shitty jobs" is they were lost on account of a "shitty" reason....there was "shit" clogged in their plumbing.
In the United Welfare States of Europe, it is almost impossible to close a business
WMT does have their own backup power plant at each loc.
martial law food distribution scenario? blacking out of windows.
canada closing way more target stores.
Nobody shops at Wal Mart where i live given all the options. Having said that I've been to the one in Tulsa and I mean the line was out the door.
Would imagine its true at the other stores too.
Those are not loss leaders I wouldn't think.
Just cut off the food supply? Odd way to run a business.
No, they don't. Why are you making up BS? I have NEVER seen a big generator EVER around any Walmart. The electric does not go out often enough to warrant including a mega generator in the building specs. There is nothing critical that needs to be saved if the electric goes out. Food spoilage is covered by insurance.
You find generators at HOSPITALS and other critical need facilities. Prisons perhaps if the doors require electricity.
Stop spreading your BS noob.
Noob? That's pretty funny considering he has been here three years and you 14 weeks. There are fishy connections between US gov traitors such as Hitlary the Chicoms and Walmart. Do some research before spouting off.
Wake up CLOWN BOY, length of participation on zerohedge has ZERO to do with the amount of experience and common sense a person is endowed with. Stick your non sequitur comments, where it doesn't shine.
Trolls are thick as thieves lately, but I repeat myself.
Hey PRICK, take a picture of a generator around a Walmart, and post it here. Prove that I'm a troll.
I responded to some jackass who thinks that Walmarts have generators in case the electric goes out.
PIECE OF SHIT, stick your troll remarks up your ass.
"I have NEVER seen a big generator EVER around any Walmart."
True.
And- that is the case with every major chain of stores nationwide.
And- they have no paper or other backup, no plan B- in case the electricity goes out.
Now- imagine what the inevitable EMP event will accomplish.
Chew on that for awhile.
ALL of their 5000+ stores have some generation capacity. Not necessarily "Big", multi-kilowatt plant, but certainly the capacity to maintain operation of critical systems in case of prolonged power outage. The insurance for loss of cold-chain product generally requires this capacity, and this is also the case for all the "Big Box" retailers.
When Walmart are looking at spending millions of $$s on their stores, a few 10's of 1000's of $$s for a decent but compact generator is almost a "rounding error", especially when the generator outlay is very rapidly recouped via reduced spoilage insurance / uninsured spoilage losses.
Same in Australia - every one of our Coles and Woolworths branches has some standby generation capacity, just for "Insurance" reasons. It also makes very good economic sense for retail reasons - when the local power "goes out", and Woollies / Coles are the only places with lights on, guess where people will tend to congregate (and do some extra shoppig whilst they are there)??
I have direct (USA) experience- the cash registers, payment systems, POS, etc are completely out of service during an electrical blackout.
This includes all WalMart, Target, Lowe's- etc etc etc- in the USA.
To my knowledge, not one of them has a plan B.
What are they gonna do when the electricity is gone?
Can their cashiers do math?
Even if you gave them a calculator?
Cashiers do math? - the horror!
I contract refrigeration service for many big retailers in my area. They all have generators for emergency lighting and for the cash registers. Wal Mart has special hookups outside the building to bring in trailer mounted generators when needed for extended outages. Like if a switch blows up, or a major remodel requires moving the main disconnect ect.
NO, they don't. When the electric goes, out they shut down. The reason being, is that lengthy electrical outages are not the norm, therefore its not built into the plans and specs.
Perhaps you are from some hurricane ravaged area that plans for these sorts of events? Certainly nowhere I've lived.
Were electric to be out in a widespread area, Walmart would have to compete for diesel generators just like any other retailer and would probably have to take back seat behind government requisition.
I think you're full of shit. Generators are going to be OUTSIDE because they run on diesel. The emergency lighting is from BATTERIES not generators ASSHOLE AND LIAR!
FWIW, they're also not required to have a smart meter like the proles.
Apparently for you, its completely inconsequential?
You are a weird, twisted son of a bitch that confuses membership on zerohedge with life experience? They are not one and the same asshole. Why do I have to explain this to you?
Alright screwballs, go to walmart, find the generator and post the picture and I'll apologize, until then, the previous poster was pulling shit out of his ass and you morons were condoning it. All FOUR of you.
Its going to be a very large boxy looking thing with an exhaust pipe on top because it RUNS ON DIESEL - GET IT? When the electric is out, you better have another source of fuel to generate your own electric.
The reason they do NOT have generators is because the frequency of power outages does NOT justify the cost of having one and MAINTAINING it which includes starting it on a regular basis and perhaps even draining the fuel every couple years. I swear, do most of you morons believe in chemtrails too? Go to Walmart, LOOK BEHIND THE STORE and see if you can find it. No, its not the dumpster and its not the big machine that compacts cardboard.
There are just as many IGNORANT, NO EXPERIENCE PEOPLE trolling here on zerohedge as there is anywhere else on the internet. I can be 100% right but as long as there are 4 of 5 jackasses giving me the thumbs down, then because of MAJORITY RULES, that makes me wrong.
0 (CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Obamacare facilitates the type of “liberation” that the “Founders had in mind” because it allows you to quit your job and become a “photographer,” a “writer,” a “musician”--or “whatever.” “As you hear from these stories, this is a liberation,” Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday. “This is what our founders had in mind--ever expanding opportunity for people. “You want to be a photographer or a writer or a musician, whatever -- an artist, you want to be self-employed, if you want to start a business, you want to change jobs, you no longer are prohibited from doing that because you can’t have access to health care, especially because you do not want to put your family at risk,” she said. The House Democratic Leader appeared alongisde House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), to celebrate the health care law that was passed two years ago Friday. Pelosi presented several constituents who told personal accounts of how the law has benefited them by allowing children to stay on their parent’s health plan until the age of 26, and ending denial of coverage for preexisting conditions. “How many people in America do you think have a preexisting medical condition?" Pelosi asked. “That is, they may have been sick when they were little, or they had cancer and are now cancer free, and isn’t that a celebration? “But you always carry the preexisting condition and the discrimination with you -- until now,” she said. “And we cannot let that be rolled back, that affects tens of millions of Americans directly and their families as well, so our whole country.” In May of 2010, Pelosi praised the bill in a similar way, encouraging artists to pursue their passions and leave it to the government to provide their health care. “We see it as an entrepreneurial bill,” she said at the time. “A bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care. You won’t have to be job locked.”
Mobile Creative for the MFW.
FUCK YEAH!
Subsistence is success! Poverty is wealth!
I let you know when I see old Nancy looking for day labor work down at the Home Depot.
It would have been easier to claim termites and just call it a day.
Would've been easier to spread a little bit of uranium -235 or plutonium -239 around the back of the store near the dumpsters...or imported some bottled water from Fukushima. Either way, that woould have given them a solid reason to close the stores.
Who's gonna get paid to do that job, you?
Oh, it may go deeper than that if one digs a little on Helen Walton's (née Robson) side.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
or ISIS staging centers.
Natural progression since Wal*Mart is a breeding ground for terrorists. If you're a typical Wal*Mart employee, then you're only part-time and have at least one other part time job, you're the primary income source for your household and still can't make ends meet and you are on some form of government assistance. In other words, most of the people working at Wal*Mart (with the exception of the managers) are miserable working poor with no possible future. The biggest two household expenses - housing and food - may be subsidized by the state but have not kept up with inflation. So you have to supplement with food shelf stuff. A giant 'fuck you' for anyone trying to better themselves or support a family by working.
If you want to see how bad it must be for Wal*Mart employees, go to one of the stores right after closing - when the employees are leaving. There's a handfull of junker cars that the lucky few have, but there's always a throng of Wal*Mart employees heading to the nearest bus stop. One of Wal*Mart's siting criteria is near bus lines that connect to the poorer neightborhoods SO THEIR EMPLOYEES CAN GET TO WORK. Yet Wal*Mart specifically avoids poor neighborhoods for siting - stores are intended to service the cheapest middle class consumers, NOT the working poor.
I would love to see the percentage of EBT/SNAP sales at the stores that closed. Once a Wal*Mart store demographics change and they get too many poor people shopping there, they close. That's exactly why K-Mart went belly-up. Cheap middle-class consumers have always been the most profitable demographic to discount retailers. Poor customers are not and never will be. Wal*Mart does not want its stores filled with its own employees - they're too poor to make any money off of.
Cry me a river. Back in the 70's I worked full time at McDonald's, lived a slum apartment with a roommate, walked, rode my bicycle until that was stolen (then took the bus), and lived on canned corn. While going to school full time.
Of course, I'm not a whining, low IQ ugly fat ass so I never complained. I was grateful for that job.
You're comparing your college job in the 70's with that of a typical Wal*Mart employee today? It never ceases to amaze me how psychopaths project their imaginary lives onto those of others as a 'standard' to justify any argument.
"...Of course, I'm not a whining, low IQ ugly fat ass..."
Hey, you forgot add 'female' and 'black/latino' to drive home your point about the ungrateful, stupid, ugly poor, Mother Theresa. Don't you wish you could just kill every last one of those bastards after a long torture session with a power drill and battery acid? You'll never have to worry about a job when the SHTF - there are armies of you that would work the FEMA ovens for free to get rid of the fucking moochers and ingrates.
It was HIGH SCHOOL - not college. I left home early.
And, having been poor, I know exactly what most of them are like:
lazy
stupid
ugly
fat
whiners
One slave looked down his long nose at the other slaves scoffed and said, "You people are worthless", and then the master came along and laughed....
"No, you are all stupid slaves, don't you get it? Now get back to work you chicken shits, the lady on the throne needs you working!"
There is only one way to beat every day low wages...... Don't work for them!
Likewise, there is only one way to beat the oligarchy / wealthy elite, Don't Work For Them!
You can't expect an entire town to stop working when they're barely making ends meet, let alone the nation next door full of people for whom a Walmart salary is a step up.
WalMart is building a 99,900 sq ft Supercenter (to get around zoning laws) literally 2 miles from another Supercenter to the north and one 2 mi to the West. One Mile to the West is an Albertons, one mile to the South is a Kroger, and one mile to the North is a Tom Thumb grocery. If WMT is so worried about margins, why build a store where all you will do is cannibalize your other stores?
Because the new store will ALSO cannibalize Albertons, Kroger and Tom Thumb. Once they go under, Wal*Mart can have plumbing problems at the 'extra' stores and close them. Now who has the only store around? Remember when Wal*Mart (and Target, for that matter) started asking for your zip code at the registers?
Wal*Mart and Target both use a similar scheme with a single store by 'upgrading' it after a fairly close relocation. Build and run long enough (a few years) to drive the competitors out, then close and relocate a Superstore a mile or two away in a higher traffic location. They'll just about always keep the old customers and get to add new ones. Both Wal*Mart and Target have an incredibly loyal customer base - they're just exploiting that.
Well look the big brain on you, bravo!
Wal Mart, The Waltons, their employees (most of them) and their customers suck.
I enjoyed when Aldi (who also owns Trader Joes) kicked the living shit out of Wal mart in Germany and WMT gave up. the good news is Aldi and Trader Joes are expanding rapidly in the USA and are kicking Wal Mart's ass again. Aldi/Trader Joes pay their people well.
The Albrecht family are not tribe members or Hillary supporters like the Waltons are. F them.
aldi sells crap for cheap but their refrigeration sucks, trader joes sells crap and charges an arm and a leg for it.
All stores have a loyal customer base, that's why you see them stay open while they remodel. (the biggest reason people switch is due to the store being closed when they expect them to be open) Target has just figured out how to exploit what the other reasons are.
The key thing to remember about Walmart is: Walmart is a SYMPTOM, not what ails us.
The banksters' ponzis and grift backed by their violence-puppets, government, are what ails us.
Eric Garner learned this all too well.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Of course because they hate us for our freedom and we need troops in Ukraine, but it would be racist to monitor our southern border.
LOL Jade helm 15 taking out walmart?
If you are gonna raise salaries at a busienss with three per cent profit margins, somethings gotta give.
Yeah, cry me a river.
If you plan to earn a living in Calipornia, you need a much better job than Wally Mart.
Get your feets workin'.
That's ChinaMart, get your lines correct...
If Walmart wants to pay people $1/day and people are willing to work for that, well, that's between them and Walmart. Anything else is meddling by nanny state pole smokers.
I agree, let them work for $1 per day. Stop giving them subsized health care, EBT cards, rent asistance, free school lunches for their kids. Maybe they can live in a cardboard shack behind wallmart.
I don't know if you can feed yourslelf on $1 a day in the US, but that's not Wallmart's problem. If these people have no other choice, that's just tough.
I'm sure the wallmart heirs need the money.
We subsidize Wallmart. Go USA.
Sarc off.
If they pay $1 the people will work elsewhere. If they can't work elsewhere they can't afford food. If they can't afford food, who's gonna shop at Walmart? I'm certainly not keeping them afloat when I shop there about once per quarter.
In Alberta, Canada, we have some of the lowest minimum wages in Canada. We also have the lowest percent of people earning that minimum wage. If you exclude people under 25 and wives with working husbands under 40, about 1% of the remaining workforce earn minimum wage.
If you drop the minimum wage to $1 here, pretty much everyone keeps going about their business earning their average of $20 or median of $14.
Off topic but related.
Lies, Damn lies, and Obamacare...
http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/20/incompetence-mismanagement-plague-californias-obamacare-insurance-exchange/
"...Covered California’s Lee publicly touted 30,000 successful enrollments for the first month. Hill says the actual number was closer to 4,000.
“A lot of the information that came out of Covered California was misleading or outright lies,” Hill insists."
That's an 86.67% difference between announced enrollments versus actual.
It is never "incompetence," no matter the IQs involved, but always corruption.
Incompetence is getting caught.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission
"They steal again what has been already been stolen."
That's why I hate the quote: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
The quote was probably penned in malice.
It's saying keep it simple silly, ignorance causes rage, and the ignorant rage without cause...
These employees aren't just ignorant, they have no cause...
Missed it by that much...
http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/HQoKaUaO_Pd3XPxT2ei.3A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3...
That's about the size of it. And he's no Maxwell Smart.
Off topic but related.
I have witnessed one positive development, directly attributable to the implementation of Obamacare.
It used to be that if you simply paid cash for medical services in the USSA, that the "rack rate" most doctors gave you was higher than what they would receive from an insurance company, so private market participants were effectively overpaying/subsidizing to make up for the crappiness of medicaid, medicare, and big insurance.
Obamacare is so crappy, that now doctors will give you actual discounts to simply avoid the entire clusterfuck, and more of them seem to be accepting actual cash than I remember a decade ago.
But WTF do they call Obamacare "insurance"? Obamacare is NOT insurance, it is cost sharing that insurance companies are now allowed to "share" with their customers. Insurance actually caps one's out of pocket expenses (up to a pre-agreed but rarely realized maximum benefit). From a banking/finance/insurance perspective Obamacare is explicitly designed to bankrupt anyone who actually gets sick.
All these programs including defense appropriations are about stealing and looting the Treasury. Govt programs are about wholesale theft.
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
don't jade helm me bruh
Moar cheap lrabor!
They'll be bringing in Chinese workers soon, pack 'em in with the merchandise; oxygen, 5 gallon bucket, melamime filled energy bars.
They'll have to learn broken English by the time they get here - using surplus iPhone 4's.
I give 0 fucks.
a place for you
in Walmart HR
I believe them this time. Mexican mamas are notorious for flushing shitty baby diapers down the crapper.
All cultures are equal; All races are equal; Repeat aloud until the basketball game begins.
Walmart in Mexico is much more of a middle class type of store than in the US
I'm the one that gave you the -1, not because you're incorrect, but to imply that would imply that Americans are significantly less civilized, lower than middle class, &/or below Mexico in some way...
I'm not a student of Mexico, never been there either, but something tells me they aren't coming to America for the art work, so your statement is largely impractical & biased to say the least... Moreover, if life is so grand down there, then why do people fear going back to Mexico so greatly? (I've been told by Mexican business associats that the police will rob you on the road, no BS about it.)
Plan B: These stores now have "reduced-to-rubble-after-nighttime-fire" problems that need to be addressed.
The lies are different at every level. Which one do you parse?
I thought they closed the store to convert it to an alien, reptilian, super secrect staging area.
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass
That's what they were.
Corp elites layoffs good.....people bad
After Texas-based Schlumberger Buys Into Russian Oil Firm……It Lays Off 20k People
Those employees obviously were making too much money. Worldwide labor arbitragers unight!
IIRC, Vanguard is the largest shareholder of Walmart, now. I thought the liberals loved Jack Bogle.
You might be thinking of a different chain. The Walton family owns the majority of Walmart shares.
Ahhh. Vanguard is the top institutional shareholder with 30%. The Walton family and insiders (combined) own 51%.
There are two sensible types of approaches to collective bargaining. You can either have a no holds barred, let the sides work it out among themselves policy or you can have a set of pretty strict rules for both sides in order to minimize the harm the conflict does.
We used to take the no holds barred approach. Unions would organize secondary strikes (where people also strike at businesses working with the employer) and general strikes (where workers at unrelated businesses strike). They were enormously effective tools in advancing the interests of working people, but they had severe consequences for the economy. Likewise, employers used some incredibly brutal tactics, like firing everybody who even mentioned organizing, spying on employees and firing any "troublemakers" who were trying to organize something, and even using violent crews of "strike breakers" to beat the workers into compliance.
We abandoned that approach with the National Labor Relations Act and decided to instead have a strict set of rules that the sides could operate in. Both sides gave up a lot of potential tactics, including most of their most powerful tactics. If employers are allowed to stop following those rules and resort to the more draconian tactics like this, then we need to let the unions off the leash as well. Maybe that isn't a bad idea. Ultimately, the short term negative economic consequences of some general and secondary strikes are not likely to be as severe as the consequences of inequality this extreme- http://politicsthatwork.com/blog/inequality.php
The INSTANT I upvoted you, at 0-0, a downvote magically appeared.
This is not the first time this shit has happened. I am beginning to strongly suspect ZH is as rigged as any other MSM outfit...by whom and why I dunno.
Anybody else notice this?
Well, thanks for the attempted upvote :)
I have seen that when I use a touch screen and my finger is too fat.
You only have one vote; it can either go for an uppie or a downie.....
But since your screen has not been refreshed for a few minutes, (while you sound out all the complex words of the article), other votes have been placed, just not shown on your screen until your next refresh....
Unless you believe your downie caused a building in NYC to collapse.... Then we need to move the conversation to a different level
UFCW IS THE FUTURE
Wal-mart owns the stores, and no matter how much people loath wal-mart they can close them down if they want. Suing to "make" them hire the workers back, well good luck.
Besides these folks all hate wal-mart, so go work in Seattle for 15 bucks an hour!
No, closing down a store to prevent its workers from organizing is illegal. That's one of the rights business owners gave up in trade for workers not being allowed to do secondary strikes and general strikes and whatnot. We can't let the businesses off the hook for their end of the bargain without letting the workers off the hook for their obligations under the NLRA too.
tuheybey loves the idea of using the monopoly of force of government to force private citizens to produce and provide.
Your modern day slavemaster.
Both sides are constrained by the NLRA. We could just go back to the no holds barred approach. I'd be ok with that. But we can't just continue to constrain the workers and stop constraining the employers. You need to go one way or the other for both sides.
Fuck ME. Happened again. Gave you (at 0-0) an upvote, and it clicked in as one green and one red.
WTF!!!??
Anybody else noticing this shit on ZH?
I just down voted you and it worked fine.
Uh, maybe that's the answer. Looks like we might have been voting at same time. Co inky Dink?
Yes, I just upvoted you and unfortunately you also got a down vote at same time.
Happens to me all the time.
Could be that someone down voted while you were reading, and when you upvoted it updated with your up vote, and the other's down vote.
You telling me there is more than one person reading Zero Hedge at the same time?
This would never happen on the CNBC site.
We notice you got a slow ass computer with dial up connection.
When skilled labor is in short supply, workers get to set rules. They can unionize, demand higher wages, benefits and anything their heart desires. When jobs are in short supply, management sets the rules. Currently there is no shortage of skilled labor, or on case of WalMart specifically, even less shortage of unskilled labor.
With profit margins eroding and automation creeping, nothing is going to change, unless a war breaks out and half of all able bodied men are shipped overseas to die.
There is not going to be any more demand for the WalMart grade worker and the more fight they put up, the quicker they'll be automated out of existence.
WalMart can close all of its stores or replace the entire workforce with conveyer belts. Doesn't matter. I believe they have the right to do whatever they want.
Well, regardless of what you believe their rights are, their actual rights in these situations are spelled out by the NLRA. Like I said above, if you want to repeal the NLRA and just let them do as they please, that's fine by me, but be warned that the workers would then be able to do as they please as well. In the end, the Walmart's of the world would likely end up longing for the days when general strikes and secondary strikes were banned.
tuhay I enforced labor for the fed for 19 years. Please show me the regulation where a business cannot shutter its store.
Your implying that Walmart shuttered the store because they are trying to unionize and yet it has never happened there. They have tried for years.
There is no law that prohibits a business from closing a store. Get your facts straight or get over your hate for Wal mart or employers in general.
Better yet head back to huffington post!
I think the point is that if the stores had a union in place then shuttering might have been a problem. Because they were never unionized, Wal Mart can do whatever they want.
Note: I loathe all sides in this including most of their fat and illegal customers who many are on EBT cards.
These wrokers, I am sure, voted for liberalism and now the cost of living is too high and they are mad. California ha been turned into a toilet due to liberalism.
Note like the stinking RINO NeoCon GOP-e is any better than the NeoLib Dems who love war and defense contractors just as much as the GOP-e.
Government worker for 19 years eh? NO wonder your comment was completely illogical.
Yes WALMART shuttered the store because there were serious union organizers protesting and picketing at those locations. However, it IS against the law to shutter the store if the reason was to prevent union organization THEREFORE we come up with the plumbing gimmick which is not against the law.
How did you get these things confused? There are no unions at Walmart because they NIP IT IN THE BUD.
19 years huh? Damn you're stupid.
You are most right, except the line about a war breaking out and half of all able bodied men are shipped overseas to die. Then they just hire women, dude. Check out WWII and all the Rosie the Riveter stuff. Was true. Nothing in Walmart requires a man to do...
(And there are all those poor/broke retirees...)
Beg to differ, Julia- You said; With profit margins eroding and automation creeping, nothing is going to change, unless a war breaks out and half of all able bodied men are shipped overseas to die.
Everything is gonna change, it always has. We are entering a stage in human history where the vast majority of us are at best redundant, at worst liabilities. Just 11 years ago, I needed 3 employees to run my tiny machine shop. Today, I do it by myself. I didn't fire anyone- they left of their own accord- I just didn't replace 'em. It's kinda lonely, these new machines don't have much personality, but they have zero drama. I'll call that a net gain.I have a buddy, owns a small auto body shop. Was himself, a full time employee and a part time painter.
He let them both go, posted new hours- Mon-Thursday. Turns off the phone Thursay night.
He said he never made ( or gets to keep) as much money, and loves the three day weekends.
Employees are damn expensive in 2015. It's not just the wages. They might as well be your children. .gov mandates and expectations.
You sir are a fuckwit. Move to North Korea post haste. It will be the land of your dreams.
Kiddo, that's fine if you wish the NLRA didn't exist, but to be mad that somebody is pointing out that it does exist is just stupid.
You sound like a bit of a Marxist. Funny thing you forgot to mention: When a store closes, they also lose their sales and any profits. It's an automatic self-punishment. The store was opened to generate profits. The workers are paid for their labor. If they don't like the pay, they are welcome to borrow $40,000 from the government, get a college degree, default on it and stick it to you, the taxpayer. Then they can take the Walmart management job they are now qualified for, and decide to close the store due to plumbing problems.
You know if you don't get hired over there @$15, they beat you up at the train station.
there is a walmart supercenter in my neighborhood, its located next to the RR tracks...should I be concerned if it suddenly closes due to "plumbing" issues?
WalMarts are always located on the wrong side of the tracks...
Raise minimum wage to $20 an hour, cut unemployment benefits by 10% a week till they hit zero and replace all striking/whining employees with robots.
in these trying times, let us never forget http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
Pretty friggin' comical in an Ayn Randish Atlas Shruggish kind of way.
Cue Will Ferrell and his crazy pills
and the West will Fall! Must Read Book!
MOAR EWNIONZ. FUCK YA!!!!
barry will be on his phone with his pen over this one - getting the Orville Redenbacher out again.
Those new Obama illegal immigration worker's will replace disgruntled Wally-World labor. Good luck communcating in English.
Walmart is partnered with DHS its probably some Jade Helm Spin off training thing where DHS scumbags use selected walmarts as a base of operations or some garbage.
Just what ruling do you think the NLRB will give in this Unrepresented case?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-ruling-forces-nlrb-to-scramble...
What a wonderful opportunity for the WalMart haters to put their money where their mouths are and open up locally owned and operated businesses to take up the slack...
Smartass! I think I like you...
I posted this same thing - almost word for word on another site.
I also added - they can pay the workers more & give them full benefits - provide better selection and customer service to shoppers.
The Walmart haters quickly pointed out that that was a stupid idea.
They will be able to experience first hand how much "fun" running a small business can be, and they can be assured that they will no longer face the problems of a "boring evening, nothing to do", since their "spare" time will be fully occupied complying with the mountains of bureacracy that characterises today's "Governence" obsessed small biz landscape.
Lots of "risk", for very little "reward", these days I'm afraid.
Heh, there is no mystery. The only plumbing they're getting is the walton family dick.
Fuck these union clowns, what about i'll close any store i feel like closing!
So what exactly is wrong with WalMart closing a few stores? For whatever reason. It's their store and if they decide the locals/employees/regulations are unruly or burdensome...shut it down. Free market capitalism is not always easy. Let the employees/disenfranchised shoppers band together and start their own store. Or, let the .gov step in and force them to remain open, for the children?
Hmm, maybe WalMart is testing the TBTF rule for retailers. Imagine if the EBT FSAers couldn't buy food withing bus distance. Riots, burnings, looting of TVs.
In a nation of immigrants specially from the south part of the continent things like these are bound to happen.
This is just the beginning of what I like to call NESU - "New Era of Socail Unrest".
I guess this also explains the deployment of the army and hit parades down the street of CA
Good luck guys
If Walmart wants to close stores for whatever reason including "retribution" that's their right, just as It's my right as a consumer to make my shopping decisions.