Workers unite against Walmart

[GoStumpy]

If you want better, be better.

I couldn't agree more.

If you think you're worth more than Wal-mart will pay you, prove it. Quit. Then go and use your worth to get a higher paying job.

[JLives]

It amazes me that people think being on welfare is preferable to working at Walmart or any business. Walmart is not the enemy - they provide jobs to people who are otherwise unskilled and unable to find work. People who have skills go elsewhere to work or use WalMart as a stepping stone to other jobs, gaining experience for their resumes.

People on welfare cost us all money - huge amounts of it. WalMart (and any other business providing private enterprise jobs) actually saves us from having to pay out all that money from the public coffers PLUS - the government gets to collect taxes from working people instead of paying out for non-working people.

Think, folks, think.

How bad was the welfare rate before WalMart opened when small business was thriving? I imagine it would be kind of like that without them. The only options are not WalMart or welfare. WalMart did not create new jobs that did not exist before they arrived. The jobs were already there, just spread out over several smaller businesses in each community with a more fair income distribution level.

The majority of WalMart workers do not advance very far because there are only a certain number of positions available, regardless of skill level. Aside from a few managers, the only people making a decent living from WalMart is the Walton family. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/1 ... 45086.html

[grammafreddy]

So minimum wage in other businesses is okay but minimum wage at Walmart is not?

Is minimum wage okay at Home Depot? How about at Canadian Tire? Maybe its okay at Save-On Foods? How about at the little Ma and Pop on the corner or at any of the gas stations or in any fast food restaurant?

[JLives]

Keeping workers systematically at minimum wage to near minimum wage levels while taking in massive levels of profit at the top is the problem, regardless of where it occurs. I support a fairer system of income distribution so workers can support themselves.

[WhenWhatWho]

Keeping workers systematically at minimum wage to near minimum wage levels while taking in massive levels of profit at the top is the problem, regardless of where it occurs. I support a fairer system of income distribution so workers can support themselves.

So, when does your Mega chain open to replace Wally's World. Nobody is force to work there and no laws are being broken. People sure are free with other peoples money.

[grammafreddy]

Keeping workers systematically at minimum wage to near minimum wage levels while taking in massive levels of profit at the top is the problem, regardless of where it occurs. I support a fairer system of income distribution so workers can support themselves.

Sure, Jenny.

In your "fairer system" would a business be allowed to raise prices to cover their costs of doing business? Or do you just want them to go belly up when they can no longer cover their costs? Your way will see a lot of small businesses go under in short order.

[Jonrox]

If you don't want minimum wage, don't have minimum skills. Pretty simple.

[JLives]

Keeping workers systematically at minimum wage to near minimum wage levels while taking in massive levels of profit at the top is the problem, regardless of where it occurs. I support a fairer system of income distribution so workers can support themselves.

Sure, Jenny.

In your "fairer system" would a business be allowed to raise prices to cover their costs of doing business? Or do you just want them to go belly up when they can no longer cover their costs? Your way will see a lot of small businesses go under in short order.

My fairer system existed up until about 20 years ago when the income gap started expanding widely. WalMart has only been in Canada since 1994 and rapidly expanded in the US in the 80's. You were alive then and already have the answers to your questions. It's not a pipe dream. Stop stealing out of the workers pockets for the benefit of a few.

[grammafreddy]

Jenny, people have always, since time began, worked for minimum and low wages. WalMart didn't invent that.

If prices at WalMart and all the other retail outlets go up because they have to pay more plus provide benefits and pensions for employees, how will that affect other people who are on welfare or on fixed incomes?

I'm pretty sure we will not be seeing governments increasing pensions to seniors or benefits to the disabled to match the increases the working people would get. How will they make ends meet? Or do you expect government to raise their payments to those people, too?

[JLives]

WalMart was one of the first to make it systematic. Minimum wage is intended for entry level. They keep the workers on low wages, long term, for the benefit of a few. There is little chance of advancement to higher income brackets.

In the US it is the taxpayers subsidizing those companies. The majority of the workers can't afford healthcare so they use the ER. They also use food stamps which is WalMart is largest recipient of. Why should the taxpayer have to subsidize a corporation so 7 people in the Walton family can be worth more than 40% of the country? It's corporate welfare and it costs a lot more than the regular welfare, the workers doing the actual work deserve that money. They don't need to raise prices, the profit is already being made but not distributed fairly. Why are you against properly compensating working people?

[grammafreddy]

Why are you against properly compensating working people?

Define "properly compensate". By whose standards? These are unskilled, untrained, uneducated and sometimes over-aged. Their opportunities for better employment are severely limited. Why should their employer make up for their lack of motivation or their lack of education or their lack of foresight?

If the minimums went up, all employers would have to increase the amount they pay their employees. Not just the lower wages, either. If the guy next to you just started and was making double your wages after you'd been there for 10 years, would you just accept that? Nope, you would not. You would expect your wages to increase as well. If the new hire got benefits and a pension, you would expect the same.

Other than increasing minimum wages, how else would you "properly compensate" employees? I really have no idea how you would do that. Legislate that all employers can only keep a certain percentage of their profits and make them divide up the rest amongst their employees? You can't just target the super stores - it has to be across the board - so how will that affect any small businesses?

Not everybody is a working people. And when you have people who rely on government hand-outs and get comfy, they get lazy and don't even remotely try to better their lives. The same goes for people who receive something for nothing - they just expect to get more for nothing, too.

Goin' fishin', Jenny. Society will feed me, clothe me, shelter me and burp me. And buy me a bigger TV, too.

[kompili]

The revolutionary promise of the 20th century was that workers would be paid well enough to buy the goods they produced-- creating an upward spiral of prosperity. But a new model based on lowering living standards is taking hold world wide.

In the United States Wal-Mart is more than just a participant in the low-wage economy: it is the most important single beneficiary of that economy. It uses its economic and political power to extend the scope of the low- wage economy and threatens to extend its business model into other sectors of the economy, undermining the wages of still more workers.


http://www.dsausa.org/lowwage/walmart/why_walmart.html

[grammafreddy]

Yes, yes, kompili, we know all that ad nauseum.

What is YOUR solution? How will you force all the employers (not just WalMart) to pay "proper compensation" to their employees?

Define proper compensation.

By whose standards?

Mine? If you wanna use mine, 90% of the people who post on these boards would be in trouble and they'd be getting a reduction in wages not an increase.

All this gimme gimme gimme is gonna come back and bite you guys in your collective *bleep*. If you are going to force employers to pay their employees more by curtailing their profits and their obligations to their owners and/or shareholders, then you are going to have to be prepared for a lot of employers to either go belly up or pack up their tents and leave - and take all their "properly compensated" jobs with them.

And then I really will go fishin' - but it will be because I am starving to death because there's no money to buy food. No jobs = no income tax = no welfare = fight for survival or die.

[Captain Awesome]

The revolutionary promise of the 20th century was that workers would be paid well enough to buy the goods they produced

Uhmmm...I must have missed the memo. When did it happen? I'm sure Boeing employees are *bleep* off at the moment.

[kompili]

China will soon be the model to live by, so get ready to tighten your belts.