The walmart

[Epixstar]

what do yall think of the walmart. Ive worked there now on midnights for just over three years because there is no work at all in the detroit area at all. Ive been yelled at numerous times bye the local union guys for working there yet the union grocery store across town pays two dollars less a hour.Any other wally world workers out there? What does everone think of the walmart?

 

[TheBeast]

I don't like walmart as a company. They are a brute in the corporate world that is guilty of tax evasion and bad business practices. As horrible and de-americanizing they are, they give clothes and food to people who normally don't have it. Essentially giving a venue of opportunity to someone with nothing. I'm not a hippie, I'm just an extremely aware redneck who hates businesses with the sleight of hand practices.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I don't work there, but I recently heard a story about that sort of thing...

These two guys worked together for years and the one kept putting down walmart saying that they were getting rich by ripping off the workers and so forth (we'll call him guy1). Then one day guy2 came to work and found that guy1 wasn't there anymore, and everyone told him that guy1 retired. A couple days later guy2 goes into a walmart and finds guy1 working there. When guy2 said something to guy1 about it, guy1 says that he was all wrong, walmart is a wonderful place to work - everyone is nice, the pay and benefits are great, etc.

Unions had their purpose when they were started (and I'll probably get flamed for saying this) but I think they are largely useless today because they've become too political.

I got to watch a boss years ago chase a union recruiter off a jobsite. The guy showed up and wanted us to stop working so he could talk to us about joining the union. We ignored him for the most part and the boss came around the side of the house and saw what was going on and asked the union guy to leave. He refused and said that he had every right to talk to us and there was nothing we could do about it. My boss told him that the union guy was free to talk to his crew when we were done with work, but while we were on the clock, we'd be working and not talking. When the union guy started smarting off about it all my boss told him in no uncertain terms to get in his car and leave before he was dragged to his car and stuffed inside. The guy left. None of us had any interest in joining a union anyway.

 

[TheBeast]

Unions are useless. And as far as I'm concerned should be destroyed, and rebuilt, with intelligent people at the wheel. It's about security, not controlling the company they work for.

 

[scott5640]

i hate the unions. i work for the Atlantic and Pacific tea company(a&p). i make about 8 an hour. so i make about 112 a check every week, but with taxes, i make 70....so dont join a union!

 

[Great_Big_Abyss]

I deplore walmart. I believe that they are partially responsible for the economic downturn that we are in. How many things in Walmart are made in N.A? Almost NIL.

It's the one store where I refuse to shop. My own personal boycott. And I don't hesitate to let friends/family know my feelings.

As for unions. I believe they have their place. I've worked for unionized companies, and non-unionized companies. The unionized company was a far more satisfying place to work. Better take-home pay, better benefits, etc.

However, if taken too far unions can destroy their work place. Case in point: Look at the British manufacturing industry. Destroyed by unions.

A more recent example: The UAW. They are a MAJOR reason the D3 are in trouble right now. They need to cut costs, and the unions won't give ground. So what happens? Instead of NOT getting a pay rise, people get laid off. How does that make any sense?

Like I said, Unions have their purposes, but if they get too powerful, they just become self destructive. Something about biting the hand that feeds.

 

[Capt Jay]

To the OP.
I'm not a fan of Walmart. They do very little to support the American economy. All their products are produced over seas by slave wage labor. They pay their employees very little with little to no benefits. As for your working there, I have no problem with that. If there are no other jobs to be had in the area, a person has to do what they have to do to provide for themselves and their families.

As for you union bashers, try to think back historically. Not everything is as clear as what's happening today.

Do you enjoy working only 40 hours a week (average)?
How about 5 day work weeks?
Medical benefits?
All these are results of unionization. Even Walmart and other non-union jobs have benefited from the unions of the past. Bearable working conditions. Shorter working days, bosses that can't treat their employees like a commodity.

Some unions do protect some substandard employees. Unfortunately there are situations where the visual minority make a bad name for all the help that has been done and is being done.

As for the union coming into work to talk to you on the clock, this is illegal and he should have known this. They can speak to you on breaks or lunch but not when you are on the clock and supposed to be producing.

I am a union member. Our union (ALPA) has negotiated our duty and rest requirements. These have a direct impact on the safety of our passengers. Other things that we have achieved is maximum number of days we can work in a row. Drinking rules (number of hours that we have to have between any alcohol and when we can fly). Training requirements that the company has to provide and health care benefits. All these have an impact of the flying public. Do you want a pilot who hasn't had sufficient rest or been working 10 days in a row?

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I deplore walmart. I believe that they are partially responsible for the economic downturn that we are in. How many things in Walmart are made in N.A? Almost NIL.

It's the one store where I refuse to shop. My own personal boycott. And I don't hesitate to let friends/family know my feelings.

As for unions. I believe they have their place. I've worked for unionized companies, and non-unionized companies. The unionized company was a far more satisfying place to work. Better take-home pay, better benefits, etc.

However, if taken too far unions can destroy their work place. Case in point: Look at the British manufacturing industry. Destroyed by unions.

A more recent example: The UAW. They are a MAJOR reason the D3 are in trouble right now. They need to cut costs, and the unions won't give ground. So what happens? Instead of NOT getting a pay rise, people get laid off. How does that make any sense?

Like I said, Unions have their purposes, but if they get too powerful, they just become self destructive. Something about biting the hand that feeds.

To the OP.
I'm not a fan of Walmart. They do very little to support the American economy. All their products are produced over seas by slave wage labor. They pay their employees very little with little to no benefits. As for your working there, I have no problem with that. If there are no other jobs to be had in the area, a person has to do what they have to do to provide for themselves and their families.

As for you union bashers, try to think back historically. Not everything is as clear as what's happening today.

Do you enjoy working only 40 hours a week (average)?
How about 5 day work weeks?
Medical benefits?
All these are results of unionization. Even Walmart and other non-union jobs have benefited from the unions of the past. Bearable working conditions. Shorter working days, bosses that can't treat their employees like a commodity.

Some unions do protect some substandard employees. Unfortunately there are situations where the visual minority make a bad name for all the help that has been done and is being done.

As for the union coming into work to talk to you on the clock, this is illegal and he should have known this. They can speak to you on breaks or lunch but not when you are on the clock and supposed to be producing.

I am a union member. Our union (ALPA) has negotiated our duty and rest requirements. These have a direct impact on the safety of our passengers. Other things that we have achieved is maximum number of days we can work in a row. Drinking rules (number of hours that we have to have between any alcohol and when we can fly). Training requirements that the company has to provide and health care benefits. All these have an impact of the flying public. Do you want a pilot who hasn't had sufficient rest or been working 10 days in a row?

Walmart is not totally to blame for purchasing cheap goods from overseas. When the company was founded, it was to sell ONLY American made goods at affordable prices. Somewhere along the lines it got side tracked, and that was largely in part from this country's shift from a producer nation to a consumer nation and that the price of American produced goods is now horribly expensive when you can find them. Part of the problem with that is the fact that while prices for goods and services has gone up, most Americans are making less per hour than in 1980 when you account for the increased prices. And I think part of the problem that caused such a thing is the increased tax rates. It was sickening at my old job, if I'd get 50 hours of work a week in the summer, the taxes taken out on my overtime was absurd, it wasn't worth working more than 45 hours a week. And my tax refund at the end of the year was less than $500, even though I was losing over $150 per week in taxes. Insanity.

I'm not trying to bash unions. They did serve an important purpose. And I'm sure that certain unions are still helpful to the average person. But the loud ones that scream all the time to the news are hurting things.

 

[r1hatman]

Walmart Sucks! They have intentional shady management practices like adjusting employees hours if they have over time and telling their employees how to get on government benefits, and are one of the biggest environmental polluters in the US. All those chemicals they store in their parking lot break open and leak into the local streams. They know this and won't do anything about until they are threatened with a law suit. Not to mention all the toxic crap they import from China that is constantly being recalled! Bad business practices mean bad ethics. Sam Walton would roll over in his grave if he know what his kids were doing to his company!

 

[backroad101]

Unions are useless. And as far as I'm concerned should be destroyed, and rebuilt, with intelligent people at the wheel. It's about security, not controlling the company they work for.

Useless may be too much but for most unions I agree they should be "destroyed, and rebuilt" Unions were created to create security and far wages and now a days they are only about politics and controlling the company.

 

[superdave1984]

I do not like wal mart because they come to town and make it very hard on the little mom and pop stores. Plus their prices aren't all that spectacular.
As for unions, they revolutionized the workplace. But now the main thing that unions do is make the union reps money.

 

[backroad101]

I deplore walmart. I believe that they are partially responsible for the economic downturn that we are in. How many things in Walmart are made in N.A? Almost NIL.

It's the one store where I refuse to shop. My own personal boycott. And I don't hesitate to let friends/family know my feelings.

As for unions. I believe they have their place. ..............Better take-home pay, better benefits, etc.

However, if taken too far unions can destroy their work place. ....................

A more recent example: The UAW. They are a MAJOR reason the D3 are in trouble right now. They need to cut costs, and the unions won't give ground. So what happens? Instead of NOT getting a pay rise, people get laid off. How does that make any sense?

Like I said, Unions have their purposes, but if they get too powerful, they just become self destructive. Something about biting the hand that feeds.

Agreed!

A few years back the grocery union here went on strike. 3 chains, one union. One of their sticking points was that they did not want to have to pay part of the cost for their health benifits. HELLO, welcome to the real world! Who these day gets all of their health care cost paid for? So they went on strike and the customers said the replacement workers hired to keep the stores running were far nicer and customer friendly than the regular workers. To this day, when I go grocery shopping, I use the self checkout and bag my own stuff, no matter how much stuff I have.

 

[351Mazda]

I'm a union guy, always will be. I don't shop at wall mart unless there's no other option. There's a union krogers right down the street that gets my money. I worked there for 2 years and, although the pay is roughly the same, the overall working conditions are far superior. Breaks and lunches are on time, no forced overtime, scheduling rules the management must follow, benifits are better, etc. The prices for the consumer are similar to the wall mart still, so they much be doing something right. More expensive on some stuff, cheaper on others. Evens out in the end.

Currently I'm a union Boilermaker. I got into an argument at a bar with a Scab Boilermaker when he started saying that the unions were putting the country in the hole, yada yada yada. I asked him what he made, it was only a dollar or so less than me. I asked him why he thought he made so much, and he said it was because he knows his job so well. He just couldn't get it that his pay was similar to mine because of guys like me. Our journeyman boilermaker rate here in the north is almost triple what it is in the southern 'right-to-work' states. And guess what, the electric bill is about the same. Where do you think the increased profits go? Not into savings for the consumer, I'll tell you that.

For everyone that says the unions are what was/is crushing the big three in Detroit. Why would the unions vote to reduce their salary if the bosses were still making 5-6 million a year? Would anyone here tell their boss that he could drop their pay from $25 dollars to $20 dollars an hour, when the boss is still making 5 million a year? I'll vote to drop my pay when the CEO's drop theirs. That is why the unions are so important. Look at Toyota, it's a non-union company but they still have a similar pay scale? Last year the average Toyota employee made $6000 more than the average union big three employee. How is it then that the Unions are hurting the automakers that much, when Toyota can pay it's workers more. You think toyota pays that out of it's own free will? No, the union wages that are already in place in this country are the reason the pay is what it is. Source : http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/31/toyota-workers-in-us-made-more-than-uaw-members-for-first-time-l/

I meet people all the time that talk about how unions are bad for the country. I've never in my life met a union worker who said that, but I've met a lot of non-union workers that wished their buisness was union.

Sorry for writing a book.

 

[Capt Jay]

I meet people all the time that talk about how unions are bad for the country. I've never in my life met a union worker who said that, but I've met a lot of non-union workers that wished their buisness was union.

Sorry for writing a book.

I couldn't agree with that more.

If unions were suddenly all removed, working conditions would revert back to what they used to be. Do you think lowering workers salaries would help with consumer pricing? No way. I would mean more profits for share holders. People have to think about things in a larger scale. That's the problem today, people only care about themselves and don't give a damn about their neighbor. The benefits negotiated by one union helps all other unions by setting precedence.

 

[modelageek]

Today's unions have lost there way. In many ways they have become a cult. On the occasions that I have been harassed by them I always put the effort in to make sure it works out in my favor in the end. Unions need to look in the mirror. the Democratic party and Unions use to be for the "Working Man" now they are for the "Man that doesn't want to Work". The car manufacturing industry in the united states is doing pretty good under the circumstances that we are all in. Ronald Regan was a Conservative Democratic when he was 20 years old. He was a conservative Republican when he dies. His Policies and beliefs never changed. you figure it out