Walmart workers plan Black Friday walkout

[ThrottleJockey]

To Walmart workers: if conditions are so bad, then quit and find a better job. Walmart only owes its employees a safe place to work and a paycheck for hours worked. Quit *****in' and be happy you aren't unemployed during the holidays.

Unionize, and your store (or your specific job function) will close quicker than you can say cheap chinese crap. I don't blame WM management at all for this stance. If your discovered to be organizing and/or salting, immediate termination. Good for WM for not caving to all the bad PR it gets for offering a paycheck with benefits to unskilled workers. I actually believe that WM helps our senior citizens in this country. Our ss system forces many older folks back into the workplace and WM is a viable option.

WM doesn't have benefits. Perhaps when Sam was alive, but not any more. They won't even hire anyone full time. You can't get more than 30 hrs a week until you've been there for at least 6 months and even then only the highest performers get extra hours. After a year you can get on their silly insurance that is pure crap and way overpriced, and you can't include dependents. We don't mind but it really ticks my wife off that we both work and struggle while these lazy fat sacks of fecal matter come through her line day and night buying the overpriced brand name crap with EBT and then use TANF for the remainder of their purchase....get help to their car and it turns out to be BRAND NEW often times still with paper tags.....It really does take the incentive out of working.

 

[BuddieReigns]

I feel the general lack of respect of retail workers by consumers and other fellow human beings is disgusting. That is one thing that a union can't solve. Also I think it's weird how people always seem to side with the employers from the get.

 

[snowrs]

My father worked swing shift for 30 years, many holidays were missed because he had to work. Never once did I hear him complain. What he did do is make sure his three kids went to college so they would not have to work 12 hrs a day in a factory. His kids are now a nurse, CPA, and an engineer. All of us get to have thanksgiving with our families. These people need to be thankful they have jobs and if they don't like it try and find another.

 

[RockofStrength]

I feel the general lack of respect of retail workers by consumers and other fellow human beings is disgusting. That is one thing that a union can't solve. Also I think it's weird how people always seem to side with the employers from the get.

I have respect for any person who puts their nose to the grindstone and works hard to provide for themselves/their family, whether they are a CEO, garbage man, or store clerk. The problem I have is when a person who works for a minimum wage job which requires little knowledge, skill, etc acts like they "deserve" a higher wage, better hours etc.

 

[northtownship]

.... just leave the doors open all 24 hours, and the registers set to ring up "special" prices at some set time? No rush, no crush.

That's how they did it in Plymouth last year. I was amazed at the amount of people that would get an attitude with the cashier because their product wouldn't ring up the sale price. Then the cashier would try to explain to them that the price would work at 5 A.M. and they would still be complaining and cursing about it.

 

[edporch]

I feel the general lack of respect of retail workers by consumers and other fellow human beings is disgusting. That is one thing that a union can't solve. Also I think it's weird how people always seem to side with the employers from the get.

This has NOTHING to do with any "lack of respect" for retail workers, or even workers in general.

The bottom line is, the OWNER of the business is the one who calls the tune because it's THEIR business.

The owner has the right to run their business any way they choose, and even to run it into the ground, because it BELONGS to them.

The ONLY choice we have as employees or potential employees is whether we wish to work for them or not.

 

[femurphy77]

The girlfriend and I have talked about setting up the rv outside the biggest walmart in Indy just to tailgate the event and the inevitable confrontations. Why pay big bucks for a WWE telecast when we can have front row seats to a LIVE P.O.W. (People of Walmart) event!!!!!?

 

[chraland51]

Wal Mart and their policies suck. Wal Mart has destroyed many small towns after running all the small stores out of business. Wal Mart has been welcomed with open arms by towns that mistakenly thought that a Wal Mart would turn the economies of their towns around only to have an abandoned Wal Mart store be the final nail in their casket. If Wal Mart employees are one big happy family as they try to advertise, they are a very dysfunctional family that I would much prefer to stay far away from. I rarely go into a Wal Mart for a myriad of reasons including crappy and rude service from apparently disgruntled employees. That being said, I do not have much sympathy for the Wal Mart employees plan to strike on Black Friday. I hope that Wal Mart fires them all and replaces them with a better class of employees. For whatever reason, you are working at Wal Mart and like it or not, you have to abide by their rules and job requirements if you want the pay for which you agreed to work. If you can not support your large families or whatever expenses you might have, get a second job and quit bellyaching. I do not think that the wages of a Wal Mart shelf stocker or a McDonald's hamburger flipper were ever intended to be ones on which you could support a family. Based on comparative worth, if you were to get $25/hour for putting merchandise on shelves or flipping a hamburger at McDonald's, then the guy who went to school and got a degree for which many employers are actually looking, should get $50/hour starting. Inflation would soon make that $25/hour worth the $10/hour where the cycle started in a few years not to mention that Wal Mart would have to raise its prices and loose customers in the meantime.

 

[Ted]

Those employed today, should be thankful that they have a job....but its not an excuse for an employer to engage in unfair labor practices either.

Unfair labor practices include that include not paying workers for hours worked; wage and position discrimination based upon gender; paying workers for hours worked with vouchers that are only redeemable at their stores; retaliation; et al.

I'm not a fan of unionization, but if an employer can't follow the law and/or treat their employees as human.......an employee should have alternatives to correcting the same, without having to merely terminating their employment relationship.

 

[edporch]

Those employed today, should be thankful that they have a job....but its not an excuse for an employer to engage in unfair labor practices either.

Unfair labor practices include that include not paying workers for hours worked; wage and position discrimination based upon gender; paying workers for hours worked with vouchers that are only redeemable at their stores; retaliation; et al.

I'm not a fan of unionization, but if an employer can't follow the law and/or treat their employees as human.......an employee should have alternatives to correcting the same, without having to merely terminating their employment relationship.

What's illegal about what Walmart's doing here?

Is it illegal to simply have an employee work on a day they'd rather not?

 

[sadclownwp]

This is one of the problems with the SS system, it penalizes women who choose to staty home and raise a family. If you're not working you don't build any SS history. You essentially get "zeros" for the time not in the workforce even if you are providing a valuable service which counts against the time you actually worked. And all too common is what happens to this lady, she's on her own and doesn't get jack. This part of the system really sucks and i'm as conservative as they get.

Don't have kids problem solved, then you don't need to stay at home raising them. If you choose to have kids, then you must accept the downside of having them too.

 

[Ted]

What's illegal about what Walmart's doing here?

Is it illegal to simply have an employee work on a day they'd rather not?

Don't you read the news?

Nearly 2,000 Wal-Mart Women File EEOC Discrimination Charges Against Retailer - Bloomberg

Wal-Mart Settles Employee's EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit for $50,000 - Latest News - Workforce

Wal-Mart Settles EEOC Suit Over Ethnic Harassment - WSJ.com

Wal-Mart to pay $11.7 million in EEOC gender bias suit | Reuters

 

[edporch]

Quote:
Originally Posted by edporch
What's illegal about what Walmart's doing here?

Is it illegal to simply have an employee work on a day they'd rather not?

Don't you read the news?

Nearly 2,000 Wal-Mart Women File EEOC Discrimination Charges Against Retailer - Bloomberg

Wal-Mart Settles Employee's EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit for $50,000 - Latest News - Workforce

Wal-Mart Settles EEOC Suit Over Ethnic Harassment - WSJ.com

Wal-Mart to pay $11.7 million in EEOC gender bias suit | Reuters

Yes, i read the news, and I'm not a fan of Walmart.

These complaints and lawsuits provide legal justification for Walmart's employees to decide they're not going to work on a given day how...?

 

[ThrottleJockey]

Wal Mart and their policies suck. Wal Mart has destroyed many small towns after running all the small stores out of business. Wal Mart has been welcomed with open arms by towns that mistakenly thought that a Wal Mart would turn the economies of their towns around only to have an abandoned Wal Mart store be the final nail in their casket. If Wal Mart employees are one big happy family as they try to advertise, they are a very dysfunctional family that I would much prefer to stay far away from. I rarely go into a Wal Mart for a myriad of reasons including crappy and rude service from apparently disgruntled employees. That being said, I do not have much sympathy for the Wal Mart employees plan to strike on Black Friday. I hope that Wal Mart fires them all and replaces them with a better class of employees. For whatever reason, you are working at Wal Mart and like it or not, you have to abide by their rules and job requirements if you want the pay for which you agreed to work. If you can not support your large families or whatever expenses you might have, get a second job and quit bellyaching. I do not think that the wages of a Wal Mart shelf stocker or a McDonald's hamburger flipper were ever intended to be ones on which you could support a family. Based on comparative worth, if you were to get $25/hour for putting merchandise on shelves or flipping a hamburger at McDonald's, then the guy who went to school and got a degree for which many employers are actually looking, should get $50/hour starting. Inflation would soon make that $25/hour worth the $10/hour where the cycle started in a few years not to mention that Wal Mart would have to raise its prices and loose customers in the meantime.

You started to make a good point here but stopped just short of it. A mom and pop store can STILL make it but they have to do so by taking advantage of what walmart has done. Walmart has run most of them out of business as well as many manufacturers but wallyworld doesn't carry everything people want, selection is rather limited. A mom and pop can carry the items or brands that wallyworld doesn't stock and people will come. Walmart also destroys brand value. Let's take John Deer as an example (I know this is more of a home depot issue but the same principle) For decades people have associated John Deer with lawnmowers that will last 50+ years without issue. Now Home depot wants to carry their mowers but won't pay what they cost. The manufacturer has two choices 1) don't sell mowers at depot and lose all the sales of mowers to other manufacturers or 2) make the product cheaper and less reliable to get the sales. Either way is a death blow, if they don't sell to depot, they go out of business because they lose all their sales, if they DO sell to depot, they go out of business because their brand value has deteriorated to the same level of whatever other garbage mowers were already on the market at depot.

I recall wanting to buy squirt guns for my kids one summer and couldn't find them ANYWHERE. Walmart at that point had a policy of not selling toys that look like guns and thus no one even made squirtguns anymore (at least they weren't readily avail) because walmart wouldn't sell them. I couldn't find them anywhere in Minneapolis. Now if a mom and pop found a manufacturer that made squirtguns, they would have no problem selling them. Problem being, if they can't sell a product to walmart, they just quit making it.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

My father worked swing shift for 30 years, many holidays were missed because he had to work. Never once did I hear him complain. What he did do is make sure his three kids went to college so they would not have to work 12 hrs a day in a factory. His kids are now a nurse, CPA, and an engineer. All of us get to have thanksgiving with our families. These people need to be thankful they have jobs and if they don't like it try and find another.

You're right about being thankful.

But this part made me chuckle a bit as it hit kinda close to home.

 

[snowrs]

You're right about being thankful.

But this part made me chuckle a bit as it hit kinda close to home.

Yeah I am a design engineer, and do spend a lot of time on our floor but I am not working on the plant floor. Really anymore I spend most of my time managing, There were a lot of longer days early in my career. I wouldn't trade what I do for a living though for the guys that actually have to work out on the floor.

 

[Classic]

Walmart doesn't "run" anyone out of business. The local consumers do it for them.

 

[RockofStrength]

Walmart doesn't "run" anyone out of business. The local consumers do it for them.

Them and the manufacturers/investors. Investors look at a Wal-Mart type good/product and ask "so, you in Wal-Mart?" If the product isn't at least capable of being sold there, investors don't have much reason to get involved most times. Wal-Mart is a freaking miracle of distribution in their own right, so a lot of inventors have to curb their ingenuity and focus on the Mighty Mart's demands.

 

[miguel]

Damn, and we have probably hit the limit on H1Bs for 2012...

 

[Ted]

Yes, i read the news, and I'm not a fan of Walmart.

These complaints and lawsuits provide legal justification for Walmart's employees to decide they're not going to work on a given day how...?

Wal-Mart employees still possess the right to make an informed decision and act upon it......regardless of any perceived justification.

Though they still have to live with the consequences of doing so.