Was about to defend Wal-mart, but.....

[EVT1]

www.today.com/news/wal-mart-defends-controversial-food-drive-employees-2D11618754

So I get it- a food drive for fellow employees in a pickle- a lot of companies do that- and I was going to let it go, but the corporate defense of it was that it goes to those with unforeseen problems- like a house fire or a spouse losing a job.  OK- but the most likely unforeseen problem is medical bills- and that company is pretty shitty when it comes to health insurance so the sign might just read please help pay the medical bills of Joe Schmo our associate that we were too cheap to offer decent coverage to. 

     Workers in need may have lost their home to fire or had a spouse who lost a job, or be dealing with "something else you can't plan for," Lundberg said. Last year, 12 associates out of the roughly 300 employees at the store received help from the food drive.

     “It underscores what the culture of this company is — it’s to take care of each other," he said. "That Canton, Ohio, store is an example of it

  Well of course, the workers have to help take care of each other so the Walton family can sit on 10+ generations of wealth they will never spend. 

[djAdvocate]

they take care of each other, to the tune of an AVERAGE $10.72/hr. 

convincing.

[Deleted]

I get really tired of hearing people rag about how Walmart treats its employees.
These employees are people who for one reason or another don't have the education to get better jobs. They should be thankful that Walmart is even out there.
Too many in this country seem to forget that it is up to the employee to accommodate the employer, NOT the other way around.
If you desire a lifestyle greater than what a job at Walmart can provide, then you need to find a way to better yourself, so you can find a better job.
Don't sit there crying because the mountain won't come to you.

[billisonboard]

Nov 19, 2013 8:29:04 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

I get really tired of hearing people rag about how Walmart treats its employees.
These employees are people who for one reason or another don't have the education to get better jobs. They should be thankful that Walmart is even out there.
Too many in this country seem to forget that it is up to the employee to accommodate the employer, NOT the other way around.
If you desire a lifestyle greater than what a job at Walmart can provide, then you need to find a way to better yourself, so you can find a better job.
Don't sit there crying because the mountain won't come to you.

Seems to me it isn't their employees who are doing the crying. It is those picking up the tab for the social services Walmart employees need to survive.

[Deleted]

Nov 19, 2013 9:15:29 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 19, 2013 8:29:04 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

I get really tired of hearing people rag about how Walmart treats its employees.
These employees are people who for one reason or another don't have the education to get better jobs. They should be thankful that Walmart is even out there.
Too many in this country seem to forget that it is up to the employee to accommodate the employer, NOT the other way around.
If you desire a lifestyle greater than what a job at Walmart can provide, then you need to find a way to better yourself, so you can find a better job.
Don't sit there crying because the mountain won't come to you.

Seems to me it isn't their employees who are doing the crying. It is those picking up the tab for the social services Walmart employees need to survive.

People need to find ways to provide for themselves and stop depending on others to do it for them.

[billisonboard]

Nov 19, 2013 9:39:52 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

... People need to find ways to provide for themselves and stop depending on others to do it for them.

Which is a reason I support unions.

[Deleted]

Nov 19, 2013 9:46:07 GMT -5 @patstab said:

It's just a bunch of Walmarts policies, I've had renters that worked for them.
Don't want them getting 40 hours a week, low pay, wanting them to work from what
I heard after they clock out.  I can't prove any of it, but they seemed very stressed.
People who were just trying to earn a living and nowhere else to even get a job.
It's called exploitation just because they can.

They are such a monopoly they can mow any competition down. 

From what I read the family controls more wealth then the bottom 40% of the
population in this country.  And the country gets poorer for it.

No one is forcing them to work for Walmart.

[sesfw]

Which is a reason I support unions.

When unions first came into being they were needed.  For the safety of the workers.  To force the management to treat people like human beings.  DH can remember when his dad had to wash his boss's car every weekend to keep his job. 

Now they have asked for and gotten too much so they are imploding.  It's called greed.

Too much you ask?  UAW had people going to the job bank and getting 100% of their pay while waiting to be called for work.  UAW had 100% health insurance for retirees.  UAW had committee men getting paid regular wages that did nothing but union work instead of on the line.  Their first priority was union workers, not their job.

I've seen jams on the line that would take one person with a long arm and two seconds to fix.  But when that happened the union rep was there demanding they wait until the 'proper' person came (30 minutes later) to fix it.  = 30 minutes down time and 30 paid minutes of a crew doing nothing.

Unions for a very large part have outlived their usefulness.  They have become too greedy.

Do I think WalMart should pay more than minimum wage for an unskilled position?  No.  If you want more than minimum wage you need to get more training to be worth more to an employer.  More training means you can get a job elsewhere.  WalMart type jobs are for the young, the uneducated, the retired.  The young are getting experience in personal responsibility, the retired need the job to supplement their funds.  The uneducated/untrained need to do something for themselves.  No one else can do it for them.  There are too many tech schools around, there is no excuse.

[billisonboard]

If only everyone trained to be high paid technicians, we would have a job structure in which the only jobs we would have in this country would be for high paid technicians.

[sesfw]

If only everyone trained to be high paid technicians

Allow me insert trade schools with tech schools.  I was a calibration tech .... and believe me I was not high paid.  My highest wage was $14.75 twenty years ago, and this was after working for the company 9 years.  But I was paid enough to pay off my student loans and support us in a LCOL area.

It was enough to fulfill our needs .... and a few of our wants.

[EVT1]

Nov 19, 2013 9:45:59 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 19, 2013 9:39:52 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

... People need to find ways to provide for themselves and stop depending on others to do it for them.

Which is a reason I support unions.

Yep- if you are anti-union/anti-living wage you must be pro-welfare.

No reason for taxpayers to provide a wage subsidy to Wal-Mart. 

[greeniis10]

As far as the original topic, if this was a collection to benefit employees then the collection boxes (or whatever they used) should have been accessible to other employees only, i.e. in the breakroom.  This should be an internal option: give co-workers the option to assist other co-workers, if they so choose.

Making the collection boxes open to the public was the error here, IMHO. 

[sesfw]

Making the collection boxes open to the public was the error here, IMHO

[justme]

Ummm...the second sentence clearly states the boxes for donations were in an employee-only area.

[greeniis10]

Then why the outrage?  Doesn't make any sense other than the usual culprit: pictures taken and posted that don't need to be made public.  People just need to keep their mouths shut and mind their own business.  If the employee who didn't "approve" of the campaign didn't like it, just ignore it.  The fault, again, is making it public simply because they didn't like what was being done. 

[Sum Dum Gai]

A business like Walmart has to figure that anything they do is going to be made public.  Whether it's in the break room only, or out on the sales floor.  They're constantly under scrutiny.  If they didn't want it being known to the public they shouldn't have done it at all.

[workpublic]

Last year, 12 associates out of the roughly 300 employees at the store received help from the food drive.

ok all you PBPs out there.

it was one store. it was done by Associates not management/corporate it's not company policy.

An employee at the Canton, Ohio, Wal-Mart store snapped photos of the backroom bins and sent them to the union-backed group Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart, or OUR Walmart, that has since circulated them online.

disgruntled? agitator?

[steff]

Nov 19, 2013 9:57:22 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

Nov 19, 2013 9:46:07 GMT -5 @patstab said:

It's just a bunch of Walmarts policies, I've had renters that worked for them.
Don't want them getting 40 hours a week, low pay, wanting them to work from what
I heard after they clock out.  I can't prove any of it, but they seemed very stressed.
People who were just trying to earn a living and nowhere else to even get a job.
It's called exploitation just because they can.

They are such a monopoly they can mow any competition down. 

From what I read the family controls more wealth then the bottom 40% of the
population in this country.  And the country gets poorer for it.

No one is forcing them to work for Walmart.

Someone has to do these kind of jobs.  Do they not deserve to make a "living wage"?  The shelves don't stock themselves, and everything isn't "self check out" yet.  So why is working at WalMart (which btw is a job...so can't say they are just leeches who won't work) something to be looked down on?   A snarky "is that all you can do & be in life? A WalMart employee"? just belittles & shames someone for having a job that YOU consider less than a career. 

We're always going to need WalMart employees, fast food workers, restaurant waiters/waitresses/busboys/cooks.  So why look down on them for having a job? 

[Wisconsin Beth]

and janitors.  Don't forget the people who swab out the bathrooms for a living...

[steff]

Nov 19, 2013 15:53:27 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

and janitors.  Don't forget the people who swab out the bathrooms for a living...

exactly, they are working.  Just because it's not a job we might do, doesn't make it or the person doing it "less than".  And the ones who do the best at these jobs are the ones we'll never see or be able to say thanks for doing a great job making sure the bathroom stalls were clean or for making sure the table I sat at wasn't sticky or that the dishes I ate off weren't dirty, or that the oddball specialty mustard I wanted was right where it should be.

[Sum Dum Gai]

These jobs will always be around, and somebody has to do them, however, that somebody shouldn't be a 35 year old with three kids that spends their entire career behind a register at Walmart.  I did my share of shit jobs as a teenager/young adult.  Nothing wrong with it, but they aren't a career.  If you want to have a real adult lifestyle you need to get a real adult job.  When you're living with your parents rent free, have no utilities, and free food magically appears every time mom goes grocery shopping than 20 hours a week stocking shelves at Walmart is fine.  If you want your own place, your own family, and your own stuff, you need to get a real job, and no I don't consider working part time (since most associates at Walmart don't get full time hours even if they want them) at Walmart a real job. 

It's an intro job.  It's your transition into the world of trading time, labor, and expertise for money.  You're supposed to get the basics down in a few months and move on to something else, or work towards increasing your skills so you can trade them at a better rate.  You don't stop at Walmart shelf stocker/bathroom scrubber and expect to make an actual living, raise a couple kids, buy a house, retire, etc.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 19, 2013 15:53:27 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

and janitors.  Don't forget the people who swab out the bathrooms for a living...

...and especially elementary school janitors.  After all, who else is going to clean up some little kid's throw-up in the school hallway? 

God bless elementary school janitors.  Amen.