Slashdot Mirror
Users Trash Wal-Mart On Its Facebook Site
hhavensteincw writes "Only two weeks after Wal-Mart launched its latest foray into Web 2.0 land, Facebook users have hijacked a page aimed at selling back-to-school supplies to college kids to instead post rants about the company's labor practices. Of the 100-plus comments, none relates to dorm decorating as Wal-Mart had originally envisioned."
2.0? They aren't even at web 1.0 yet here in Canada. You can't even buy stuff online in Canada, and they have only a few select items up on their website, not even close to their entire catalog. However, there is an option to add stuff to your shopping list, and print that out for buying at the B&M stores. Which is pretty useless though, considering the items may not be at the store you shop at, and like I said, the online product selection is maybe 10% of the items they actually stock.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Wal-mart isn't forcing people to work at Chinese factories. People are choosing to work there instead of dying of starvation and preventable diseases on the farm.
.. the person wouldn't have a job at all. Walmart is not causing them to be poor. They would be poorer without Walmart. I mean, shit in that case i am being coerced to work too .. as is Bill Gates and Donald Trump. To make a coercion accusation, you have to show that Wal-mart created the horrible farming conditions. Good luck, because those conditions have existed for a long time (people in China as recently as 1950 had a life expectancy of under 40 years .. and infant mortality was very high).
.. by your logic, do I have to pay them my whole salary for life? After all, the value of the doctors work is my whole life. Obviously, if the doctor demanded that .. I would have chosen a different cheaper doctor.
So it's work for walmart or die. I don't see how that's a choice. In fact, I'd call it coercion.
How is it coercion? They aren't the ones causing people to die. Think about it, without the factory
If someone is willing to do work for you for less, why isn't it moral to choose that person?
Because in this case, you'd be exploiting them by paying them wages less than the value of what they produce
Unless a person is being forced to work at gunpoint, that is impossible. Value of work is determined by supply and demand -- not anything intrinsic to the product. If there are others who are willing to provide a product for cheaper, I have the moral prerogative to choose the cheaper one provided by someone who is willing to work harder. The whole point of any work/pay contract is that the each person is choosing to work because they are going to be compensated equal to or more than what they feel the usefulness of their time/energy is. You can always choose not to work if you feel the deal is bad. So a doctor gives me a simple antibiotic and cures me of pneumonia so I live and can work
I work at WalMart now, I make 8.30 an hour. For telling you that I make that much, I would be immediately fired on the spot. There are about 7 pay grades, and being that I work in the Electronics department I am on grade 6. Each pay grade equals to about a 40 cent difference in pay. There are two departments that are on my pay grade: Produce and Bakery. Everyone else is on pay grades 1-3, they make around 6.50 to 7.50, and the minimum wage is 6.15. In each department there are between 1 and 3 full time positions, and over 5 part time positions depending on the size of the store. Benefits for part-time associates are basically intangible. Company policy states they are not to receive over 32 hours a week, they are usually given about 28, so they can't afford health insurance. And they have to be with the company for two before they are even eligible, full time associates are eligible immediately. My wages are capped at 10.00 an hour. I will never make more than that without a promotion. Promotions are generally handed out to friends of management. Why do I really evil though? Because on more than one occasion with more than just a few people (myself included), management has gone back to modify the number of hours recorded in the system that you worked. People have gotten fired for working overtime, when the only reason they had overtime was because management held them over working on something (unloading an especially large truck, cleaning an isle where some jackass dropped a 6-pack of Corona and didn't bother to tell anyone, running a cash register and never being relieved, regardless of the number of times they called management and told them they needed to clock out, etc). Or maybe its the fact that after all the years, not a single manager has come up from the bottom of the company? Throughout your orientation you are told that WalMart promotes from within (also that unions are evil and only want your money, but that's an entirely different subject). But I have yet to see a manager who has actually worked below their current rank. How about the "Open Door Policy" where all associates are supposed to be able to go to management whenever there is a problem, but how the door is always locked with paper taped over the window. People have been fired for knocking too many times when the door was locked and a customer wanted to talk with them. Also, my store itself has been robbed too many times to count. Not petty theft I refer to, I'm talking about men with guns demanding money or merchandise. Yet there has never been even the consideration to hire any kind of security to protect neither the customers nor the employees. Surely some part of the 80,000 salary of the BOTTOM rank managers at my store could be taken to hire an armed guard or something. But oh well, I guess I'll just suck it up and not starve and continue to follow the WalMart-provided pamphlets helping me get on government money just so I can survive.
I have seen at first hand the running of a 'Japanese' and a 'Domestic' car plant. The staff at the Japanese plant had much higher pay and benefits.
The problem stems from statistics, and how the numbers are played with. Basically in the 'west' retiree benefits are paid from 'current' income. In the past these 'western' companies saved money by failing to invest for the future benefits they contractually agreed too. They did this by setting up shells that actually gave the investment money back to the originating company This made the companies look profitable and growing, and raised their then share price. This sort of nonsense was encouraged by the markets and governments which fed back into the management which gave more of the same. Behind the scenes everyone crossed their fingers and hoped that growth would make up the difference. There were many at the time who said it was all a house of cards, but they were starved of research funding and quite effectively silenced. Now time has caught up with these companies and governments and they have to pay, which is then, by accountancy tricks, spread across the current employee base, making current employees look way more expensive and quite unproductive.
Contrast this with Japanese companies who invested for the future benefits with strict governmental controls on how they were allowed to do it. Now these companies not only receive income from the investments, they also have a much lower cost base as they only pay out for their current workforce which makes them look less than half the price and considerably more productive.
threadeds blog