How do you assholes want it? You biatch and moan about a lot of these same people being on welfare, then you want to put them down for standing up for themselves and demanding livable wages. Oooh, please someone save the multi-billion dollar corporation! They shouldn't have to pay their employees anymore because they are worthless pieces of shiat that knew what they were getting into. Give me a farking break.

DubtodaIll: When did we pass the place where the employees of a company, no matter the size, are not looked after by their employer in America? The primary pillar that Capitalism stood on during the Cold War is that the workers are treated well in trade for a job well done. I suppose the demands of a job at Wal-Mart are not all that demanding and hardly fulfilling for a full-realized human being but there is still work to be done to satisfy the demands of the American consumer in the ever-lasting battle towards the bottom of the barrel of prices. Even so, the more we demand out of one sack of meat at the lowest level of competent employment the further away from the shining star we hope to become we venture.
I'm all for it. If there's a large amount of participation in the strike the harder it will be to fill those vacated man hours in such a limited amount of time, thus giving higher ups pause against driving the line so hard. Also people freaking shopping during a freaking holiday of thanks makes me sad to live amongst them.

/man that was a good j

Jan 20th, 1981 was the exact date that hard work and loyalty stopped being valued by the private sector

TiiiMMMaHHH: The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:

We should be demanding similar requirements for every human on this Earth.

Good for the WM employees for getting together to do this.

I'm sure walmart is really struggling in this economy.
What's that you say? No way. Really?
Ok.
I'll just leave this here:
Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 percent of Americans
Well, goodness, it's true.
snip:
No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion
No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion
No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion
No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion
No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

That's a grand total of $102.7 billion for the whole family.

Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons' cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons' wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons' share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families.

Walmart can afford raises for everyone.

Howlin Mad Murphy: How do you assholes want it? You biatch and moan about a lot of these same people being on welfare, then you want to put them down for standing up for themselves and demanding livable wages. Oooh, please someone save the multi-billion dollar corporation! They shouldn't have to pay their employees anymore because they are worthless pieces of shiat that knew what they were getting into. Give me a farking break.

It's a sickness. They feel subservient and unappreciated in their own lives, probably with good reason. So they search desperately to identify with the "oppressor" in situations like this, hoping that it will result in a class of people even more oppressed and broken than they are. Compassion is a gift that not everyone receives.

HotIgneous Intruder: sethen320: I wish we didn't even need to have these kinds arguments.

I think as a country a lot of us have forgotten that there is a difference between what's legally OK and what's morally right. This seems to be the root of a lot of or problems and disagreements, at least in my opinion it is.

You're spot on.
It began when presidential candidate George Bush I walked off the interview with Dan Rather because Rather dared ask his majesty about Iran-Contra. Right then and there, I realized we were dealing with people who would didn't give a shiat about doing the right thing and that they obviously thought the rules didn't apply to them. They may have been (barely) limited by laws, but anything not explicitly prohibited by law was possible, no matter what the moral implications of right or wrong. Bush One just continued the Reagan shenanigans except badly and suffered the crashing economy that was the Gipper legacy. Clinton rode the dot-com bubble to fame, then up stepped Junior, even more amoral than his daddy. eight years of his psychodrama nearly wrecked the nation, leaving it more divided and weakened than ever before, with wages depressed and economic equality at record disparity. Along the way, we became a nation of grifters and takers arguing with those still possessing a shred of social conscience while we all became poorer. The poorer we became, the more frightened we became and the more the polarized sides lashed out at each other. A meteor strike would be a gift.

Good thoughts, but I don't agree with the meteor strike thing :) I also think this is a problem which plagues both right and left, though the right is definitely more prone to this behavior. It's greed pure and simple.

I know it sounds silly but I think a lot of it comes down to the way we run our stock market. Right now people invest in stocks in a way not originally intended. Everyone wants to flip them. They want to buy at $20 and sell at $40. They are not interested in dividends or profit sharing. Originally stocks were about reaping some of the income of the company you helped to build through investment. Because people are really only interested in the paper value of the stock which they are looking to flip at any time, they demand higher and higher profits quarter after quarter. This means they are expecting infinite growth, which is impossible to sustain, regardless of what type of government you have. This shareholder expectation of "more more more" causes CEOs and boards to make decisions to increase the bottom line as much as possible constantly because simply making a shiat ton of money every year is not enough. Now they must make the same shiat ton of money + an additional 50% because that's what the shareholders demand. And if they don't make it then they will be voted out. This leads to ammoral decisions by officers which eventually trickles down to managers, who (in fear of their jobs) enforce them.

Basically our motto is "You're not successful unless you're more sucessful than last year". It doesn't matter if you make way more money than you ever expected. You must always make at least that much again + more, or you are running at a loss as far as shareholders are concerned. This is so messed up because in the end everyone eventually gets screwed. You cannot possibly make more than you did last time forever.

LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

How about send WalMart a bill for all the food assistance and other assistance their employees get because they're not paid enough to make it without the assistance?

sethen320: Them's revolution words.

We're already at banana republic levels of wealth disparity in the US. We have people that will defend the rights of billionaires to pay ridiculously low tax rates, but when the employees of the billionaires ask for healthcare or a living wage they have no rights at all.

So, who ends up paying for healthcare for WalMart employees? We do. Walmart employees qualify for medicaid because their billionaire bosses, whose wealth is greater than that of the bottom 123,500,000 Americans combined, won't pay their employees a living wage or provide healthcare.

You can't run a society the way we have been doing for the last 30 years and not expect it to break at some point.

HotIgneous Intruder: I'm sure walmart is really struggling in this economy.
What's that you say? No way. Really?
Ok.
I'll just leave this here:
Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 percent of Americans
Well, goodness, it's true.
snip:
No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion
No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion
No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion
No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion
No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

That's a grand total of $102.7 billion for the whole family.

Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons' cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons' wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons' share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families.

Walmart can afford raises for everyone.

Doesn't matter. You can cite things like this all day and assholes like this thread's merry band of trolls will still lick the Walton heir's taints. We're Amurricans - no one can be too rich and any amount of employee abuse is perfectly OK because, by golly, they chose the work there.

When I hear shiat like this it pisses me off so much I'm ready to to go heads-on spikes. The billionaires and their white knights right next to them.

I wish we didn't even need to have these kinds arguments.

I think as a country a lot of us have forgotten that there is a difference between what's legally OK and what's morally right. This seems to be the root of a lot of or problems and disagreements, at least in my opinion it is.

Hunter_Worthington: oh,I know. they'll bring the same high quality employees and world class output they bring to the U.S. Public Education system.

//if I wanted to sit around all day going nowhere, I'd be a public school teacher
//those that can do, those that can't teach
// -Hunter, what about those who can't teach?
//good question. They become lobbyists. See teachers, you're not at the bottom of the food chain after all.

Hey look! Another HerpAderp that hates education! You have never worked as hard as a teacher and you never will. Not a teacher but I know a few. Most personal time consuming, thankless job that there is. Mostly because of fark-nuts like yourself.

Silly Jesus: No, derpy-doo. Standing in a doorway and saying hello to everyone is in no way deserving of $12 / hour + benefits. No matter how much the boss makes.

Troll. When you get middle aged and the workforce disposes of you for a cheaper kid and you can't find a job, you'll be glad to do that derpy work.
Karma's a batch who never sleeps.
Rest well in the hell you've helped create, Amerikun.

I worked at Walmart while in college. Granted, a lot of my coworkers struggled with basic language arts, let alone what a second grader would consider kiddie math. I can honestly say that Walmart pays its employees just enough to shop at Walmart. Even if you make "manager", they're always p****ed off because they are moved around so much between stores that they are more worried about meeting corporate numbers than developing their subordinates.

Genius business plan; but has to fail at some point. Maybe this is that point?

Good on them.

Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

OK Mr. Romney...the election is over. You lost. Now go to the 1/12 of your homes...

ox45tallboy: I don't think it will ever come to making Union organizers disappear again, like what used to happen.

Still does.
And it can still happen here.
Look at austerity. A policy intentionally used to drain the coffers of third world resources towards the first world and away from their own citizens through causing a perpetual debt cycle under the old contract morality and the same old "economic" "moral" justification for violence, debt. The IMF works like the mafia. If we can make onlookers/the victims feel that they owed you something, everybody goes "well they had it coming".
And now they're eating their own and touching traditionally untouched "Western" or "first world" places in Europe. The Zapatistas, Iceland, and Argentina were all somewhat successful in telling them to fark off, so they don't get much coverage.
But don't think for a second there aren't a bunch of neoliberals who wouldn't gladly turn us into Pinochet's Chile if they thought they could.

ox45tallboy: I guess that's what it comes down to, some people, including myself, would still have sympathy for our common man, even if he was dumb enough to hit himself with the hammer. Some people would lock them in a warehouse. You sir, are unsympathetic.

Great Janitor: There are things that I do sympathize with. Someone gets rear ended in a car wreck by a drunk driver, yes I'm going to feel sympathy for the victims of that wreck. Someone does something of their own freewill and suffers, I'm not going to feel bad. My sister's mother in law died from emphysema and when my sister's husband told me, my response was to say "Pity she made the choice to smoke all those cigarettes."


Ah, yes. The dreaded just-world fallacy.

Lerner's inquiry was influenced by repeatedly witnessing the tendency of observers to blame victims for their suffering. During his clinical training as a psychologist, he observed treatment of mentally ill persons by the health care practitioners with whom he worked. Though he knew them to be kindhearted, educated people, they blamed patients for their own suffering. He also describes his surprise at hearing his students derogate the poor, seemingly oblivious to the structural forces that contribute to poverty. In a study he was doing on rewards, he observed that when one of two men was chosen at random to receive a reward for a task, observers' evaluations were more positive for the man who had been randomly rewarded than for the man who did not receive a reward. Existing social psychological theories, including cognitive dissonance, could not fully explain these phenomena. The desire to understand the processes that caused these observed phenomena led Lerner to conduct his first experiments on what is now called the just world hypothesis.

You can read up on it, but it basically boils down to "I don't want to live in a world where bad things happen to good people, so I'll refuse to believe that I do, in fact, live in such a world."

Fade2black: Not everybody needs an economics class to understand that if you jump up every single "no training required" job to "gainfully employed" that it would collapse the economy.

one of the things Richard Nixon wanted to introduce was a living wage law. Let that sink in for a while.

Fark Me Runnin: If it sucks so badly to work there, farking quit. Dumbasses.

Of course, if you walk out on black friday, you might not have to.

Most of the walmart employees I've encountered wouldn't even be worth $1.25 an hour. They act like the world owes them.

Hey look! It's another person who has never worked retail!

The Internationale

Go WallyWorld workers...anyone that has to do the farking Walmart cheer deserves $12/hr.

sethen320: I wish we didn't even need to have these kinds arguments.

I think as a country a lot of us have forgotten that there is a difference between what's legally OK and what's morally right. This seems to be the root of a lot of or problems and disagreements, at least in my opinion it is.

You're spot on.
It began when presidential candidate George Bush I walked off the interview with Dan Rather because Rather dared ask his majesty about Iran-Contra. Right then and there, I realized we were dealing with people who would didn't give a shiat about doing the right thing and that they obviously thought the rules didn't apply to them. They may have been (barely) limited by laws, but anything not explicitly prohibited by law was possible, no matter what the moral implications of right or wrong. Bush One just continued the Reagan shenanigans except badly and suffered the crashing economy that was the Gipper legacy. Clinton rode the dot-com bubble to fame, then up stepped Junior, even more amoral than his daddy. eight years of his psychodrama nearly wrecked the nation, leaving it more divided and weakened than ever before, with wages depressed and economic equality at record disparity. Along the way, we became a nation of grifters and takers arguing with those still possessing a shred of social conscience while we all became poorer. The poorer we became, the more frightened we became and the more the polarized sides lashed out at each other. A meteor strike would be a gift.

Remember when $250,000/yr was hardly any money at all, certainly not enough to be considered "rich"?

Now, apparently, $25,000/yr is living pretty high on the hog!

Silly Jesus: HotIgneous Intruder: I'm sure walmart is really struggling in this economy.
What's that you say? No way. Really?
Ok.
I'll just leave this here:
Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 percent of Americans
Well, goodness, it's true.
snip:
No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion
No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion
No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion
No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion
No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

That's a grand total of $102.7 billion for the whole family.

Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons' cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons' wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons' share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families.

Walmart can afford raises for everyone.

The CEO of my company has oodles of money. Do I deserve more of it just because he has lots of it?

That's some pretty derpy reasoning there, Lou.

No.
Actually, that proves that they aren't hurting for money and they can afford to pay the employees who made them filthy rich better than subsistence wages, plus provide health insurance.
There's no excuse for such insanely wealthy people not to have a social conscience.

You obviously missed the magnitude of those figures and have no functional understanding of economics, troll.

Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

It's hard to "love" a place that locks people in at night and refuses to pay them, let alone pay them needed overtime.

But hey, keep on being clueless, we need people like that here on Fark.

When did we pass the place where the employees of a company, no matter the size, are not looked after by their employer in America? The primary pillar that Capitalism stood on during the Cold War is that the workers are treated well in trade for a job well done. I suppose the demands of a job at Wal-Mart are not all that demanding and hardly fulfilling for a full-realized human being but there is still work to be done to satisfy the demands of the American consumer in the ever-lasting battle towards the bottom of the barrel of prices. Even so, the more we demand out of one sack of meat at the lowest level of competent employment the further away from the shining star we hope to become we venture.
I'm all for it. If there's a large amount of participation in the strike the harder it will be to fill those vacated man hours in such a limited amount of time, thus giving higher ups pause against driving the line so hard. Also people freaking shopping during a freaking holiday of thanks makes me sad to live amongst them.

/man that was a good j

Good luck to them, although huge corporations like this generally don't give a rats ass about the workers, they just care about the bottom line. But i do wish them well. They should really unionize and actually have some bargaining power.

EVERYBODY PANIC: Testiclaw: TiiiMMMaHHH: The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:

We should be demanding similar requirements for every human on this Earth.

Good for the WM employees for getting together to do this.

You mean, mean guy Testiclaw. We should demand, DEMAND! that everybody on earth be given, not a tolerable wage of perhaps $25,000 as you propose, but a fortune of, say, *puts pinkie to side of lip* ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

Yes this proposal sounds crazy to some, and yes I'm just having fun with you over this, but please explain in your wisdom what makes my evil plan any different from yours, save by degree? And oh yes, also tell us EXACTLY WHO is to 'provide' all of this largess to the nonproductive people of the world.

This I gotta hear.

If everyone worked fo 25k a year, then 25k would be the new starvation wage. Raise wages without raising means and resouces, and it only serves to inflate the dollar.

Silly Jesus: Sergeant Grumbles: Fade2black: Is there a reason why Wal-Mart should pay a wage to employees that would count as gainfully employed? You haven't explained the repercussions when wages go up dollars an hour, to the product they sell or the services they give. Wages go up, cost goes up. Nothing of value was gained except you might feel better about yourself when you go home after your shift.

Raising the pay of Wal-Mart's U.S. workers to a minimum of $12 an hour would lift many out of poverty, reduce their reliance on public assistance, and cost the average consumer, at most, $12.49 a year.

Is there some reason working for Wal-Mart need not be gainful employment besides your opinion of what counts as work?

Why not pay them all $50,000 a year. That would only cost everyone $20 a year. Why not pay them all $100,000 a year? That would cost everyone less than $100 a year. How do you choose the appropriate pay?



Consider this. Walmart makes $15 billion in profit each year. Walmart employees consume $3 billion in government welfare each year.

How about they take a tiny hit off of profit to pay their employees enough to not need welfare, for a start? The employees are each contributing towards the GDP fraction that is being generated, but they are not receiving any of it. It's wage theft, plain and simple.

I'm not entirely sure of it being the first one:

Wal-Mart to close unionized Quebec store

Aside: The only people to utterly defeat Wal-Mart were the Germans:

World's Biggest Retailer Wal-Mart Closes Up Shop in Germany

Mikey1969: Sergeant Grumbles: Mikey1969: In short, "gainfully employed" means having a paying job.

Being paid so little as to have to go on public assistance is not gainfully employed by any definition.

Well, except by every definition available outside of this board.

O RLY?

Zebulon: Lets make it so everyone in America gets $12 an hour, minimum.

Okay, let's do it.

Zebulon: Oh, that would cause the economy to collapse? Whoops, my bad.

Wouldn't even come close. We'd see an economic boom as the people most likely to spend money, the poor, suddenly have more of it.

Mikey1969: jayphat: Any retail store where the door locks on the inside require a key to unlock them is a fire marshals wet farking dream!

And any store where nothing is required to unlock the doors but pushing a handle is a burglar's farking wet dream.

Besides, the fire doors can still be opened. If you'd read TFA, you would have found out that the workers were threatened with their jobs if they went out the fire door, and there wasn't a fire, even if that person was seriously injured.

I don't think you understand. You see, if a key is required for the main entrance ON BOTH SIDES, that's a usually a pretty serious violation of the fire code. It's not like you have the thumb lock on the outside FFS. Reason being, most entrances/exits in retail also double as the emergency exit in the planning, hence, they need to be able to be unlocked at a moments notice, without special tools like a key. As I said, a fire marshals wet dream.

Zebulon: Testiclaw: TiiiMMMaHHH: The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:

We should be demanding similar requirements for every human on this Earth.

Good for the WM employees for getting together to do this.

So you think the federal minimum wage should be raised up to a little over $12 an hour? Because that is how much it takes to equal $25 k a year. Have fun paying all the extra money that companies would charge for *everything* to pay for that shiat.

Funny thing about about raising prices...if the public can't/won't pay it, you find a way to cut back (executive bonuses), or you die a very capitalistic death.

Funny story. Times were tough, and I'm not ashamed to say that work was better than no work. Go to Walmart, and ask to apply for a job. They point me to a kiosk to fill out my info into their computers.

Kiosk was broken. I figured out how it worked, booted it correctly, started their application and then filled out the info.

Later, no job. I could fix their job kiosk, but not get employment. Womp womp.

/Life's better now.

WhyteRaven74: How about send WalMart a bill for all the food assistance and other assistance their employees get because they're not paid enough to make it without the assistance?

That is, roughly, part of the the argument Barbara Ehrenreich makes in her book Nickel and Dimed, that by not paying workers a living wage, businesses are essentially offloading the difference between what they pay and what their workers need to survive onto the taxpayers.

for those cheering on wal-mart:

Wal-Mart's intentionally low wages force employees to need approximately $420,000 per year, per store, totalling $2.66 BILLION annually in Food Stamps and other taxpayer assistance...to survive.

Wal-Mart's intentionally low wages and lack of covered benefits cost taxpayers over $1.02 BILLION a year in healthcare costs.

Wal-Mart's intentionally low wages cost taxpayers as much as $225 MILLION in free and reduced price lunches for school-age children.

Wal-Mart's intentionally low wages cost taxpayers over $780 MILLION in tax deductions for low-income families.

Link


and let's compare the labor costs of unionized Costco vs Wal-marts Sam's Club, shall we? (from those commies at Harvard Business School)

Costco's practices are clearly more expensive, but they have an offsetting cost-containment effect: Turnover is unusually low, at 17% overall and just 6% after one year's employment. In contrast, turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year'close to the industry average. In skilled and semi-skilled jobs, the fully loaded cost of replacing a worker who leaves (excluding lost productivity) is typically 1.5 to 2.5 times the worker's annual salary. To be conservative, let's assume that the total cost of replacing an hourly employee at Costco or Sam's Club is only 60% of his or her annual salary. If a Costco employee quits, the cost of replacing him or her is therefore $21,216. If a Sam's Club employee leaves, the cost is $12,617. At first glance, it may seem that the low-wage approach at Sam's Club would result in lower turnover costs. But if its turnover rate is the same as Wal-Mart's, Sam's Club loses more than twice as many people as Costco does: 44% versus 17%. By this calculation, the total annual cost to Costco of employee churn is $244 million, whereas the total annual cost to Sam's Club is $612 million. That's $5,274 per Sam's Club employee, versus $3,628 per Costco employee.

While Sam's Club and Costco generated $37 billion and $43 billion, respectively, in U.S. sales last year, Costco did it with 38% fewer employees-admittedly, in part by selling to higher-income shoppers and offering more high-end goods. As a result, Costco generated $21,805 in U.S. operating profit per hourly employee, compared with $11,615 at Sam's Club. Costco's stable, productive workforce more than offsets its higher costs.

Link

BravadoGT: You know what kind of employee I want at my business? The kind that tries to hurt me on arguably the busiest day of the year. GTFO--and God help you if you put me down on your next application and they call me.

Yes, I'm sure you masturbate furiously to the fantasy that one day that phone call will come, ONE DAY you will get to deny another human being of the chance at paying work. "God help you" indeed! Oh, the POWER you have!

Great Janitor: If they want a better paying job, a better working environment no one is forcing them to work at Walmart, they are free to find new jobs.

It's like you have no idea about the unemployment numbers. Are you really so stupid that you think that people would actually choose to work at Wal-Mart if they had any other option? FFS the people that work there can't even afford to shop there and have to go on government assistance. If you are ok with that then, by all means, please proceed.

ox45tallboy: so the cost of employee health care (current and future) is not included in the price of their cars.

Funny that having factories in the US hasn't caused the price of cars by Japanese or German companies to increase. It's almost as if the most important thing is how the companies are run, not where.

Nutsac_Jim: Sergeant Grumbles: Fade2black: Have you heard of entry level jobs to get your skills in order, so you can actually take some initiative to move on to a better paying job through school, training, or perseverance? Not everything is handed out on a silver platter (yet, the dems have 4 more years). If that was the case, high school kids would be basking in riches from Mcdonald's.

Retail and Fast Food is tradionally entry level jobs. They are used for job experience and training so you can move on to bigger and better. They are not jobs built around you deciding you're entitled to a pension and a petty cash fund.

Is there some reason working for Wal-Mart need not be gainful employment besides your opinion of what counts as work?

If you want to do that, then you work your way up to management and you get more money.

So are you saying that it's OK for an employer to ask for ALL of your timewhich is not occupied by eating, sleeping, or travelling to/from work and not pay you enough to actually live on? Even if we eliminate insurance? You're part of the problem if your answer is yes. This isn't a right vs. left or Obama vs Romney thing. It's not even about Wal-Mart specifically. This is about doing the right thing.

steamingpile: Sue for what? Forcing them to show up for the job they said they would show up for? Some of you are farking insane.

it's illegal to fire employees for organizing or trying to organize. It's a federal law, and in some states there are additional laws. Laws go back to when Carnegie Steel called in the Pinkertons and had them get all shooty with some striking workers.

megalynn44: /so sick of buying cheap shiat only to have it break immediately.

Funny thing is, it wouldn't really cost much if anything more to sell good merchandise. Owing to price creep, in many places and on many items the differential between what Wal-Mart sells and good stuff is not much if anything. Costco somehow manages to sell good stuff for cheap, yet Sam's Club doesn't. It's not the stuff, it's the people doing the selling that are the issue.

Hunter_Worthington: //any defeat for organized Labor is a victory for the American Economy.

why should only one side have the freedom to associate as they see fit for their own gain? Also unions had nothing to do with the troubles of the US steel and auto industries.

ILoveBurritos: I get that this is mainly a workers vs employers thread at this point, but I can't help but think that the real problem is the consumers (and excessive consumerism). No one wants to pay for decently made products anymore because the only thing consumers look at is the price tag. I'm not good at explaining myself, but it feels like we all assume we've given up on even thinking we can rehabilitate the public on shopping effectively. Like consumers are compelled to shop at Walmart, just open one and people will flock there unable to control themselves.

You assume that outsourcing was caused by consumers demanding lower prices. This is completely false.
Companies outsource to save money. Lower prices may be a side effect of that as the company tries to increase market share, but blaming it on consumer spending habits is wrong.

I get that this is mainly a workers vs employers thread at this point, but I can't help but think that the real problem is the consumers (and excessive consumerism). No one wants to pay for decently made products anymore because the only thing consumers look at is the price tag. I'm not good at explaining myself, but it feels like we all assume we've given up on even thinking we can rehabilitate the public on shopping effectively. Like consumers are compelled to shop at Walmart, just open one and people will flock there unable to control themselves.
On a tangent though, I've read that companies that want to sell with Walmart have to meet certain price guidelines otherwise Walmart won't carry their products and since Walmart is such an important chain to sell through. Companies are basically forced to make cheaper products for these dumbass consumers.
What this really all comes down to is that I hadn't had to buy denim jeans for a decade, and now that I'm looking, all I can find anywhere is paper thin garbage that doesn't feel sturdy at all, anywhere. When I compare it to my old ones, the newer ones are obviously inferior. Why would I want to spend $30 on a cheap pair of jeans I'll end up replacing 5 times in the span that a $60 pair would have lasted me once?

CujoQuarrel: Mikey1969: CujoQuarrel: Do you have a pointer to that case? Love to read up on it.

Here's a quick story I found...
Link

Ok. Looks like they could still get out in case of fire (emergency exits and a manager with the key). Was wondering how they could do it and not get sued since that would be a safety issue.

Looks like from the article all they did was lock the doors to keep people out.

I would think that every store would lock it's doors at night when restocking or cleaning.

You missed this part, I guess...
Ms. Williams said Wal-Mart, with 1.2 million employees in its 3,500 stores nationwide, had recently altered its policy to ensure that every overnight shift at every store has a night manager with a key to let workers out in emergencies.

Here's another part:
Several Wal-Mart employees said that as recently as a few months ago they had been locked in on some nights without a manager who had a key. Robert Schuster said that until last October, when he left his job at a Sam's Club in Colorado Springs, workers were locked in every night, and on Friday and Saturday nights there was no one there with a key. One night, he recalled, a worker had been throwing up violently, and no one had a store key to let him out.

''They told us it's a big fine for the company if we go out the fire door and there's no fire,'' Mr. Schuster said. ''They gave us a big lecture that if we go out that door, you better make sure it's an emergency like the place going up on fire.''

And it took The New York TImes' investigation to start the 'Manager with a key' policy:
Several employees said Wal-Mart began making sure that there was someone with a key seven nights a week at the Colorado Springs store and other stores starting Jan. 1, shortly after The New York Times began making inquiries about employees' being locked in.

Then we have a manager chiming in about the real 'Why':
Tom Lewis, who managed four Sam's Clubs in Texas and Tennessee, said: ''It's to prevent shrinkage. Wal-Mart is like any other company. They're concerned about the bottom line, and the bottom line is affected by shrinkage in the store.''

Another reason for lock-ins, he said, was to increase efficiency -- workers could not sneak outside to smoke a cigarette, get high or make a quick trip home.

Sounds like they were locking them in to me, not locking other people out. Especially when you read the parts about low crime area WalMarts having the same policy. Besides, the very case the story talks about is a guy that shattered his ankle, and nobody was there with a key. If they opened the fire door without a fire, they could be fired, and it took a farking hour for the manager to get there with a key.

Working on Black Friday is pretty much the norm for retail. If having to work that day turns out to be a surprise, you probably are at about your intelligence level for employment prospects.

HOWEVER! Starting Black Friday on 8pm Thanksgiving Day is a dick move by Walmart, Target, and Toys*R*Us. That's a farking family day. Let them have at least that before you work them to death the next day.

I've decided to boycott all businesses that start the holiday sales on Thanksgiving evening. For my xmas shopping, I think I'll go 100% online unless I find something especially nice in a shop that recognizes family time.

CujoQuarrel: Do you have a pointer to that case? Love to read up on it.

Here's a quick story I found...
Link

Silly Jesus: HotIgneous Intruder: Silly Jesus: HotIgneous Intruder: I'm sure walmart is really struggling in this economy.
What's that you say? No way. Really?
Ok.
I'll just leave this here:
Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 percent of Americans
Well, goodness, it's true.
snip:
No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion
No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion
No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion
No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion
No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

That's a grand total of $102.7 billion for the whole family.

Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons' cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons' wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons' share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families.

Walmart can afford raises for everyone.

The CEO of my company has oodles of money. Do I deserve more of it just because he has lots of it?

That's some pretty derpy reasoning there, Lou.

No.
Actually, that proves that they aren't hurting for money and they can afford to pay the employees who made them filthy rich better than subsistence wages, plus provide health insurance.
There's no excuse for such insanely wealthy people not to have a social conscience.

You obviously missed the magnitude of those figures and have no functional understanding of economics, troll.

No, derpy-doo. Standing in a doorway and saying hello to everyone is in no way deserving of $12 / hour + benefits. No matter how much the boss makes.

You'be never had a job in retail. Now ask me how I know. I ducking dare you

gingerjet: So part of their plan is to pre-announce the walk out?

/I don't think they thought this all the way through

You don't understand how these things work, do you? You get the best results when you give the organization that you are protesting a chance to resolve the issue before D-Day. Also, it gets the word out, making it easier to get press coverage and find people familiar with the issue if the protest is carried out.

rolladuck: insertsnarkyusername: The can ask for a union and the company legally has to say yes.

The company can also legally shut down those stores. And re-open others in the next town where there is high unemployment of un- or marginally-skilled workers.

Unions aren't the be-all and end-all of employer-employee relationship management. And you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, ... at least metaphorically.

How do you suggest employees sweetly get WM to stop locking them in to work 'off the clock', pay them enough that how to apply for welfare directions are not part of the pre-employment package, and to promote female and minority employees fairly?

fanbladesaresharp: I don't mean to be a dick but that's not worthy of $25k a year AND benefits.

And why not?
Is there some reason working for Wal-Mart need not be gainful employment besides your opinion of what counts as work?

F*ck Wally World.

I am not generally "pro-union" but it seems there are a ton of abuses there that are illegal, I hope this can get Wal-Mart to follow the law.

Silly Jesus: gingerjet: So part of their plan is to pre-announce the walk out?

/I don't think they thought this all the way through

It's for leverage. They think that Wal-mart is going to say "oh no, please come to work, how would we ever be able to find another group of morons with no discernible skills to replace you?" Might work, who knows. Guess we'll find out.

Or maybe they know it won't work and just want to punch WalMart in the wallet.
I think it might work better than you think. The sort of mouth-breathers that apply to WalMart will probably take longer than 2 weeks to figure out how to work a cash register. Even if they got a bunch of job applicants, considering the relatively short time frame the stores would not be running smoothly (even compared to normal) and would cost the store quite a bit of revenue.

Good luck... you're going to need it.

/Follow up article next week about these employees getting fired....

apt311: Even if you make "manager", they're always p****ed off because they are moved around so much between stores that they are more worried about meeting corporate numbers than developing their subordinates.

To me, this is the key difference between the Walmart and the 30 years of chain stores before them.

As a kid, one of my best friends' father was manager of the local K-Mart. He was born and raised in the town. He managed the place for ~20 years. Hired people who needed it, developed workers, cared about the store's place in the community, etc, etc. Compared to today, had a fair bit of autonomy in stocking choices, layout, etc.

Walmart's corporate policy is NOT to EVER let that happen. As a WM manager, you are moved around constantly and it's numbers, numbers, and obedience. Only things that matter.

EVERYBODY PANIC:

Hmmm. Okay. Let's do this.

Nobody forced anybody to hire on at a low wage and with not-the-best benefits. If it was not good enough when they all hired on (and the terms were made very clear to everybody at the time of hiring) what made all these people take the jobs? Seriously, why did they scramble for these jobs?

In the minds of the applicants, getting hired at Wal*Mart was a great deal. It had to be the best opportunity they thought that they could achieve, having made little effort earlier in life to acquire a useful skill or education. They happily accepted the terms, conditions, pay rates and benefits and acted grateful at the time they hired on. Nobody made them go work at Wal*Mart and nobody forced them to stay on over the long haul.

I am not a Wal*Mart employee, or particularly a huge fan, and I am not a conservative if that matters to you. I am just a person who understand that if you agree to a contract, you should have the honor and dignity to live by it or to cancel it and walk away from it. It is a contract, just a contract, and even when you enter into a bad contract, it was your choice, just as leaving and voiding a contract is a choice.

Note: Lawful marriage is a shiatty contract by design, but folks enter into that one all the time, and the people with integrity make the best of it.

This is complete horse shiat. Very few people who get a job at Walmart think it is a great deal. Most of them take that job, or similar low-paying shiat jobs, because they have the option of working there for slave wages or starving. I don't care if the people should have done this or that with their lives, they shouldn't be treated like dirt simply because you feel that it is a justified punishment for their lack of skills or education. These pay practices are one of the main reasons we are struggling as a nation. Period.

RedVentrue: They tax the shiat out of everyone over there, too.

Places like Canada really aren't bad for taxes at all. The benefits far outweigh the costs, and, say, 25k is far below the level where the magnitude of the impact would be too much compared to the tax rates in the US - at the very least, the offset of social services for those making 25k would more than make up for it.

Silly Jesus: timujin: Silly Jesus: There's an endless supply of dimwits who need some extra walking around money for cigarettes and lottery tickets. I don't think that Wal-mart is at much risk of running out of a "qualified" applicant pool.

That's where you and I disagree, I think the supply is limited. Would you work there? I wouldn't. Have you ever met any dimwits that you wouldn't trust to know which end of a mop to use? I have. Once you eliminate those people, people who can't communicate, people who have other limiting factors such as a criminal record, you do have a finite available workforce. Now, there are obviously more people who would take the job than are currently employed by the company, but I still believe that those people, once they are employed, will reach the same level off discontent that the current employees have. Eventually you run out of people who are willing to take the shiatty job. Add to that the cost of on-boarding and training new employees and it can be less costly to meet the employees demands, or at least come to some sort of middle ground.

It's kind of like the people who pick vegetables going on strike. Sure, there are other people willing to take their jobs, but not many and once those people realize how difficult the work is and how shiatty the conditions are, they too get fed up and go on strike. Eventually the growers run out of available employees and are forced to make concessions.

Yep. That's how it works. If Wal-mart becomes unable to hire enough employees at current wages, the wages will increase. Until then, they have no reason to pay everyone more than the market deems that they are currently worth.

This is why Capitalism is dead. There are now more workers than work that can be done, and it's getting worse every day. The end result is an excess of labour supply, causing wages to plummet. Eventually they will hit 0. What then, genius?

hocho064: I share the same thoughts but you mentioned violation of labor laws; like what & why is a union needed to uphold them? Unsafe work labor conditions: isnt this what OSHA is for? Pushing employees past physical limits? What do you mean?

Again, Im anti-union as well just dont understand your points is all :)

A couple of examples:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/265540/ea-we-ruined-need-for-spe e d-with-studio-death-march/

EA Games is fond of using "Death Marches" in order to get out a game. They take hopeful college graduates, chew them up and spit them out. Most of the employees have no idea what they are getting themselves into, and many of them had good careers before EA bought up their company.

"In the '04 to '07 period, we had a single studio, Black Box, up in Vancouver, building our [NFS games]. And we literally had them on a death march building for five years in a row. [They were] annual iterations, they had to put it out; no rest for the weary.

"It'd happened before - games publishers do this from time to time. We should have put them on two-year alternating cycles but we didn't. And the title declined dramatically. We started to lose people. they didn't want to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Another example: Hershey's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/18immig.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The students, from countries including China, Nigeria, Romania and Ukraine, came to the United States through a long-established State Department summer visa program that allows them to work for two months and then travel. They said they were expecting to practice their English, make some money and learn what life is like in the United States.

In a way, they did. About 400 foreign students were put to work lifting heavy boxes and packing Reese's candies, Kit-Kats and Almond Joys on a fast-moving production line, many of them on a night shift. After paycheck deductions for fees associated with the program and for their rent, students said at a rally in front of the huge packing plant that many of them were not earning nearly enough to recover what they had spent in their home countries to obtain their visas.

As for violation of labor laws, sometimes an individual is unable to make institutional change. When companies cover-up violations, and fire those who would complain, change can be impossible for a single employee.

Employees can also end up between a rock and a hard place. When one has spent the past 15 years with the same company, and is working towards retirement, simply "getting another job" can mean another decade before retirement. Companies can take advantage of this to demand incredible concessions and amounts of work from employees. This is especially the case for salaried employees who are exempt from overtime.


As I said, I rather dislike organized labor in general, but I recognize a few, limited scenarios in which they are the only way to correct rather egregious behavior on the part of employers. I just wish that a) more states were right-to-work, so that individuals couldn't be forced to join, and b) unions had to be recertified every few years, so they could go away once things got better.

Costco > Walmart

Back in the 1980's, the company I worked for hired HR consultants to provide some courses on preventing unionization by actually avoiding the pitfalls that lead to it, by actually treating people like human beings. Things like ensuring pay equity, LISTENING to your team's concerns, not only just avoiding unfairness but anything that would APPEAR to be unfair.

Surprisingly, it wasn't all about pay.
Recognition for work well done was #1. A say in such matters as health and safety was important too.
Avoiding unnecessary stress (but a little was ok) on the job was another big thing.
They even had the company mission changed from saying shareholder value was #1 on the list to #3

This was back before those short-sighted neocons (The Regans, Bushes, Mulroonies and Thatchers) got their greedy little hooks in and started strangling the goose that laid their golden eggs.

I'm horrified that Black Friday exists at all.

CujoQuarrel: I see stuff like that all the time here on how bad the WallyWorlds look and how non helpful the staff is and I've never see that. The ones near me are spotlessly clean and I've never had any problems getting assistance.

Is it a northern thing maybe? I'm in the deep south.

I hate WalMart, but they're not particularly dirty, and I've never had problems with customer service either.

When it comes to customer service, the place to avoid like the plague? Fry's Electronics. That place TRULY sucks. It's got the BEST selection of computer hardware, and actually has bare circuit boards, and all of the components to build your own circuits, but the customer service is abysmal. I have been looking for things before, and had my wife on the other end of a huge aisle. I've seen an employee waling by and(purposely for this experiment) called out to my wife and said 'Can you find it? I can't see it down there, I wonder if it's in another aisle?'. This doesn't even slow the employee at all. I have probably tried this at least 10 separate times and NEVER had someone stop on their own and offer to help me. They're not a good place for employees either. Their way to shave off wages is that they pay their cashiers commission. There is no way to guarantee which cashier gets which customer, there are usually about 40 cash registers and the waiting line is way back at the beginning, with an employee that manages the line, telling you which register just opened up. Extremely efficient, but the cashiers get screwed over with that pay structure.

divx88: Unskilled workers doing unskilled things annoyed that they get paid what they're worth.

Loyalty is worth it's own weight in gold. A living wage, benefits and other things which enable someone to work there long term could raise the quality of employees there, but they don't want that. Don't like it, don't work there.

Learn a trade that's in demand.

They would love to be loyal, if their employer would just give them a reason.

Oh, and as far as the 'learn a trade/if they don't like it, don't work there' mantra, you don't seem to realize that these magical jobs aren't infinite in number. Not only that, but working in someplace like WalMart isn't exactly the way to get the money to afford school, and a lot of these people are working 2-3 jobs and also don't have the time to go to school as well as put food on the table. Besides, SOMEONE has to be there to sell you those shiatty flip flops you like so much.

Sure, it helps YOU sleep at night because you can rationalize it away, but it's just a cop out, nothing more. It does nothing to actually solve the problem. In fact, it makes it worse because people ignore it.

cman: What took them so damn long?

Good luck, btw

Oppressive management and constant bombardment with anti-union propaganda, for starters. Most large non-union stores make you watch an anti-union vid as part of training, and keep the break rooms well stocked with anti-union posters and flyers.

Not that I'm bitter about having spent three years of my life working in a non-union store.

"Competitive pay" my ass.

gingerjet: So part of their plan is to pre-announce the walk out?

/I don't think they thought this all the way through

Pretty smart, actually. If customers think it will be more of a hassle than it usually is (read riots, people trampled, etc) they might elect not to shop there and it will impact their bottom line.

The question isn't how many will strike, so much as how many shoppers will be scared by the coverage of this and go elsewhere.

Great Janitor: For those who don't like it there, find a different job or shut up.

Or organize and use your freedom of speech and association.
For some reason it's okay for management to be organized and put pressure on workers, but the reverse should be unthinkable and only be done by lazy deadbeats right?

ILoveBurritos: I get that this is mainly a workers vs employers thread at this point, but I can't help but think that the real problem is the consumers (and excessive consumerism). No one wants to pay for decently made products anymore because the only thing consumers look at is the price tag. I'm not good at explaining myself, but it feels like we all assume we've given up on even thinking we can rehabilitate the public on shopping effectively. Like consumers are compelled to shop at Walmart, just open one and people will flock there unable to control themselves.
On a tangent though, I've read that companies that want to sell with Walmart have to meet certain price guidelines otherwise Walmart won't carry their products and since Walmart is such an important chain to sell through. Companies are basically forced to make cheaper products for these dumbass consumers.
What this really all comes down to is that I hadn't had to buy denim jeans for a decade, and now that I'm looking, all I can find anywhere is paper thin garbage that doesn't feel sturdy at all, anywhere. When I compare it to my old ones, the newer ones are obviously inferior. Why would I want to spend $30 on a cheap pair of jeans I'll end up replacing 5 times in the span that a $60 pair would have lasted me once?


[mews urgently]

Go here!! Go here!!

http://www.allamericanclothing.com/

Great Janitor: Sliding Carp: $5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

Why should they? Just fire the ones who walk out and replace them. Odds are they won't be missed.

Or, here's how I look at it, if I were working at Walmart, I would, first of all, know that like it or not, working Black Friday was going to happen. All things considered, I'd rather work at the start of the sale on Thanksgiving than on Friday because at least on Thursday I'd get holiday pay. Secondly, knowing the kind of customers and the numbers of customers that show on Black Friday, I'd be a bit pissed that my coworkers decided to skip out on a major day at work instead of doing the job that they were hired to do.

In short, Walmart workers, you knew what you were getting into when you filled out the job application. If you don't like the situation of having to work Black Friday, quit your job and find a different one.

They aren't striking on Black Friday because they expect to not work Black Friday, they are striking on that day because Walmart might actually suffer because of it. It's a leverage thing. And no, you don't get holiday pay for working on holidays. There are a few holidays where everyone gets holiday pay depending on their average hours per week, regardless of whether or not they actually work the holiday.

Zebulon: HotIgneous Intruder: I'm sure walmart is really struggling in this economy.
What's that you say? No way. Really?
Ok.
I'll just leave this here:
Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 percent of Americans
Well, goodness, it's true.
snip:
No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion
No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion
No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion
No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion
No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

That's a grand total of $102.7 billion for the whole family.

Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons' cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons' wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons' share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families.

Walmart can afford raises for everyone.

Those people who you are talking about have all their money from SHARES of STOCK in the company. They do not, in any way, impact how much money Walmart spends on payroll. You cannot take money away from them and somehow give it to the employees.

A stock's value is basically tied to the profits the company generates and the stock dividends that will be paid as a result of those profits. Lowering payroll increases profits in the short term. In the long term, it can be argued that low wages will eventually impact profits due to high turnover. The stockholders do have a say in this with their vote. The Walton family owns enough of the company stock to be heard should they wish a change in policy. So the shiatty wages and poor treatment invariable rests on their shoulders.

EVERYBODY PANIC: Nobody made them go work at Wal*Mart and nobody forced them to stay on over the long haul.

Because the options are so plenty. I'll repeat:
It is clear that when a person who is mugged hands over their money to the mugger they do so because they prefer it to the "next best alternative." As such, it is correct that people agree to sell their liberty to a boss because their "next best alternative" is worse (utter poverty or starvation are not found that appealing for some reason). But so what? As anarchists have been pointing out over a century, the capitalists have systematically used the state to create a limit options for the many, to create buyers' market for labour by skewing the conditions under which workers can sell their labour in the bosses favour. To then merrily answer all criticisms of this set-up with the response that the workers "voluntarily agreed" to work on those terms is just hypocrisy. Does it really change things if the mugger (the state) is only the agent (hired thug) of another criminal (the owning class)?

With your love of contracts I'd assume if someone forced to sign a contract allowing someone to harvest one of their organs at gunpoint (or at the threat of denying them food and shelter) you'd insist that the only honorable way to end this is for that cheapskate poor bastards to give his organ away?
I guess economic contracts exist in this magical vacuum with no outside circumstances surrounding them.

Mikey1969: Well, except by every definition available outside of this board.

I'd always taken the definition to be that the "made money" was implicit with "employment" and the "gainful" necessitated being able to live on and improve yourself. If you're going to say "gainful employment" qualifies as getting a paycheck, there's really no point to the gainful, is there?

If it will make you happy, "living wage" works just as well.

ciberido: It's amazing how "liberal" people like Reagan and Nixon look when compared to today's Republican Party platform. Or at least what it was days before the election. I honestly have no idea what the Republican Party thinks it stands for now that Obama's been reëlected.

The same thing they have since Reagan.
An organization run by the rich, known for tricking racists and religious fundamentalists into voting for class warfare against themselves.
Maybe there is a slight change, since it seems that some actual racists and religious fundamentalists who believe their own bullshiat have their own caucus now, and seem to be farking things up for the rich Machiavellan side.

EVERYBODY PANIC: Nobody made them go work at Wal*Mart and nobody forced them to stay on over the long haul.

Hunger may not be a person, but it does make a very convincing argument.

Sergeant Grumbles: Zebulon: So you think the federal minimum wage should be raised up to a little over $12 an hour? Because that is how much it takes to equal $25 k a year. Have fun paying all the extra money that companies would charge for *everything* to pay for that shiat.

Not sure what happened there...

Raising the pay of Wal-Mart's U.S. workers to a minimum of $12 an hour would lift many out of poverty, reduce their reliance on public assistance, and cost the average consumer, at most, $12.49 a year.

HOW WILL ANYONE BE ABLE TO AFFORD THAT?!

Fade2black: Is there a reason why Wal-Mart should pay a wage to employees that would count as gainfully employed? You haven't explained the repercussions when wages go up dollars an hour, to the product they sell or the services they give. Wages go up, cost goes up. Nothing of value was gained except you might feel better about yourself when you go home after your shift.

Raising the pay of Wal-Mart's U.S. workers to a minimum of $12 an hour would lift many out of poverty, reduce their reliance on public assistance, and cost the average consumer, at most, $12.49 a year.

Is there some reason working for Wal-Mart need not be gainful employment besides your opinion of what counts as work?

Je5tEr: atomic-age: How do you suggest employees sweetly get WM to stop locking them in to work 'off the clock'

Simple. If anyone EVER did that to me it'd be a call to 911 to report that I was being unlawfully imprisoned. And when the cops showed up I'd be standing on the other side of those glass doors with a sledgehammer and I'd tell them that either they get me out of there or I will.

Yeah! And if a guy ever tried to rape me, why I'd just kick him in the balls and laugh! What the hell is wrong with all these people that they can't take a stand and solve their own problems?!

I'll leave this here for the sarcasm-impaired.

jayphat: Umm, i hate to burst this myth, but they don't. On average, when a Walmart moves in, the number of businesses present beforehand that closes is 4. After 5 years, and if you've ever seen a Walmart built, a ton of crap gets built around it. I'm not going to look for this study tonight, google it yourself if you want to see it.

Yeah, either a bunch of chain restaurants, or places that don't do any business related to WalMart. In other words, no competition.

Great Janitor: That is no different than me handing someone a hammer and saying "Now, if you bash your hand with this it could break your hand." and then watch as they bash their hand with said hammer and then listen as a bone or two breaks. No sympathy.

I guess that's what it comes down to, some people, including myself, would still have sympathy for our common man, even if he was dumb enough to hit himself with the hammer. Some people would lock them in a warehouse. You sir, are unsympathetic.

Walmart and other big companies achieve economies of scale due to their size.

a union allows workers to gain that same advantage, and see the benefits of economies of scale.

if you want to take issue with how unions are run, fine (I will probably agree, but they aren't run any better than most companies). but wish for the end of unions? congrats, you don't know jack shiat about economics.

jpo2269: and its just another example of "Occupy" being full of shiat.

why not hold WalMart's feet to the flames for treating their employees the way they do? After all, if WalMart does it right, we're not even having this discussion.

Tellingthem: always wondered where his historical standing would have been if Watergate never happened.

Pretty high up most likely. Granted it doesn't help that almost as soon as he was out of office, the EPA and OSHA, which were created during his time in office and given some very serious teeth, found themselves being weakened, by members of Nixon's own party no less.

Fade2black: And he was also one of the most batshiat insane presidents we've ever had. Let that sink in for a while.

His paranoia was a personal thing, when it came to policy he was completely clear headed. And many times far more insightful than he's been given credit for.

erveek: ...by the Roberts Supreme Court. Gee, I wonder how that will go.

by the time the case ends up in the Supreme Court there could be a couple, at least, different justices there. Also as evident from his opinion in the Health Care Reform Act ruling, Roberts has much respect for existing precedent when it comes to labor law.

Cross of Iron: Yeah, but Hostess was already affiliated with the baker's union.

And Hostess has had problems for years owing to some rather badly conceived acquisitions and mergers.

ILoveBurritos: I get that this is mainly a workers vs employers thread at this point, but I can't help but think that the real problem is the consumers (and excessive consumerism). No one wants to pay for decently made products anymore because the only thing consumers look at is the price tag. I'm not good at explaining myself, but it feels like we all assume we've given up on even thinking we can rehabilitate the public on shopping effectively. Like consumers are compelled to shop at Walmart, just open one and people will flock there unable to control themselves.
On a tangent though, I've read that companies that want to sell with Walmart have to meet certain price guidelines otherwise Walmart won't carry their products and since Walmart is such an important chain to sell through. Companies are basically forced to make cheaper products for these dumbass consumers.
What this really all comes down to is that I hadn't had to buy denim jeans for a decade, and now that I'm looking, all I can find anywhere is paper thin garbage that doesn't feel sturdy at all, anywhere. When I compare it to my old ones, the newer ones are obviously inferior. Why would I want to spend $30 on a cheap pair of jeans I'll end up replacing 5 times in the span that a $60 pair would have lasted me once?

I would say that's a pretty good assessment. The consumers and shareholders are most definitely a huge part of the problem. In the end it's all about greed. Everyone wants more, more, more...and they don't want to pay for it. Hell, the black Friday event is a celebration of greed. Can anyone think of any logical justification for human beings to be trampled to death by a crowd trying to buy plastic things in a store? No. What you have is a crowd of hundreds of people who saw a person hurting on the ground and then made the decision to ignore them, because they can get a good deal on a shiatty TV or laptop.  That's a pretty serious problem.

HotIgneous Intruder: In 2010, the Waltons' share [of wealth] equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of U.S. families.
Six people hold nearly 42 percent of the national wealth.
They are the Walton family.

I think Sam Walton is spinning in his grave at east as fast as Walt Disney... Talk about raising a dream, and then having people fark it all to Hell...

Silly Jesus: I hope they are all fired.

And then they could sue WalMart for pretty well anything they want. Oh and WalMart would also face federal lawsuits.

Silly Jesus: It's a voluntary exchange. They went to Wal-mart and asked for the ability to exchange their labor for the amount of money that Wal-mart was offering. They weren't recruited or forced to work there. If they don't like the terms of their voluntary contract, they are free to leave and Wal-mart should be free to replace them with someone else.

Voluntarism implies promising (i.e. the freedom to make agreements), and promising implies that individuals are capable of independent judgement and rational deliberation. In addition, it presupposes that they can evaluate and change their actions and relationships. Contracts under capitalism, however, contradict these implications of voluntarism. For, while technically "voluntary" , capitalist contracts result in a denial of liberty. This is because the social relationship of wage-labour involves promising to obey in return for payment. To promise to obey is to deny or to limit, to a greater or lesser degree, individuals' freedom and equality and their ability to exercise these capacities [of independent judgement and rational deliberation]. To promise to obey is to state, that in certain areas, the person making the promise is no longer free to exercise her capacities and decide upon her own actions, and is no longer equal, but subordinate. This results in those obeying no longer making their own decisions. Thus the rational for voluntarism (i.e. that individuals are capable of thinking for themselves and must be allowed to express their individuality and make their own decisions) is violated in a hierarchical relationship as some are in charge and the many obey. Thus any voluntarism which generates relationships of subordination is, by its very nature, incomplete and violates its own justification.

This can be seen from capitalist society, in which workers sell their freedom to a boss in order to live. In effect, under capitalism you are only free to the extent that you can choose whom you will obey! Freedom, however, must mean more than the right to change masters. Voluntary servitude is still servitude. For if, as Rousseau put it, sovereignty, "for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be represented" neither can it be sold nor temporarily nullified by a hiring contract. Rousseau famously argued that the "people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing." [The Social Contract and Discourses, p. 266]

Of course it is claimed that entering wage labour is a "voluntary" undertaking, from which both sides allegedly benefit. However, due to past initiations of force (e.g. the seizure of land by conquest), the control of the state by the capitalist class plus the tendency for capital to concentrate, a relative handful of people now control vast wealth, depriving all others access to the means of life. Thus denial of free access to the means of life is based ultimately on the principle of "might makes right." And as Murray Bookchin so rightly points out, "the means of life must be taken for what they literally are: the means without which life is impossible. To deny them to people is more than 'theft' . . . it is outright homicide." [Remaking Society, p. 187]

It is clear that when a person who is mugged hands over their money to the mugger they do so because they prefer it to the "next best alternative." As such, it is correct that people agree to sell their liberty to a boss because their "next best alternative" is worse (utter poverty or starvation are not found that appealing for some reason). But so what? The capitalists have systematically used the state to create limited options for the many, to create buyers' market for labour by skewing the conditions under which workers can sell their labour in the bosses favour. To then merrily answer all criticisms of this set-up with the response that the workers "voluntarily agreed" to work on those terms is just hypocrisy. Does it really change things if the mugger (the state) is only the agent (hired thug) of another criminal (the owning class)?

So, while it is definitely the case that no one forces you to work for them, the capitalist system is such that you have little choice but to sell your liberty and labour on the "free market." Not only this, but the labour market (which is what makes capitalism capitalism) is (usually) skewed in favour of the employer, so ensuring that any "free agreements" made on it favour the boss and result in the workers submitting to domination and exploitation.

Fade2black: Have you heard of entry level jobs to get your skills in order, so you can actually take some initiative to move on to a better paying job through school, training, or perseverance? Not everything is handed out on a silver platter (yet, the dems have 4 more years). If that was the case, high school kids would be basking in riches from Mcdonald's.

Retail and Fast Food is tradionally entry level jobs. They are used for job experience and training so you can move on to bigger and better. They are not jobs built around you deciding you're entitled to a pension and a petty cash fund.

Is there some reason working for Wal-Mart need not be gainful employment besides your opinion of what counts as work?

Great Janitor: It's up to the employees to make things better.

What do you think this strike is about?

born_yesterday: MFAWG: RedVentrue: Thanks for the heads up, subby. I'll go on Sunday to make my offering to the Capitalist Temple.

The demand side needs to speak loudly here. So stay the duck away from there

Frankly, I cannot understand the mindset of anyone that would spend Thanksgiving shopping. It's my favorite holiday of the year. Go to a friend's house, big ol' meal, football, beer, more food, nap, more food. Being thankful for having plenty, and appreciating it with friends. I love it.

I did Black Friday once, and got some great deals, but not great enough to deal with that madness again. But...not even taking a day to give thanks? That's farked up.

Thank you. I VERY RELUCTANTLY went to a store to get something my wife wanted about 5 years ago. I drove by, saw the line, realized what the hell I was doing, and never even stopped. That's the closest I've ever come. I said it a while back in another thread, but I'll say it again here: I believe it's my moral duty NOT to patronize stores who choose to ruin their employees' holidays. There is absolutley NO reason black Friday can't start on Friday. There is nothing in any store that I need/want so bad that I need to be a part of ruining someone elses family/personal time. I don't care if they celebrate that holiday or not. Almost everyone else who is non-essential gets it, they should too. If they WANT to work it that's fine, but being required to come in and sell shiatty plastic junk...that's really not necessary.

Fade2black: HotIgneous Intruder: fanbladesaresharp: I'll pay you $9 an hour. Take it or leave it. It doesn't require a degree in engineering to run a farking cash register.

Nine bucks an hour is $12 bucks an hour after taxes.

And my 36 an hour is 27 after taxes. You still haven't made a valid point.

I hope people don't pay you $36 an hour to understand jokes. Because you suck at it.

Wal-Mart was the biggest client of a law firm I used to work for.

The firm defends Wal-Mart against its employees.

This was one of the reasons I stopped enjoying my work there.

I look forward to the outcome of this, even though I'm sure it just means more money in the coffers of the Death Star (nickname of former firm).

1.- Silly Jesus is a weak attempt of a troll, and you're all feeding him and we're so close to past midnight.

2.- I would love nothing but to see Walmart fall

3.- Then again, I like a little chaos, so that's that

Benjimin_Dover: I'm sure they would be happy to allow a co-worker to not be a part of their union if they chose.

many states require all union contracts to allow opt-out.

i know i could decide to do so, but then i would not be entitled to union representation if there were a dispute, and i would have no say in union leadership because i would not be a member.

but i can fill out a little slip of paper and do so if i wanted to.

but even the woman who listens to el rushbo every day does not fill out the slip. because the union is worth it

Mitt Romneys Tax Return: Doesn't matter. You can cite things like this all day and assholes like this thread's merry band of trolls will still lick the Walton heir's taints. We're Amurricans - no one can be too rich and any amount of employee abuse is perfectly OK because, by golly, they chose the work there.

They'll also be the first to complain when, should everyone choose not to work there, that they're just lazy.
There is literally no course of action, short of being born rich, that you're allowed to take to success.

Silly Jesus: HotIgneous Intruder: In 2010, the Waltons' share [of wealth] equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of U.S. families.
Six people hold nearly 42 percent of the national wealth.
They are the Walton family.

Jealousy is a biatch.

No. Karma kills.
Sun Tzu - "If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by."
See ya!

I won't be shopping there that's for sure.

Solidarity and Success, workers!

wife's step mom and sister work for wally world. this story actually broke over a month ago. I don't know about other states, but Oklahoma is an at will state they can just tell them to fark off if they go through with this. wife's step and sister are planning on going in although begrudgingly. I know black Friday and all get the consumers spending, but how many of you older farts like me remember on Thanksgiving, nothing was open you had to wait until Friday.

Silly Jesus: Hostess

Don't be too sure.
I was in a Harris Teeter market here in Virginia today and I went to the snack cake shelves.
Little Debbie Swiss Rolls were $1.27 per box.
Hostess HoHos were $4.49 a box, same sized box as the above.
In fact, all the hostess cakes, HoHos, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Mini Mufffins and etc, were ALL $4.49 per box.

Something is out of whack there and I don't know what it is, but $4.49 for a box of the same size product seems like a losing deal.

Anyway, there's always Amazon.....

Lsherm: Sliding Carp: $5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

Unemployment is still high enough they can be replaced. Sucks, but true, especially since it doesn't look like this is a nationwide-coordinated effort. If they could get all the workers in all the stores to strike on the same day it would be very effective.

Meh. If all the wal-mart employees in my town walked off the job, the company would have serious problems replacing them. Every big box store, fast food place, grocery store, and small retail store is having to raise wages to attract employees. The unskilled retail labor pool is pretty tight.
Lots of temp workers who barely/don't speak English are filling gaps at some places, but would you want to staff a wal-mart in middle America with English-challenged people on black Friday?

The hambeasts fighting over discounted Chinese-made shiat would burn the motherfarker down.

/come to think of it, that might be damned entertaining

Silly Jesus: If I asked for a job that paid me $1 a day, would the company be evil or would I be a dumbass?

Yes and yes.

Though the latter is true regardless of context.

I hope they do unionize. After a year or so of paying extortionate union dues for nothing will teach them that unionizing is a bad idea.

Nonesuch: Good luck... you're going to need it.

/Follow up article next week about these employees getting fired....

This is about the only time of year they can pull this off hopefully without getting fired, at least until after the new year. Big box retailers need at least SOME trained employees to keep the temps in line or it will be five times as much chaos as you see on the news every year. I started at a Circuit City in mid October, so I had time to learn the company ropes (on top of five years previous experience selling the same kind of stuff), but they were still hiring temps up til a week or two before Christmas and most of them had no idea what they were doing.

The biggest differences between WM and CC at that point were product lines (so mostly higher class customers at CC) and that they paid the employees enough more that they wouldn't have come nearly that close to a walkout. The 16 hour forced schedule on Black Friday however, was enough to make me hate the place forever.

I'm not a fan of the unions, but this... this is totally doing it right.

Silly Jesus: Maybe it will shape up like the Hostess strike. Hostess told the workers that if they went on strike they would shutter the factories and fire them all. They went on strike...Hostess closed the factories...the workers went all WHARGARBLLL "yall took are jerbs!" It was beeeautiful.

I am looking forward to Hostess going out of business. Good. One less crappy company making terrible products and screwing their employees. It's the free market; someone else will pop up and maybe do things right the next time.

real_headhoncho: Hmmm... I wonder if I should apply for a job at Wal Mart.

FTA: Pay a minimum of $25,000/year

11-12 bucks an hour for stocking shelves and counting change. I don't mean to be a dick but that's not worthy of $25k a year AND benefits. I know people taking those jobs that have college degrees. Stay around a couple years and then you can have that.

That said, apply at Costco. They pay much better than that. But you might be waiting a while for an interview.

Sliding Carp: $5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

The libertarians would NEVER try to do that. It goes against everything they stand for.

Sliding Carp: $5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

Why should they? Just fire the ones who walk out and replace them. Odds are they won't be missed.

Or, here's how I look at it, if I were working at Walmart, I would, first of all, know that like it or not, working Black Friday was going to happen. All things considered, I'd rather work at the start of the sale on Thanksgiving than on Friday because at least on Thursday I'd get holiday pay. Secondly, knowing the kind of customers and the numbers of customers that show on Black Friday, I'd be a bit pissed that my coworkers decided to skip out on a major day at work instead of doing the job that they were hired to do.

In short, Walmart workers, you knew what you were getting into when you filled out the job application. If you don't like the situation of having to work Black Friday, quit your job and find a different one.

djkutch: the president who should have been

DERPA-HERPA-DERPA!
The butt hurt never stops.

FTFA:

The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:

Improve Workers' Lives
Pay a minimum of $25,000/year and guarantee quality, affordable health coverage for all ...

Rebuild Communities
Sign on to a national community benefits agreement that ensures as Walmart expands into new markets, it strengthens communities, protects the environment ...

Put Its Promises in Writing
Agree to a global labor agreement guaranteeing the fundamental human right of freedom of association for all of its associates and instruct their suppliers to do the same...

Elevate Global Living Standards
Establish a legally binding global responsible contractor policy requiring contractors and subcontractors to provide living wages, worker safety protections, and respect basic human and labor rights...



Is that all? Why exactly do they think ANY of that is going to happen because they refuse to work? Oh yeah, they're walmart employees. Clearly not the best at making important life decisions..

djkutch: Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

This. I don't understand why employees shouldn't just be forced to live and work at the job. A little room with a hotplate, if you will. Share a shiater down the hall. I believe the president who should have been explored such policies in China.

Employees should have absolutely no voice. In return, said employees get no pay.

It's a voluntary exchange. They went to Wal-mart and asked for the ability to exchange their labor for the amount of money that Wal-mart was offering. They weren't recruited or forced to work there. If they don't like the terms of their voluntary contract, they are free to leave and Wal-mart should be free to replace them with someone else.

FuryOfFirestorm: Silly Jesus: FuryOfFirestorm: leadmetal: Now as to the walmart employment horror stories, why not leave? Are there no Targets? No Safeways? No Kmarts? No Menards? No Home Depots? If these other places pay more and treat people better, just start applying at them. I am sure they would prefer someone with applicable experience than someone right off the street.

If you're a minority/woman/senior citizen with no college education, your job options are limited.

"But why not get a degree?" With what money? All of their income goes to rent, food, and utilities.

"But why not get a loan?". Yes, banks are tripping over themselves to give loans to people who can barely afford to pay rent.

"Why not get a new job?" When you're working two waitressing jobs just feed your kids, you're not going to quit your job in an unstable job market, are you? Don't you think that if there were better paying jobs available out there, that working mother of 2 wouldn't already be applying for it?

Not irresponsibly having the two kids would be a good start.

Wow. You are such a colossal asshole, you make Donald Trump look like Mr. Rogers.

Even Satan would reject your soul.

Yeah, that's usually how liberals react to the concept of personal responsibility.

ReapTheChaos: Mikey1969: jayphat: Umm, i hate to burst this myth, but they don't. On average, when a Walmart moves in, the number of businesses present beforehand that closes is 4. After 5 years, and if you've ever seen a Walmart built, a ton of crap gets built around it. I'm not going to look for this study tonight, google it yourself if you want to see it.

Yeah, either a bunch of chain restaurants, or places that don't do any business related to WalMart. In other words, no competition.

The Wal-Mart they built here a few years back has a strip mall that now surrounds the entire thing. Aside from the chain restaurants, the stores consist of Radio Shack, Game Stop, Dollar General, Super Cuts, a gas station, a Sprint store as well a couple others I cant think of right now. All these places are in direct competition with what Wal-Mart sells yet they're thriving.

Game Stop: Used games. WalMart doesn't sell these.

Radio Shack: Haven't been able to classify this one for years, not sure how much they compete, because I've never seen anyone buy an actual TV at Radio Shack

Dollar General: Even WalMart doesn't sell that kind of cheap crap

Super Cuts: Hair Salons in WalMart are off and on, some have them, some don't. Sure they compete, but that Salon in WalMart could be turned into a bank tomorrow.

Gas Station: Just like the salon, it's not common enough in WalMart to be a regular thing, I can think of maybe 1 WalMart I know of here that sells gas.

Sprint: You DO realize that WalMart doesn't -rovide phone SERVICE, right? That's where people like Sprint come in. How exactly is WalMart supposed to sell you a cell phone if they drive the coverage providers out of business?

Silly Jesus thinks you should be a slave if you have kids.

Silly Jesus also thinks having kids is a very bad thing.

ox45tallboy: Litterbox: Welp, it should be interesting on Black Friday. Im a Deputy Sheriff and along with about ten others, we will be working security at our local Walmart. Less people is good as long as I still get paid for being there. LOL!

So, are you doing this a "side job" for $25+/hour?

What do you think about the employees at Wal-Mart that are being ordered to work "security" and "prevent people from cutting in line or getting into fights", like my sister? For $8.50/hr?

Your sister is working as a "security guard"? Wal-Mart doesn't have a very good reputation when it comes to new, untrained "security guards".

You and your sister are wise to fight this.

ciberido: Silly Jesus: It comes down to life choices. She has three kids, one car, and works at Wal-Mart. Somewhere along the line some very bad decisions were made. These are the consequences. The Walton's didn't force her to make those decisions.

ox45tallboy: Yes, indeed. She chose to marry her first husband who put her in a bad situation. She chose to marry a second husband who got shot up in Iraq, and has had a hell of a time getting on disability. She chose to have a special needs child.

Fark you for blaming the victim.

Seriously, f*ck you.

I don't have anything else to say to you.

You needn't bother. Silly Jesus has passed beyond what I call the Derpchild radius, the point at which Poe's Law collapses under the burden of its own derp. It's no longer possible to determine whether the farker is sincere, trolling, or sarcastic. Nor, ultimately does it matter. No rational argument will ever be able to escape that singularity. It's just mathematically impossible.

Aww, how precious. You've created an alternate reality to avoid the real world.

timujin: I'm going to give you a 3/10 for this one. Sure, there are more workers than this type of work to be done, but there are 3,000,000 unfilled jobs in this country right now. Those are jobs that require certain types of training, though, and we're not doing what we can as a country to get people that training.

BULLSHIAT, BULLSHIAT, BULLAHIAT!
Let me fix that for you:
Those are jobs that require certain types of training, though, and we're not doing what we can as a country to get people that training employers expect to hire people who have either paid out of their pockets or had subsidized schooling for the exact training and experience to fill those jobs.

So yes, employers don't want to spend any time or money training anyone. It's their problem, not anyone else's. The hiring requirements are so narrow and specific and the HR hurdles are so high and exclusive right now, it's not wonder the economy is shiatting out its guts right now.
Low wages stifle demand.
Until employers get this through their greedy heads, nothing will change.
Until employers invest in their workforce and show some reciprocal loyalty, they're going to suffer.

DeathCipris: Dunno if this has already been said during the 648 comments already in this thread, but...
Mistreatment of workers? Coming from the same company that took out "secret" life insurance policies on employees and pocketed a large amount of the return when they kicked it?

Bwah? Color me surprised...

Google "Wal-Mart: and "Dead peasants insurance" for more details.

Howlin Mad Murphy: How do you assholes want it? You biatch and moan about a lot of these same people being on welfare, then you want to put them down for standing up for themselves and demanding livable wages. Oooh, please someone save the multi-billion dollar corporation! They shouldn't have to pay their employees anymore because they are worthless pieces of shiat that knew what they were getting into. Give me a farking break.

THIS a lot.

MagicPlasticTreeFrog: Yes. Dial back time a few decades and many of the expectations you say your sister wants from her job were not even common place. Once workers and legislators got those benefits working, the working class started asking for more.

Also, if your sister is getting fleeced that badly, she should really do something about it.

Dial it back a few decades and many people had good pension plans that they were being offered for staying with their company. Also, most workers were being paid more (adjusted for inflation).

Plenty of people will take their jobs?
Maybe. But not quick enough to save Black Friday.

Dunno if this has already been said during the 648 comments already in this thread, but...
Mistreatment of workers? Coming from the same company that took out "secret" life insurance policies on employees and pocketed a large amount of the return when they kicked it?

Bwah? Color me surprised...