John Paul Ashton, a 31-year-old Washington-based Walmart maintenance worker who makes $20,000 a year, has no choice but to rely on food stamps.
He can afford photos of his family...
Posted on 11/29/2013 10:18:17 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
No one is forced to work at Walmart. People are free to work where they will be happy with the conditions. If people are not qualified for jobs that pay more they need to become more qualified. If there are no other jobs available in this economy then they should be happy to have a job.
Every job I have ever had was based on employer deciding what the work would be and how much the company was willing to pay. I had the option of negotiating for better pay/conditions and if we could not agree I was free to find another job. It is very liberal thinking that leads us to think it is up to the employer to meet our demands.
Retail is a hard way to make a living, I worked retail in my younger days. I was paid very little and worked hard, especially around the holidays. I did get Christmas Day off, as most stores were closed then. I worked Christmas Eve until about 11 and had to be in the store at 7 am the day after Christmas to start tidying up and get ready for inventory so I did not have enough time off to go to where my family lived for Christmas. I did not blame my employer for that, it was part of the job. The economy was not good then under President Carter so I was thrilled to have a job. As soon as I could I figured out other ways to make a living because I did not like retail.
Sam paid well above the agri wage. Soon the CHICKEN MEN could not get reliable help, as so many of their workers went to the new WALMART, so they imported the first Hispanic laborers into this area to take up the slack.
Back then, towns often had two stores of everything to claim there was no price fixing but free market competition. Actually these store owners had under-the-table handshakes to keep their prices high. The city fathers also got a share by keeping real competition out of town.
Sam also broke these small town monopolies, by buying and building outside of town, and brought lower prices which killed these small high dollar mom and pop stores. Those who were gouging the public screamed about how Sam was destroying the small towns! The real problem was SAM had stopped the cash flow from the poor farmer and working people into the pockets of the monopolies who controlled the towns. No one forces people to work at WALMART. The chicken men are still hiring, but at a higher wage (They have now brought in Somalis) to try and compete for labor with Walmart.
The only thing missing is the union label.
“You don’t like working for Wal Mart and making $9 an hour? Then GO TO COLLEGE, get some training . . . it’s not that hard.
I work at a major big box retailer. I am, however, salaried. Lots of the older adults working in the store are either retired, with time on their hands, or they’re people who just CHOSE not to get additional education. Sometimes they are disabled in some way. But MOST of them made choices ...”
At the Walmart near me, I have noticed the same fact as you mention above, that Walmart hires disabled workers. I think this is a fine thing they are doing, giving people with physical or some minor mental deficiences a chance at a job. It may be the more menial work that they will be capable of doing, but it is worthwhile work nevertheless, and I appreciate the fact that Walmart hires these disabled people. Kudos to them.
Patricia Locks, a 48-year-old single mom - Seattle
Following a recent stay in the hospital due to complications with her diabetes, Locks was forced to file for bankruptcy. The alternative was for the hospital to take hundreds of dollars out of her paychecks to cover the $21,000 hospital bill.
Who do you think paid for the hospital stay when she didn’t?
Santa Claus?
I wouldn't either, but I might work there rather than starve, some here would not.
Wal-Mart is not a career unless you are in management, then it can be a really good career indeed.
John Paul Ashton, a 31-year-old Washington-based Walmart maintenance worker who makes $20,000 a year, has no choice but to rely on food stamps.
He can afford photos of his family...
Yeah, most people have NO IDEA what a store manager at Wal-Mart (or any other big box merchandise or grocery store) makes and I have a feeling they like to keep it that way.
Just steal the extra money they think they deserve from the stockholders who risked the money when they bought the stock?! I wonder who paid for those professional signs they are holding? Maybe these employees should work for them!
Most maintenance workers, even at mobile home & RV parks, apartment buildings, small factories and the like make way north of $20,000. What’s wrong with this picture?
The United Food and Commercial Workers union and this sham front of theirs:
http://forrespect.org/connect/
Read the legal disclaimer fine print at the bottom of the page...
November 25, 2013
Union front groups are planning more than 1,500 protests at Walmarts nationwide on Black Friday despite lacking significant support from actual employees, critics say.
The Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), a self-proclaimed subsidiary of the United Food and Commercial Workers retail union (UFCW), says it will picket 1,500 stores the day after Thanksgiving, one of the largest shopping days of the year.
“Associates do stick together and look out for each other. We have to because Walmart and the Waltons seem to be fine with the financial struggles that we’re all facing,” Colorado Walmart employee Barbara Gertz said in an OUR Walmart release. “We’re are all in the same situation, one that Walmart creates by paying us poverty wages.”
Gertz appears to represent a small minority of Walmart’s 1.3 million employees. OUR Walmart’s 2012 Black Friday protest featured thousands of demonstrators, but less than 50 actual associates, according to the company. Labor watchdogs expect more of the same this year, especially because the worker center keeps focusing on the number of protests, rather than the number of employee dissidents.
“They’re not the type of grassroots worker-driven efforts that media portrays them to be,” Ryan Williams of Worker Center Watch said. “They’re protests held by professional protesters—oftentimes paid and given training—to cause a scene for publicity.”
J. Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, said that UFCW members, political allies, and paid protestors dominate such rallies, in order to give off the appearance of strength.
“OUR Walmart has nowhere near the support they need to unionize Walmart; if they did, they would do it,” he said. “The goal is to get 500 workers to attend [the protests]—they’d need 650,000 workers for a successful organization campaign.”
http://freebeacon.com/critics-walmart-protests-lack-actual-walmart-employees/
Legal Disclaimer: UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Wal-Mart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Wal-Mart publically commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees. Judges have preliminarily enjoined non-Associates who are part of the UFCW International or OUR Walmart from entering Walmart property in Arkansas ( Read the order here.), Florida (Read the order here.), and Maryland (Read the order here.). A California judge has enjoined non-associate agents of the UFCW and OUR Walmart from engaging in certain activities inside CA Walmart stores. Click here for a copy of the order.
No kidding. I have a kid with autism myself ...I always, always ask ...what excuse does ANYONE have who has no disability and a normally functioning mind.
“Normal” does not always equate “good” or “decent.”
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