Posted on 10/02/2006 8:06:25 AM PDT by gopwinsin04
Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights and weekends.
Wal-Mart sent the following confidential memo to managers, instructing them how to answer questions from employees about new pay ranges and wage caps. The document was provided to The New York Times by WakeUpWalMart.com, a union-funded group that is critical of the retailer.
Wal-Mart executives say they have embraced new policies for a large number of their 1.3 million workers to better serve their customers, especially at busy shopping times — and point out that competitors like Sears and Target have made some of these moves, too.
But some Wal-Mart workers say the changes are further reducing their already modest incomes and putting a serious strain on their child-rearing and personal lives.
Current and former Wal-Mart workers say some managers have insisted that they make themselves available around the clock, and assert that the company is making changes with an eye to forcing out longtime higher-wage workers to make way for lower-wage part-time employees.
Investment analysts and store managers say Wal-Mart executives have told them the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent.
Wal-Mart denies it has a goal of 40 percent part-time workers, although company officials say that part-timers now make up 25 percent to 30 percent of workers, up from 20 percent last October.
Sarah Clark, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the company viewed the changes as “a productivity improvement through which we will improve the shopping experience for our customers and make Wal-Mart a better place to work for our associates,” as Wal-Mart refers to its employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
bump
That is a universal business policy now, not just Wal-Mart's.
WalMart Ping
I wonder if they have fixed the problem of those illegal immigrants cleaning up overnights in Wal Marts yet.
But that's not how Sam Walton did it. Maybe Walmart wants to become the next K-mart.
wallmart announces health insurance for part timers and then puts on wage caps.
interesting.
Go Walmart !!
The unions make it seem like Wal Mart hires press gangs to "Shanghai" their workers and then keeps them chained to their posts to work for peanuts under sweatshop conditions.
>>>Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights and weekends. >>>
I'm beginning to hate Walmart about as much as the leftists do.
Walmart is forcing it's employees to Medicaid because they offer no solutions. When a majority of your employees are on socialized medicine, and you are the largest employer in the country... something is wrong with this picture.
Part-time is great for mothers with small children who'd like to work some but not a lot. I've been P/T for 10 years and I love it.
Good for Wal-mart for offering this option.
>>>But that's not how Sam Walton did it. Maybe Walmart wants to become the next K-mart.>>>
I've been saying this for months. K-Mart learned the hard way and it seems the corporate heads are not learning. Oh wait, who am I kidding!?! These CEO's know that by the time they have royally screwed the company up, they will be long gone with their bonuses in tact and sitting in a nice fat account.
>>>Union supplied BS ...Wal Mart has to compete for its labor like any other business and if the pay and work hours they offer aren't acceptable, workers will simply go somewhere else. >>>
Where? Have you even been to a rural area? In our area, the maufacturing plants (all 8 of them) have shut down and went to China (LITERALLY, it was the textile industry) and the only place left that is hiring the majority is Walmart.
Well welcome to the same world that the rest of us have been living in for the last decade. Every company I know of is taking steps to rid itself of older, higher paid workers either through outsourcing, internal evaluations, layoffs, and anything else they can think of. If anything Wal-Mart is late out of the gate on this tactic.
I dont think Walmart has the only supply of illegals doing janitoral work, One only has to look around my city, and wonder if all the janitors are green card holders...working in Sears, Pennys, Walgreens, Gap, Macys.
and in most any mall
Sam Walton would be spinning in his grave over wage caps.
And this is WalMart's fault, how?
So your solution is to kill that last remaining employer? LMFAO.
Why don't you instead focus on the reduction of regulation and taxes in your state and country so that industry can be more competitive?
>>>And this is WalMart's fault, how?>>>
I never said it was Walmart's fault. I was responding to another poster who said the competitive job market would take care of it. Pay attention.
So now instead of having the majority of workers who care about customer service and how it impacts their potential future with the company, we now have to deal with more and more untrained monkeys who curse under their breath if you ask them where something in the store is located.
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