Posted on 05/26/2005 6:27:37 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Because of Wal-Mart's inadequate wages and benefits, Wal-Mart employees are eligible for $2.5 billion in Federal assistance, which comes from your tax dollars.
(Excerpt) Read more at wakeupwalmart.com ...
What are you talking about?
Please explain what is so twisted about it? Is is twisted to watch your employees suffer, if they suffer, while they mind the shop for you to have your vacation? It is not twisted for a few employers I have known who paid their employees a living wage and never took vacations. I've seen that, too, but it is uncommon because usually the spouse of the employer, if he/she is able to keep their marriage intact, wants their share of the good life. After all, they've earned it even if they don't work because they are married to a winner and not a loser. Winners deserve all the perks that come with the good life. Losers are, well losers, and are good for nothing except for what they can do for you on the cheap and are fortunate if you don't abuse them in the process.
I was talking to my granddaughter about people who have to drag out in the cold early in the morning to work at McDonald's. A lot of people are demanding and abusive towards them she says. She works at the mall and doesn't want to work at McDonalds or Wal Mart. She takes abuse at the mall sometimes, too. She says she has to buy at Wal Mart because it is so cheap. I told her that is ok. I don't try to dissuade people from shopping there if they choose to. I'll tackle it from another angle.
Some of the arguments about Wal Mart are rather silly because you can find the same or better-quality merchandise on sale locally at another store or get better deals on the internet if you know how to work it. Wal Mart is convenient because it is one-stop shopping for busy people, and their groceries are cheap, but there are other economical food markets that are just as cheap or cheaper, but you might have to go to a higher-crime area to shop there.
Your ramblings are becoming harder and harder to comprehend.
This country spends trillions of dollars a year on education, re-education, job training, etc. Why, to help people improve. If you don't wish to participate in these programs and many others that cost taxpayers trillions of dollars, why then blame the employer? You obviously believe that people who take all the risks should not benefit. Well, they do and will. There are supposed to be rewards for risk taking.
I just try to understand your position.
Imagine that you are a successful businessmen who pays his workers little and enjoys large profits. Imagine that your employees cannot afford to take vacations and that you have such luxuries like yacht and private jet.
My question is, would you give up your private jet or the yacht if this would enable you to provide means for your employees to enjoy modest vacation. Let us assume that you would still be able to go to Cancun and have other luxuries.
What would be your choice and would you feel guilty if you did not exercise your generosity?
As I recall, she got first-class medical care in another country when she developed heart trouble, not the treatment the people she helped got. Some of them were allowed to just die without getting them treatment that would have saved their lives. So please don't play the Mother Theresa card on me. She did a lot of good, but she was not perfect.
Go up to the next guy you see in a wheelchair and ask him if he thinks life is fair.
Everybody knows life isn't fair. That's no excuse for not lending a helping hand if you are able.
Keeping that in mind -- people are paid according to their skill set. The more common and easily learned the skill sets pay the lowest salaries.
I KNOW THAT. Most in society consider them losers unless they better themselves. Every human being in our society who is able and willing to work full-time deserves enough pay for basic subsistence. Some people get down through their own fault. Some people get down through no fault of their own and are never able to pull themselves up and stay up for one reason or another. Sometimes both categories of people do manage to pull themselves up and better themselves, and I am happy for them.
As to asking questions, I asked the nice girl at the gas station if she had ever applied to work at Wal Mart. She was kind of taken aback at first, but I told her I was writing something. Didn't tell her what. She said she had never thought to apply at Wal Mart. I asked her why. She said she liked working where she does and is treated well. I didn't dare get any more nosy. She works in the kind of place that has two cameras and a bullet proof shield that comes down for the night shift. She works the day shift.
While I was going in, an Hispanic-looking guy ran over a kid's bicycle that was lying down in front of his truck. He was annoyed but noticed the bicycle was damaged and irritatingly went in and loudly asked whose bike it was. The owner of the bike was an older kid in the bathroom. When they came out, he offered to give them his number. It ended up he threw the bicycle in the back of his truck, the two kids climbed in, and they took off. I noted the kind of truck just in case . . . but he just didn't see the bike. I hope he did the right thing. I was glad it was only the bike. Sorry. That has nothing to do with Wal Mart although maybe the bike came from there.
I'm going to be asking more people "out there" questions as tactfully as I can.
When they can afford to employ people. After they have scrimped to get their business running. And what does that have to do with my post anyway?
if I owned a business and jetted off to Cancun while my employees were back home doing my slop work and never able to take a vacation eqivalent to mine, I would feel guilty.
BWhy should the employee, who didn't take those risks, get the same rewards as the employer who created the job?
Why would an employer bother to take those risks if he didn't get any reward?
Besides, you wouldn't own a business because you don't have the initiative to do so. You know it would be more trouble than complaining on the 'net. You want others to go out and take the trouble for you and create jobs for you to support yourself in the way you think you deserve, and they should be happy to do that with whatever profit you think is fair.
Now, that, my dear, is elitism.
It is a good (although sad observation) that it is often the spouse (I will not specify the gender) who is greedy and unconsiderate. There are also politicians who by themselves are quite nice, but their spouse has great ambitions and lust for power.
Tripe like this just makes me wanna go buy more stuff at Wal Mart.
I am afraid I understand what is your answer. I hope that you are only pretending.
I am not saying there shouldn't be. They should be in proportion to how well you treat your employees though.
I have participated in one of those programs and made it through. I'm not blaming all employers, just certain ones. If you can't make it through my ramblings, maybe you should go to a program and brush up on your reading comprehension skills. My particular job from that stint finally left town as so many do. I found another one with the government. I would have preferred a good company, but the hours with the government job were better for raising three children.
If my writing skills are that defective, I'll get some help with that on my end. There is help out there. I'm thinking of a Studs Terkel type book with conversations with Wal Mart employees, if Wal Mart doesn't get wind of it and threaten them not to talk or they will be penalized and/or fired if they can get away with it.
Most of those programs are scams anyway. They get people in them who just don't have the mental capacity to learn the skill for some jobs that don't exist if and when they get through, and people make money off running them which would be more government employees.
I hear you. My only comment as to greedy and inconsiderate is that I doubt they do their shopping at Wal Mart, although I think a few probably do. I doubt any politician's spouse shops at Wal Mart.
As to the great ambitions and lust for power, I can think of one like that whose name starts with H, but I haven't thought the spousal ambition part through and don't know any politicians up close lately, only what I hear on the news. I never quite figured out the spouse of the politician whose name started with T and had something to do with that stuff you put on your hot dogs and hamburgers. I really kind of concluded that he was the one with the ambition, she was the one with the assets and was along for the ride for reasons I'm not sure about.
For the record -- and this is my last post for awhile tonight -- I do not consider them "losers." These are people caught in large, complicated economic systems. They grew up being told and believing that not much would ever change and then...everything changed. Now, some of them are waiting for it to "change back," but it never will.
Also for the record, I suspect that you live in a small town. If so, trust me on this -- nothing is as bad or as ugly as the arrogance of the "small town upper crust." I've seen the arrogance of Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue types and it doesn't compare. Not even close.
I have worked for other large companies in the US that had fewer (read zero) benefits, even for management. Wal-Mart is not alone in this.
Since when did benefits become mandatory? They are incentives to draw better employees. $$ work as well.
Please tell me what dollar amount you consider to be "a living wage".
Why do you care?
I do know a tad bit about small town arrogance and the gossip that accompanies it which is one of the disadvantages of living in one unless you find a nice one, if one exists.
One advantage to a larger area is that you blend in with the crowd and have a little more anonymity; i.e., people don't know you or your business as much. And some of those people are nice in their own way. I don't like to paint all people at all times with such a broad brush. I stay out of politics in my area because things are really ugly where I live at the moment.
Yes, sadly, for some people waiting for things to change back, it never will. We can agree on that. It isn't necessarily their own fault or stupidity that got them there. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.
Because you obviously have a dollar amount in mind and I'd like to know what you think it should be.
In my area, $10 (single only) to $16 per hour minimum. In other areas that wouldn't even come close. It does depend on which part of the country you live in. In some places in the south you might be able to support yourself on $8 per hour and live independently, but probably not if you have dependents.
I wouldn't even want to take a stab at what it would be for California. Northern might be a little better than southern but not by a whole lot.
During the Viet Nam war in the mid '60's, we were able to rent a small, odd little 3-bedroom house in a nice, small town in a decent neighborhood for $75 per month. I was very thankful to have that. That would be impossible today.
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