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Walmart workers demand better wages

ttwtt78640 said:
What is a fair pay and benefit "package" for a low/semi-skilled worker? If all low/semi-skilled U.S. labor paid enough to warrant a "middle class" lifestyle then why should one bother to graduate HS, get additional job skills and become more productive? If a McWorker gets a "living wage" then why become a McManager, electrician, carpenter, engineer or any other skilled worker?
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Did you just scare quotes "living wage!?"

And did you also then ask the question "but why would anyone want more money if they're already (barely) surviving!?"

I don't know. Why would a CEO make millions when they can live a middle-class lifestyle off 50k?
 
Deuce said:
Employees have the individual liberty to group together to fight for better working conditions. Your libertarianism is selective, apparently.
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Our course they have that option, just as an employer can have the option of saying "you're fired, get out."
Free association is a beautiful thing.
 
Deuce said:
Did you just scare quotes "living wage!?"

And did you also then ask the question "but why would anyone want more money if they're already (barely) surviving!?"

I don't know. Why would a CEO make millions when they can live a middle-class lifestyle off 50k?
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They aren't "barely surviving."
That's a gross exaggeration.
 
Fletch said:
If people wont do things the way we think they ought to be done we will force them to do it. Thuggery at its finest. So much for a free society, bring on the leftist despotism.
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No, we do it to stop the thuggery of corporations, actually.

The choice isn't between raw capitalist despotism and leftist despotism.
 
Deuce said:
Employees have the individual liberty to group together to fight for better working conditions. Your libertarianism is selective, apparently.
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No, I have never argued against the right of workers to organize.
 
Fletch said:
Our nation was founded upon the principle of individual liberty. The Constitution is there to protect that liberty. The free market is just liberty in the field of economics. It is you and I engaging in the free exchange of value for value. But as usual, you have the question backwards.
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Really?!?!?!?!? I thought our entire governmental system was built upon the desire to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.

We both seem to include the liberty part but for some reason you left out a whole lot of other really important stuff.
 
My daughter worked there part time while going to college, as a cashier....
if an item didn't have a price tag she would ask the customer how much it was, and rung it up...unless it looked like a high priced item. Her line was always among the fastest at getting the customer checked out. They liked her, and wanted her to stay after college, and with her degree in economics she probably would have done well there. But her husband's job was farm building construction and they had to travel too much for her to take the WalMart job.
Now he has his own construction company, with a partner, and is doing well enough to put a 1/3 down payment on his own building, so no more renting....and she has a successful website business, with a partner, that makes very good money working from home.
AND STILL she hasn't bought me a jaguar.....:shock:
 
TurtleDude said:
the issue is where the government was actually given the power. You see, under the intent of the authors, the government ONLY HAS POWER SPECIFICALLY GIVEN IT

the Leftwing attitude that the government has ANY POWER NOT SPECIFICALLY DENIED IT is specious and contrary to the obvious intent of the founders
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Actually the issue you brought up was staying faithful to what you keep calling "market forces".
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
So you're suggesting we get rid of our social welfare system?
Yikes, not even I propose that.

I didn't think you were a minarchist
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I have no idea how you jumped to that conclusion.

Is a mini-anarchist a midget anarchist?
 
I'll say it for the 120,465th time this week. Obama promised to raise the minimum wage every year and didn't even try it once in 4 years. If the democrats thought people were enslaved by their wages, they could have fixed it. They did not.

As for the tortuous reading of the Constitution by the left, they forget the 10th Amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (emphasis added by a Jeffersonian Democrat)
 
Dezaad said:
No, we do it to stop the thuggery of corporations, actually.

The choice isn't between raw capitalist despotism and leftist despotism.
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Thuggery and despotism employ force and coercion, no one is forced to take a job at WalMart. Right now, a cart pusher or a greeter at WalMart earns $8 per hour. How much would you pay them if it were your business, and how much do you think the state whould force Walmart to pay for such an unskilled position. Keep in mind, thatraising the rate too much will just result in the elimination of that position or the reduction in the wages of those who do other, more skill intensive tasks.
 
TurtleDude said:
the issue is where the government was actually given the power. You see, under the intent of the authors, the government ONLY HAS POWER SPECIFICALLY GIVEN IT

the Leftwing attitude that the government has ANY POWER NOT SPECIFICALLY DENIED IT is specious and contrary to the obvious intent of the founders
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Find me constitutional backing for the US Air Force.
 
Dezaad said:
I absolutely agree.

However: It is corporations that have allowed this view to develop that somehow they can be responsive to other imperatives. These other imperatives can be classed as things which fall under the name "corporate responsibility". They have done this in order to short circuit any lawmaking which would create regulations on their behavior which would actually create new imperatives by which they would be lawfully governed. And then here you come along and basically say there is no such thing as "corporate responsibility".

To which I again heartily agree. So, let's get back to the business of lawmaking, which will create corporate responsibility under the force of law.
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To which I have to say I heartily disagree with the highlighted statement.

Anyway, your post seems to suggest that corporations are at fault for accepting "responsibilities" in order to avoid, I presume, more onerous responsibilities being forced upon them. Then you turn around and say that those responsibilities should be forced upon them anyway.

Sorry, dude...you can't have it both ways.
 
haymarket said:
Actually the issue you brought up was staying faithful to what you keep calling "market forces".
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People like him think that all market forces are benevolent to mankind. He is mistaken.
 
entry level walmart jobs are never going to pay a large salary. that being said, at minimum, workers should have more control over their hours and schedules. that's one of the worst parts of working there.

it should also be noted that walmart is the nation's largest employer, and it depends heavily on public assistance to fill the gap for its employees. the "cheap" prices that you're paying there are only artificially so, and you pay for the true cost of the goods and labor in other ways. it's important to keep that in mind.
 
Mycroft said:
To which I have to say I heartily disagree with the highlighted statement.

Anyway, your post seems to suggest that corporations are at fault for accepting "responsibilities" in order to avoid, I presume, more onerous responsibilities being forced upon them. Then you turn around and say that those responsibilities should be forced upon them anyway.

Sorry, dude...you can't have it both ways.
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How incredibly funny!! You say I am trying to have it both ways??? The corporations foist upon us this myth of voluntary corporate responsibility. Liberals try to cajole corporations to live by the principles of corporate responsibility and conservatives say that corporate responsibility is a myth. I acknowledge that it is indeed a myth and state that we ought to therefore institute involuntary corporate responsibility. Then you accuse ME of wanting to have it both ways? That is rich.
 
Helix said:
entry level walmart jobs are never going to pay a large salary. that being said, at minimum, workers should have more control over their hours and schedules. that's one of the worst parts of working there.
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A job, is not an "a la carte" menu at a restaurant.
You want work, you need to fill the hours they have open.

Helix said:
it should also be noted that walmart is the nation's largest employer, and it depends heavily on public assistance to fill the gap for its employees. the "cheap" prices that you're paying there are only artificially so, and you pay for the true cost of the goods and labor in other ways. it's important to keep that in mind.
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This is probably one of the dumbest arguments ever presented, that keeps getting repeated.
What about all the employers before Walmart, who practiced this very same thing, sans public bennies.
 
Deuce said:
Did you just scare quotes "living wage!?"

And did you also then ask the question "but why would anyone want more money if they're already (barely) surviving!?"

I don't know. Why would a CEO make millions when they can live a middle-class lifestyle off 50k?
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Perhaps I missed your point, or you have missed mine. You seem to agree that higher skilled/more productive work should get higher compensation, but you seem to assert that any[B/] employment should provide "the basics" for a comfortable independent existance. That was certainly not true when I started working; minimum wage was just raised to $1.25/hour which, if adjusted for inflation, is now $7.14/hour.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
The pay and benefit scale, at Walmart, hardly qualifies as "malevolent to mankind."
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Umm, yeah, I would call it malevolent, albeit a mild form. Walmart's policies amount to an abuse of the free market. They misuse both market power and information asymmetry to benefit themselves at the expense of their workers.
 
If companies paid their employees a little more wouldn't those same people spend that money right back with companies who would in turn make a substantial profit off those purchases made with the higher salaries?

Isn't higher wages ultimately an investment in increased sales?
 
OpportunityCost said:
Respectfully disagree. Corporate social responsibility dictates that eventually any policy that is viewed neagtively by the public will cost sales and profit. I would say it has reached that point with Wal-Mart. They could engage in a pay step scale that doesnt leave employees in danger of losing raises faster than the minimum wage is raised in states. Wage compression is a very real issue in Wal-Mart and they ought to address it.

Better employee wages also tend to make for better employee customers---something to consider.

Last note: Wal-Mart is not the same company it was under Sam Walton and any employee that has been there since he was the boss will say as much. The company has changed considerably and while it is the largest employer in the US, its days are numbered---internet sales are going to dent Wal-Mart just as hard as they are other retail outlets. The reasons why someone shops will have as much to do with service and environment as they do with convenience and price in as little as 10 to 15 years. Wal-Mart would do well to examine their employment model closely, it wont last as it is forever.
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All that is fine and good...and it's Walmart's choice if they want to follow your advice or not. But you've said nothing to dispute my statement, which was a rejection of tererun's contention that Walmart has a responsibility to improve the general state of our economy or reduce the number of people who take government benefits.
 
Dezaad said:
Umm, yeah, I would call it malevolent, albeit a mild form. Walmart's policies amount to an abuse of the free market. They misuse both market power and information asymmetry to benefit themselves at the expense of their workers.
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Sorry, but that's ludicrous.
Walmart is employing and paying people based on their individual value.

That's why their wages are lowish.
 
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