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Wal-Mart

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Awesome!

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Should Wal-Mart be unionized to help give their workers a better wage?
 
Awesome! said:
Should Wal-Mart be unionized to help give their workers a better wage?
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Whether to unionize or not is up to the workers at a particular employer, not the rest of us.
 
chevydriver1123 said:
Please tell me your trying to be funny
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No, I'm merely proposing a more productive alternative. We can consult the available empirical literature for evidence of the negative effect of Wal-Mart expansion under our current state of affairs. For example, consider Goetz and Swaminathan's Wal-Mart and County-Wide Poverty:

After carefully and comprehensively accounting for other local determinants of changes in poverty, we find that the presence of Wal-Mart was unequivocally associated with smaller reductions in family-poverty rates in U.S. counties during the 1990s relative to places that had no stores. This was true not only in terms of existing stores in a county in 1987, but also an independent outcome of new stores built between 1987 and 1998.
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I also refer to Zhang et al.'s The effects of Wal-Mart on local labor markets.

We estimate the effects of Wal-Mart stores on county-level retail employment and earnings, accounting for endogeneity of the location and timing of Wal-Mart openings that most likely biases the evidence against finding adverse effects of Wal-Mart stores. We address the endogeneity problem using a natural instrumental variables approach that arises from the geographic and time pattern of the opening of Wal-Mart stores, which slowly spread out from the first stores in Arkansas. The employment results indicate that a Wal-Mart store opening reduces county-level retail employment by about 150 workers, implying that each Wal-Mart worker replaces approximately 1.4 retail workers. This represents a 2.7 percent reduction in average retail employment. The payroll results indicate that Wal-Mart store openings lead to declines in county-level retail earnings of about $1.4 million, or 1.5 percent. Of course, these effects occurred against a backdrop of rising retail employment, and only imply lower retail employment growth than would have occurred absent the effects of Wal-Mart.
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In light of Wal-Mart's obviously negative and deleterious impacts on employment, wages, and the wider local economy, I'm merely proposing a more efficient and effective alternative in the way of workers' ownership and democratic management.

Goshin said:
You should know by now that Agna doesn't do humor.
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Of course he does. You just don't understand it. :2wave:

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Awesome! said:
Should Wal-Mart be unionized to help give their workers a better wage?
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What do you mean better wages? When I worked at Wal-Mart I was making $11.80/hr after 6 months. Around these parts that is not chump change. Especially when, at the time, minimum wage was $6.25/hr. (or there abouts) So they actually pay pretty decent.

What they do need to work on is their attitude towards people that can't make it to work for valid reasons....like hitting a deer at 60 mph. About the only time they will excuse an absense is when you are on your deathbed or a close family member dies. Other than that you're screwed blued and tattooed.

Edit note: BTW...wheres the poll?
 
No, The unions are useless and drive costs up
 
Awesome! said:
Should Wal-Mart be unionized to help give their workers a better wage?
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The people who work there chose to do so. Why limit choice?
 
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No... instead, Walmart should be banned from areas where it will do immense damage to the local culture and economy. Vancouver did this in the 90's, saving all of its independent businesses in the process.

Walmart is a machine that doesn't care about human beings. Having a union is the last thing that will happen.
 
Orius said:
No... instead, Walmart should be banned from areas where it will do immense damage to the local culture and economy.
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People choose to work there, people choose to buy from there. It's not some sort of mafia.

If people really hated it so much in those areas where it somehow does damage, they'd boycott it.

Vancouver did this in the 90's, saving all of its independent businesses in the process.
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That is terrible. Stores should not need permission from the government to exist.

Walmart is a machine that doesn't care about human beings. Having a union is the last thing that will happen.
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Stores can't care about human beings because, you know, they aren't sentient....
 
Orius said:
No... instead, Walmart should be banned from areas where it will do immense damage to the local culture and economy. Vancouver did this in the 90's, saving all of its independent businesses in the process.
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Weather it should be banned or not should be up to the individual cities which Wal-Mart wants to move into. A Wal-Mart in the town were I live would help immensely.
 
Dav said:
Stores can't care about human beings because, you know, they aren't sentient....
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Actually some companies are considered to be a "person" for certain legal purposes. Don't ask me how. I just know it to be true.
 
Wal-Mart operates with a pretty small profit margin believe it or not, and if unions come in and start to drive the price of labor etc up then that profit starts to disappear and when that happens, the jobs will start disappearing as well.

Wal-Mart does not need to be unionized.
 
Silly Mortal.. The Great Beast cannot be unionized!
 
Dav said:
People choose to work there, people choose to buy from there. It's not some sort of mafia.
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It's not a mafia... just a corporate machine that has no regard for local business, economy, or culture. It stamps one of its mega stores into the earth and sucks the area dry.

Dav said:
If people really hated it so much in those areas where it somehow does damage, they'd boycott it.
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The demographic of those who tend to shop at walmart are ignorant of the devastation that shopping there causes.

Dav said:
That is terrible. Stores should not need permission from the government to exist.
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The government responded at the behest of local businesses, protests, and petitions. Unlike in so many other places that fought to have walmart rejected but failed, the Vancouver city council actually listened.

Dav said:
Stores can't care about human beings because, you know, they aren't sentient....
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See, you're getting it!
 
Orius said:
No... instead, Walmart should be banned from areas where it will do immense damage to the local culture and economy. Vancouver did this in the 90's, saving all of its independent businesses in the process.
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Some towns do this already, in some towns big box retailers need approval from town governments.
 
Agnapostate said:
Considering the effects of market power and labor market coercion caused by severe inequalities, that's a rather utopian outlook.
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Please, tell me what you mean.
 
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