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Walmart Gives 500,000 Workers A Raise

imagep said:
I must have missed the layoffs in the article. Can you show me exactly where it said that Walmart was going to have to lay off employees in order to offer a slightly better wage?
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It didn't say, I am just projecting the outcomes the same way you are projecting outcomes.
 
jmotivator said:
I think the crowing about Walmart's capitulation is rather premature. Will you still crow if Walmart starts laying off employees within the next year?

I find it funny when the spread the wealth crowd is happier with one employee making $10 an hour than they are with two employees making $7.
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Walmart will employ as many workers at it needs, no more and no less. It will pay employees whatever it thinks is the optimal pay.

As the unemployment rate drops, companies have to compete harder for workers, and thus compensation tends to become greater. I agree this this likely has nothing to do with "capitulation", and has much more to do with maximizing profits.

A half million workers just got a raise, if you want to pretend that this raise was caused by politics, then THANKS OBAMA!

But these decisions are business decisions, not political decisions.
 
jmotivator said:
It didn't say, I am just projecting the outcomes the same way you are projecting outcomes.
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What outcomes did I project?

And in what post did I make those projections?

The truth is, you are just making up stuff, stuff that doesn't even make sense.

I bet you are one of those people who totally bought into Rush L.'s lies about "every employer is going to drop insurance because it's going to be cheaper for the employers to pay the fine".
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Asking for a higher wage than they agreed to is not unrealistic at all. I believe it should be raised to $12.50. Coming from the capitalist mindset, it will raise prices by a little over 1% but it would also cause an economic stimulus for other low wage workers, and it would also save the good ol American taxpayer money, taking many of these workers off social welfare programs. ..

"So why doesn’t Wal-Mart just improve its public image by raising its wages? Those same Berkeley researchers estimated that the company could boost its pay to a minimum of $12 per hour and cover the additional expense by a one-time price hike of just 1.1%, costing the average Wal-Mart shopper only an extra $12.50 per year.... Consider the consequences of raising the minimum wage to $12 per hour.... Not only would Wal-Mart and its competitors suddenly be able to do what was best for both shareholders and employees, but the same large hike in wages and disposable income would also go to tens of millions of other low-wage American workers. McDonald's MCD -0.41% might need to raise the price of its cheeseburgers by a dime and American-grown agricultural products would cost 2% more on the grocery shelves, but some $150 billion of extra income would flow each year to the sort of households that spend every dollar they earn, producing an enormous, ongoing economic stimulus program, a stimulus program funded entirely by the private sector.... And a large share of those tens of billions in additional disposable income would go toward boosting the revenues at Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, and the other corporations that employ those same workers... Corporate executives have sometimes recognized these facts over the years. In 2006, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott testified before Congress in favor of a large hike in the minimum wage, arguing that even then Wal-Mart shoppers were becoming too poor to shop at Wal-Mart.... The American taxpayer would also be a huge beneficiary. Each year, over $250 billion in social welfare spending goes to working-poor households via government programs such as Food Stamps, EITC checks, and Medicaid. As millions of those workers became much less poor, they would automatically lose their eligibility for anti-poverty assistance, saving taxpayers many tens of billions of dollars each year." Raising The Minimum Wage Would Be Good For Wal-Mart, And America - Forbes
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That was study that started with a premise and then tired to prove it true, not to prove WHETHER it was true. WM is cold-hearted, soulless corporation that will do anything to make a buck. If they could make more money by paying their employees $50/hr than they do now, they would do so. See, my wife works for WM and I've seen the extent to which they will go to make money. Everything from refusing to paint their breakrooms and offices, leaving them bare sheetrock, to restrooms w/o paper towels. WM will do whatever they can to make more money and if this "study" was accurate, then WM would have done it. Stupidity like this study and actually thinking that there's any chance that's it's accurate is a pet peeve of mine. All you have to do is stop and think for a minute and you'll see that it's dead wrong. WM simply wouldn't let this kind of money slip through it's fingers. WM is all about $$$ and if this study accurate, they would be doing exactly what it says. This company has whole depts. committed to looking for these kind of improvements in profitability and if they don't see this as a money-maker, then my guess is that it isn't, since WM cam throw FAR more resources into the study than Berkley can and when they do, they want to find out IF it's profitable, not find a way to show that their premise is correct.
 
jet57 said:
No; fact. walmart has raised the wages in concert with that very idea.
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Nope. WM is not raising it's base to $12/hr, it's raising it to ~$10/hr. If the study was accurate, they would have raised the base wage to $12/hr, since that would have them more money.
 
imagep said:
"Worth" is subjective. If an employee can create $12/hr in production, then they are certainly "worth" $10/hr.
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Not even close. An employee would have to create at least $20./hour to justify being paid $10./hour.
 
jet57 said:
Uh, no. walmart capitulated to the pressure and git jerked into the real world. This will only be good for walmart in the long run.
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WM doesn't capitulate to anything. They make logical business decisions based on $$$$ and nothing else. All the hue and cry in the world wouldn't get them to make decisions that would cost them money.
 
I also wonder if this will be reflected in labor budgets at WM. At WM each store gets a certain amount of labor $$$ to work with and that trickles down to the dept. level as hours, but at the store level, it's ALL about labor $$$. If they don't increase the labor budget, then you will see cuts in hours. The video from the CEO stated that WM would be working to increase hours as well as pay, but pretty much everyone that works at WM is skeptical about this. They've heard these kind of promises before and have seen them fade away when the budget belt gets tightened.
 
imagep said:
"Worth" is subjective. If an employee can create $12/hr in production, then they are certainly "worth" $10/hr.

A typical cashier can check out about 20 people an hour. What's it worth to walmart to be able to conduct an average size transaction (my guess around $100)? A dollar, ten dollars, a half dollar? I dunno, but Walmart knows, and they will pay their employees less than that amount. If Walmart pays a mininimum wage of $10/hr, the value of that employee to Walmart is obviously higher than $10/hr.
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Cashier value is not base don the number of dollars they process, but their error rate. If a cashier processes $5,000 in sales in an 8 hour shift at $7/hour and has a 1% error rate then their total cost is $56 salary + $50 loss for a total cost of $106 (not counting taxes and benefits). If they raise they raise their standards for cashiers in order to reduce the loss rate to, say a third of a percent and pay $10/hour for those cashiers then they pay $80+$16.5 = $96.50. Unfortunately the $7/hour cashier is out of a job as they don't meet the new criteria. Walmart could easily start asking for high school diplomas and expensive background checks for their cashiers to increase the quality.... OR they can do what everyone else in the world is doing and switch to automated tellers where even a 2% error rate ends up costing less than employing a human.

You really come across as nasty and negative and mean and angry towards people, maybe you should lighten up a little. Life is too short to live every minute in anger.
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Not angry in the slightest. I am just pointing out that unskilled workers are easily replaceable and paying them more doesn't make them any more valuable, just more expendable.
 
imagep said:
What outcomes did I project?
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A prediction of no change in the Walmart employment numbers is as much a prediction as my prediction of change.

And in what post did I make those projections?
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If you disagree my prediction of a decreased work force you are making a prediction.

The truth is, you are just making up stuff, stuff that doesn't even make sense.
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I'm sure it makes no sense to you, but that doesn't make it wrong.

I bet you are one of those people who totally bought into Rush L.'s lies about "every employer is going to drop insurance because it's going to be cheaper for the employers to pay the fine".
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Hah, no, but I see you are one of those people who doesn't know the meaning of the word "lie". :roll:
 
imagep said:
Walmart will employ as many workers at it needs, no more and no less. It will pay employees whatever it thinks is the optimal pay.
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Sure, and if a cashier ends up costing more than an automated teller which do you think Walmart will choose?

As the unemployment rate drops, companies have to compete harder for workers, and thus compensation tends to become greater. I agree this this likely has nothing to do with "capitulation", and has much more to do with maximizing profits.
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This is absolutely not the case with an unskilled work force. Regardless of the employment rate an unskilled worker can always be replaced quickly. A lot of those unskilled workers are a half step from losing their job to automation as it is.

A half million workers just got a raise, if you want to pretend that this raise was caused by politics, then THANKS OBAMA!
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Did I say it was due to politics? Seems to me the Obama supporters are the ones trying to paint this as a political move. I am just here to point out that across the board raises rarely is ever end up well for the bottom feeding employees.

But these decisions are business decisions, not political decisions.
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Indeed they are, just as the layoffs and automation will be a business decision.
 
Gill said:
No, pricing is based on competitive pressure. Doesn't matter how much it cost you to produce and sell something if the guy down the road is selling the same thing for 20% less.
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Competition is one (of many) of the factors that determines what price results in the greatest profits. But the point is, price isn't determined by costs and businesses aren't free to raise prices simply because their costs increase.
 
Gill said:
To many variables to claim a single number.
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Add up the cost of the cheapest apartment and public transportation (if applicable) and basic food for a single individual. That's a reasonable framework.
 
imagep said:
No, but we aren't talking about unemployed people are we? And Walmart didn't just announce a massive layoff did they?
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We are talking about unemployed people. And no, Wal-Mart probably structured this so as to avoid laying off many or even a noticeable amount of those who are already hired - far more likely is that this was done in conjunction with planning to reduce future hiring.

This is an example of that which is seen V that which is not seen.
 
imagep said:
"Worth" is subjective. If an employee can create $12/hr in production, then they are certainly "worth" $10/hr.
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That's interesting. So you believe that there are no such things as tax, benefit, or regulatory costs that come along with workers?
 
cpwill said:
That's interesting. So you believe that there are no such things as tax, benefit, or regulatory costs that come along with workers?
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Workers are certainly a hassle. But you need a certain number of them to do the job. But never take more than you need. That can cost you the homestead in the next drought.
 
joG said:
Workers are certainly a hassle. But you need a certain number of them to do the job. But never take more than you need. That can cost you the homestead in the next drought.
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If I can hire 10 workers at 7.50 an hour to do the job, it costs me $750/hour (plus other costs associated with labor, say, raising it to $1,000 per hour) to do the job. It also increases my liability risks.

However, if it would cost me $11500/hour to develop and employ machines to replace them, then hey, it's worth it.

When all those workers get their pay raised to $10/hour, meaning that my full cost of labor is now 1350/hour for having people do the work..... suddenly the capital investment is more profitable than the human investment.
 
cpwill said:
If I can hire 10 workers at 7.50 an hour to do the job, it costs me $750/hour (plus other costs associated with labor, say, raising it to $1,000 per hour) to do the job. It also increases my liability risks.

However, if it would cost me $11500/hour to develop and employ machines to replace them, then hey, it's worth it.

When all those workers get their pay raised to $10/hour, meaning that my full cost of labor is now 1350/hour for having people do the work..... suddenly the capital investment is more profitable than the human investment.
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Sure. I know that. You know that. But there are sure a lot of people that don't seem to understand that you will look for a new solution, if the old one goes up in price.
 
jmotivator said:
Cashier value is not base don the number of dollars they process, but their error rate. If a cashier processes $5,000 in sales in an 8 hour shift at $7/hour and has a 1% error rate then their total cost is $56 salary + $50 loss for a total cost of $106 (not counting taxes and benefits). If they raise they raise their standards for cashiers in order to reduce the loss rate to, say a third of a percent and pay $10/hour for those cashiers then they pay $80+$16.5 = $96.50. Unfortunately the $7/hour cashier is out of a job as they don't meet the new criteria. Walmart could easily start asking for high school diplomas and expensive background checks for their cashiers to increase the quality.... OR they can do what everyone else in the world is doing and switch to automated tellers where even a 2% error rate ends up costing less than employing a human.
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Cashiers are valued based on productivity, error rates is a factor of productivity, as is the friendlyness of the cashier to the customer, etc. Places that I have worked for would fire a cashier that wasn't accurate, and no cashier ever got raises based upon accuracy, accuracy is pretty much automatically expected.

Not angry in the slightest. I am just pointing out that unskilled workers are easily replaceable and paying them more doesn't make them any more valuable, just more expendable.
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They are only expendable to the point that the company can hire and train new "unskilled workers" in plentiful quantity at the price that the company currently pays. It costs money to hire and train people, even for low skilled jobs (these days there really aren't many "unskilled" jobs as most employers expect that employees can at least read and right and add and subtract, and even being pleasant and patient with customers is a skill that has value). As the labor market continues to tighten, compensation rates will continue to rise.
 
jet57 said:
Unions are working very hard to get people off of public assistance. I guess you want people earning peanuts, if anything and on the dole so you can gripe about how lazy they are.
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spare me the propaganda and lies...
 
jet57 said:
California's In & Out Burgers have been using that same ideological perspective for many years now and it's worked quite well for them. No wlamrt is going to use the same ideological perspective adn watch it work for them.

You're just sour grapes about it.
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what makes you think I have sour grapes?... be specific.
 
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