Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Restaurant workers can get tips. I don't know where you live, but when I applied at Safeway 20 years ago, checkers started at $16/hr. I worked at a Mom and Pop convenience store for minimum wage and no benefits, but I was allowed to adjust my schedule for classes, I wasn't treated like dirt, the management stood behind us when we were threatened by customers, and my boss, who didn't have billions of dollars, was not exploiting us to make more money for himself. That makes a huge difference in how you feel about the place you work at. Plus, people enjoyed coming into our store because we took pride in it. How many people here have said they enjoyed going into Walmart?
I am on food stamps while waiting on a disability hearing. So yes, I do happen to know that not every person who is on food stamps doesn't work for Walmart. But you don't think there is something seriously wrong with this country when a person is working full time and STILL has to get food stamps? Did you know that if Walmart were to raise the price of everything in their store by 1 cent, they could give their employees a living wage? Do you think if they were to raise the price of everything in their store by 1 cent, they would do that, or do you think they would take the extra money for themselves.
In a democracy, we have the right to work and earn as much money as we can. The key word is earn. There is a world of difference between getting your billions by earning them and getting your billions by exploiting your workers.
I call complete BS that 20 years ago, Safeway paid they cashiers 16 an hour. Also, not everyone working in a restaurant gets tips. The cooks certainly do not receive tips. The lady giving me my food at Panera Bread isn't receiving any tips. From reading your other posts here, you sound a bit disgruntled. I've never worked for Walmart but I know they aren't the devil you are trying to make them out to be.
Restaurant workers can get tips. I don't know where you live, but when I applied at Safeway 20 years ago, checkers started at $16/hr. I worked at a Mom and Pop convenience store for minimum wage and no benefits, but I was allowed to adjust my schedule for classes, I wasn't treated like dirt, the management stood behind us when we were threatened by customers, and my boss, who didn't have billions of dollars, was not exploiting us to make more money for himself. That makes a huge difference in how you feel about the place you work at. Plus, people enjoyed coming into our store because we took pride in it. How many people here have said they enjoyed going into Walmart?
I am on food stamps while waiting on a disability hearing. So yes, I do happen to know that not every person who is on food stamps doesn't work for Walmart. But you don't think there is something seriously wrong with this country when a person is working full time and STILL has to get food stamps? Did you know that if Walmart were to raise the price of everything in their store by 1 cent, they could give their employees a living wage? Do you think if they were to raise the price of everything in their store by 1 cent, they would do that, or do you think they would take the extra money for themselves.
In a democracy, we have the right to work and earn as much money as we can. The key word is earn. There is a world of difference between getting your billions by earning them and getting your billions by exploiting your workers.
I enjoy going to Wal-Mart .
Warning: This might be encouraging. People don't have a clue what Wal-Mart is because they don't get off their lazy as* and do anything. Have you ever been to NWA.? The answer is probably "no". Wal-Mart has been in business for over 50 years.
It's small but compact. I haven't been there yet but a good friend of mine is one of the assistant managers there. I work so many hours in what i do.. but I need to get there and rub his bald head! ( lol) He's a sweetie. . Here is the Wal-Mart Gas Station ( in Bentonville) and then I'll find a picture of the Pick-Up Grocery. Pick-up grocery is where you order it online and it is delivered to your car when you get there ( the consumer has to inspect the produce upon buying it) Wal-Mart is going model crazy around this area.l They are testing everything. The little neighborhoods markets.. some of them are backwards on the inside of the store.. Some of them will have the grocery section on the right side and then some will have it on the left and then some will have it in the middle... or half way over to the left. They also watch how you buy things.. so they turn these stores around. Everyone is different somehow. I'll post these pictures in a minute..
Walmart is really branching out, aren't they? Keeps me wondering "What's next?". Sometimes I think I'd like to work in a store that's just food and I think it's great they are setting up order pickup. I guess if they can do the online order/in store pick up already this should be easy. I keep wondering if our area will get a Neighborhood Market and if we do I'd try to transfer there.
I have been in MANY Walmarts around the country because I'm always curious and want to check them out. It's a bit disconcerting to walk into one that's laid out just the opposite of what I'm used to. I feel a little 'lost' at first. lol We have such a big store with 27 long belt registers, six 20 items or less and eight self checkout scanners. When I go to a smaller store it feels almost claustrophobic!
I call complete BS that 20 years ago, Safeway paid they cashiers 16 an hour. Also, not everyone working in a restaurant gets tips. The cooks certainly do not receive tips. The lady giving me my food at Panera Bread isn't receiving any tips. From reading your other posts here, you sound a bit disgruntled. I've never worked for Walmart but I know they aren't the devil you are trying to make them out to be.
I call BS too. I have friends and family who either work at Safeway now or have in the past. It's true that they DID pay pretty good in the past, comparatively speaking, but they NEVER started out at $16 hour. The most I remember is $9 hour and it's the same now. People who've been there "forever" might make that much but so do the people at Walmart.
I call complete BS that 20 years ago, Safeway paid they cashiers 16 an hour. Also, not everyone working in a restaurant gets tips. The cooks certainly do not receive tips. The lady giving me my food at Panera Bread isn't receiving any tips. From reading your other posts here, you sound a bit disgruntled. I've never worked for Walmart but I know they aren't the devil you are trying to make them out to be.
It's possible if they were unionized, which I think they were in some parts of the country. Of course, this meant that Safeway hired fewer people overall, and the stores were subject to occasional strikes.
In 2009, when we were living in Phoenix and the property bubble had just burst, the supermarket union unfortunately chose that moment to strike the Fry's chain. Fry's responded by firing them and posting help wanted signs, and had applicants lined up around the block.
Retailers are not a good industry to unionize, because wages are never going to be high enough to satisfy people, and there's not enough of a margin to justify the generous benefits. They'll just keep going on strike, and the dumb public sides with the unions against the greedy management, and gradually food prices rise, employment goes down, marginal stores are closed, and everybody loses.
Similarly, by attacking Walmart constantly, the liberals are almost guaranteeing more hardship and unemployment for the population they claim to love, i.e. the bottom 25% of wage earners and unemployed people.
It's better to have employment at low wages than to have high unemployment dependent on other taxpayers to support them. It's hard to live on $8/hour, true. I would have trouble doing it. But I wouldn't do it for long; I'd get my butt out to the oil producing region and find a job driving a truck or doing other work for $70K or $80K a year. But that's just me.
Some people look down on Walmart because of the perceived low class of people who shop there--the meth addicts, the poor, the obese, the freaks, the bargain hunters and cheapskates. Well, hello. This is part of America and they're going to shop somewhere, if not Walmart then Target or K-Mart.
Why blame Walmart for the type of people who shop there when the real cause is our lackadaisical education system, our terrible eating habits and lack of exercise, our punitive socialistic attitudes toward business which has gradually driven all our manufacturing jobs overseas and created a permanent under class of unemployed blue collar folks who will never work again?
They criticize the rich management of Walmart including the Walton family whose father founded the business and turned Benton, Arkansas into a wealthy town. I admire Sam Walton and frankly we need more entrepreneurs like him. I also admire Harold Hamm, the oil man from Oklahoma who built fracking into a billion dollar business and literally turned the U.S. into an oil producing giant and a gas producing colossus. He has changed the course of history. Steven Jobs, the Google founders, Zuckerberg, etc. These are the people who make America strong and not the Kennedys and Obamas who don't create wealth but only want to use legal means to confiscate it from one group and bestow it undeservingly on another group.
And every single one of those hypocrites who bitterly criticizes Walmart for selling foreign-made goods is a person who buys Chinese made electronics. I guarantee you. They all have iPhones. They all drive Japanese cars. They own Samsung TVs. They don't put their money where their mouth is and they want someone else to pay for their own greed and selfishness. And their insistence on taxing and punishing America's top corporations is directly responsible for pushing all those manufacturing jobs overseas.
I have no particular dog in this fight; probably my index 500 fund owns some WMT but I don't care that much about that. And Walmart is not perfect either. I just want to see America have a healthy and strong economy where everyone can find gainful employment, and when this kind of anti-business stuff pops up I will respond!
Walmart periodically has a good sale on motor oil. It's the nearest place that I can buy, find permethrin spray. When I'm there, which isn't often, I look around to see if there's anything on sale which I might need. I always leave with at least a couple of bags full of 'stuff'. I really dislike shopping. I don't see any point in going to Walmart for one item and stopping at a supermarket, pharmacy or other store on the way home.
Warning: This might be encouraging. People don't have a clue what Wal-Mart is because they don't get off their lazy as* and do anything. Have you ever been to NWA.? The answer is probably "no". Wal-Mart has been in business for over 50 years.
[/url]
I was in NWA yesterday. What do you mean people don't know what wm is? Its not a large large retail company?
I tried to watch the video but its not my kind of music, kind of like someone scratching a chalkboard to my ears.
Yes, I do know Walmart employees on food stamps. But as has been pointed out, if you are working full time, those food stamps get cut way back, and sometimes the hassle in getting them and keeping them (recertification every 6 months) isn't worth an extra $20 a month. The people I know on food stamps keep them because they have kids to support and $20 extra is $20 extra, however you cut it.
Sorry, but yes, the starting wage for a cashier was $16/hr back in the 80s. Remember, wages meant something then. When I worked at Kinko's I was making $12/hr until they fired all of us making that amount of money and hired in new people at $8/hr. I'm sure those employees would scoff at $12/hr too and not believe anybody made that much. But yes, someone else was right in saying they were unionized. I do remember that, because I was a bit taken aback at how much union fees were and the fact that you were expected to attend all of the meetings (I was concerned about classes).
I will add something else I forgot. You started as a cashier if you were a rehire or had previous cashier experience. Most people actually started as baggers. Because I had been working in a bank vault, I was being considered for a cashier position.
Kitchen cooks generally make much more than servers, greeters, or busboys. They are actually paid a wage and they are considered to have a genuine marketable skill. As for the busboys, as waitresses, we gave them a percentage of our tips. And let's not forget, you still have to declare your tips as earnings. That means you pay taxes on them, as well. And the greeter, or person who worked the register and sat people, was paid more per hour because she wasn't getting tips.
If Walmart isn't making a profit lately, boohoo. Walmart could easily slice a couple billion from the payroll and bonuses of their owners, put it back into the business, and show a profit. Why aren't they? There are business owners and CEOs who take pay cuts when business is down. There are business owners who put their profits back into the business and only take home a nominal salary. Some of these business owners are not out to have a 10,000 sq ft house, or the yacht, or the private airplane, or anything else. Warren Buffet come to mind? Walmart is like a lot of low wage businesses. They consider their store, their land, and their products as assets. They consider the employees as money drains. The thing is, as I've said before and I'll say again, if you want to have a successful business, you have to honor the obligation you have to your employees, your customers, your shareholders, and your community. Screw over any one of those, and your business starts the long slide downhill.
Another good example, if you will, of companies screwing themselves over by how they treat their employees, is Sprint. Sprint treats their employees like Walmart does. That means they have an unbelievably high turnover. The training center I went to trained approximately 4 to 5 classes two to three times a year, at a cost of roughly $100,000 per class. That is about 1 to 1.5 million a year just to train new hires. And why do they need new hires? They harass and treat their employees to the point where most of them walk out. And that was one training center in one state. Now, ask yourselves again why your cell phone bills are so high. You don't think they eat that cost, do you? Gone into a Walmart, or Kmart, or Target, and had crappy I-don't-care people waiting on you? When employees don't feel a company cares about them, they won't care about the company, either.
I think a good manager sets the tone for a store. If you go into a well run Walmart, chances are they have good management. But even management can't make up for things corporate does. And I'll ask again, what is wrong with this picture when a full time employee making minimum wage makes so little that he or she still qualifies for food stamps? Is it a problem of Walmart, or is it a problem of our country, or is Walmart the symptom of a problem in our country?
It's possible if they were unionized, which I think they were in some parts of the country. Of course, this meant that Safeway hired fewer people overall, and the stores were subject to occasional strikes.
In 2009, when we were living in Phoenix and the property bubble had just burst, the supermarket union unfortunately chose that moment to strike the Fry's chain. Fry's responded by firing them and posting help wanted signs, and had applicants lined up around the block.
Retailers are not a good industry to unionize, because wages are never going to be high enough to satisfy people, and there's not enough of a margin to justify the generous benefits. They'll just keep going on strike, and the dumb public sides with the unions against the greedy management, and gradually food prices rise, employment goes down, marginal stores are closed, and everybody loses.
Similarly, by attacking Walmart constantly, the liberals are almost guaranteeing more hardship and unemployment for the population they claim to love, i.e. the bottom 25% of wage earners and unemployed people.
It's better to have employment at low wages than to have high unemployment dependent on other taxpayers to support them. It's hard to live on $8/hour, true. I would have trouble doing it. But I wouldn't do it for long; I'd get my butt out to the oil producing region and find a job driving a truck or doing other work for $70K or $80K a year. But that's just me.
Some people look down on Walmart because of the perceived low class of people who shop there--the meth addicts, the poor, the obese, the freaks, the bargain hunters and cheapskates. Well, hello. This is part of America and they're going to shop somewhere, if not Walmart then Target or K-Mart.
Why blame Walmart for the type of people who shop there when the real cause is our lackadaisical education system, our terrible eating habits and lack of exercise, our punitive socialistic attitudes toward business which has gradually driven all our manufacturing jobs overseas and created a permanent under class of unemployed blue collar folks who will never work again?
They criticize the rich management of Walmart including the Walton family whose father founded the business and turned Benton, Arkansas into a wealthy town. I admire Sam Walton and frankly we need more entrepreneurs like him. I also admire Harold Hamm, the oil man from Oklahoma who built fracking into a billion dollar business and literally turned the U.S. into an oil producing giant and a gas producing colossus. He has changed the course of history. Steven Jobs, the Google founders, Zuckerberg, etc. These are the people who make America strong and not the Kennedys and Obamas who don't create wealth but only want to use legal means to confiscate it from one group and bestow it undeservingly on another group.
And every single one of those hypocrites who bitterly criticizes Walmart for selling foreign-made goods is a person who buys Chinese made electronics. I guarantee you. They all have iPhones. They all drive Japanese cars. They own Samsung TVs. They don't put their money where their mouth is and they want someone else to pay for their own greed and selfishness. And their insistence on taxing and punishing America's top corporations is directly responsible for pushing all those manufacturing jobs overseas.
I have no particular dog in this fight; probably my index 500 fund owns some WMT but I don't care that much about that. And Walmart is not perfect either. I just want to see America have a healthy and strong economy where everyone can find gainful employment, and when this kind of anti-business stuff pops up I will respond!
I have to agree with you on most (not all) of the things you said, but my question is, is it gainful employment when you work full time and still can't afford the rent landlords are charging in your area? And as for foreign goods, I think sending our manufacturing out of the country was the worst thing we ever did. The only manufacturing job a high school graduate can do now and earn a good living is at Boeing. I don't think even GM is in the game any longer.
As for going to the oil fields, yeah, I'd do that in a heartbeat myself if I physically could. But with a back so twisted up now I can barely walk, that ain't gonna happen. And just to let you know, I think some of those, if not most, drivers bring home well over $100,000 a year. I'd give anything to go out there, work a couple years and sock away money to invest, and then come back when the boom is over. But not everyone can do that.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
