I think I have stepped in Wal-Mart for the last time. (1 Viewer)

[Cam S]

Dome, how did a 12 year old get brought into the picture? I was thinking more along the lines of 20+ y/o's. Getting pregant at 12 is sick, but the reality of getting pregnant at 20 is very real. 6 girls in my grad class had babies, 2 of them had 2!!!!!!!

 

[Chris Lock]

> Edinboro, PA only major store in the area.

Major store? I thought the issue was the little stores going out of business. That town has NO OTHER stores of any kind? Looks like an opportunity for some retailer to move in.

 

[Howard Williams]

I think it would be interesting to hear from someone that was actually "disciplined" for refusing to work after they punched out instead of those that "volunteered" to remain. "Volunteered" is the spin I'm sure all suspect managers will put on this. I can just hear them now, "I didn't say it was mandatory. I merely asked them to donate that time to insure the success of our company"

BTW, the insensitivity and attitude shown to the hypothetical struggling woman with 2 kids is......sad. Even more unfortunately, it's common.

 

[Bob Sheen]

I don't agree with forcing employees to work unpaid.......but it would be interesting to see what would happen if a company turned the tables and start suing employees for all of the screwing around that takes place when they are on the company clock.

 

[Jarrod_L]

I worked at a Wal-Mart for about 6 months during college...I was in Toys, Electronics, and even did stints in Home & Garden and the front registers.
To put it mildly, it really sucked.
Don't get me wrong, I did my work to the best of my abilities, but our managers were just horrible. Though I never had to work off the clock (at least I don't recall ever working off the clock), there were plenty of times I would pull a 10 hour shift in Toys (having to listen to kids, and many adults, whine after their Christmas Barbies, or their Tickle Me Elmo's, or whatever)--and the only place I wanted to go was home...Well, our managers would sometimes keep us working two or three extra hours, sometimes past midnight getting the store cleaned up, or whatever, knowing full well we had to be back in the store at 7 the next morning while they got to take their sweet time getting in.
Of course, they would only do this to those of us who were "part time", that way we would never work over 40 hours/week and never get paid overtime.
The worst part was, some weeks you'd get 39.5 hours of work, and the next week you'd only get scheduled for 3.5 hours on a Thursday night.
On the bright side, a few months after I quit, I heard there was a big time shakedown on upper-management, and they all were either canned, or demoted (and demoted to stores in crappier towns).
It took me 2 years afterward to ever step inside a Wally-World again Now, I might go once or twice a year.

 

[Bill_D]

Based on this thread and comments above from former employees, Wal-Mart is unable to retain its productive employees and mistreats the leftovers with inept Management. If this situation is widespread, it does not appear to affect prices or customer perception outside of these recent revelations ....... yet.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Dome, how did a 12 year old get brought into the picture? I was thinking more along the lines of 20+ y/o's. Getting pregant at 12 is sick, but the reality of getting pregnant at 20 is very real. 6 girls in my grad class had babies, 2 of them had 2!!!!!!!

A terrible tragedy indeed. Kids are discovering sex at an earlier age and becoming less and less responsible. What's my source? I have a friend who is a third year medical school student, and part of his rotations is to be in a OB/GYN? clinic for pregnant teenagers. They run the length of anywhere from 12 to 15 year-olds, the older kids (older being defined as only 14 or 15) already having multiple sex partners. He's supposed to council them, but all my friend wants to do is wring their necks (I'd help out as a matter of fact). But every now and then, there's sympathy case where the girl was raped by an uncle or brother. Those are the only people I feel sorry for. Also Cynthiana, Kentucky is notorious for underage (12-13 year-olds) pregnancy.

But I'm getting slightly off-topic. The point I was trying to make earlier is that these same kids who didn't learn the first time around do not have my sympathy at all (hence, my response to the single mother of 2 deal trying to raise a family on minimum wage). So what if they're struggling with their Wal-Mart Jobs and whatnot? A vast majority of the time, they brought it upon themselves. Lucky for most of them, they have moms or dads that help out, but for those that don't: tough luck.

Now that I think about it, nobody has an excuse to try and support a family on a minimum wage salary. Everybody can better their lives. If not their own lives, then their children. If you're stuck dead in some suck job like Wal-Mart for example, work harder. Work so damn hard to make sure you can provide a better future for your children. People don't think too critically about this, but you can stop the cycle.

Stop me if you've heard this before, but my parents came over from Thailand in the 1970's with one suitcase of clothes, 700 dollars, and barely any English. Because of their hard work, I have a home theater system in my apartment, an SUV to drive, and a college education.

 

[Rob Lutter]

I am sooo glad that I work for Target. They are a great bunch of people

 

[Todd Hochard]

Now that I think about it, nobody has an excuse to try and support a family on a minimum wage salary. Everybody can better their lives.

Not true, at all. Everyone can TRY to better their situation, but not everyone can succeed at it. Think about it- who then would work the low wage jobs? Everyone cannot be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.
No disrespect intended, Dome, but I think you have a slightly skewed view of the world, due to your particular privileged circumstances. AND, teen pregnancy is down, not up. Source: http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/teen_preg_stats.html#t1

 

[Andrew W]

think it would be interesting to hear from someone that was actually "disciplined" for refusing to work after they punched out instead of those that "volunteered" to remain. "Volunteered" is the spin I'm sure all suspect managers will put on this. I can just hear them now, "I didn't say it was mandatory. I merely asked them to donate that time to insure the success of our company"

Non-exempt employees (hourly) may NEVER volunteer to work off the clock. It is illegal. By law, they can't be assigned work to do at home or even check email from home.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Todd Hochard

Think about it- who then would work the low wage jobs?

There's a vast difference between a low-wage job and a minimum wage job.

I'll say it loud and clear here: what are you doing supporting a family on only minimum age?

 

[Cam S]

I don't think it's by choice Dome that that single mother, hell, even father for that matter, chooses to support their kids with a low/minimum wage job. They just arn't as fortunate as some poeple. Doesn't matter if the parent is 16 or 30.

 

[David Von Pein]

Business is business. You can't feel sorry for people because they can't keep their prices as low as wal-mart. Wal-mart is the biggest company in the world. They didn't get to where they are by worrying about mom & pop stores.

Couldn't agree more.
I've never understood the mindset of people crying all over the place because a small business was pushed out by a Wal-Mart. Isn't that the basic idea of ALL retail outlets....to gain as many customers as possible?!

I can just see Wal-Mart saying....We'll just ignore this potentially HUGE profit market, just so we don't ruffle the feathers of Ma & Pa there on the corner! Ridiculous! OF COURSE they want Ma & Pa's business! What competitive business wouldn't?!

 

[Cam S]

Wal-Mart is a smart business making a profit in a big market. I'll give them credit for that, but some of their tactics to save money are somewhat of a shame.

 

[AjayM]

Wal-Mart is a smart business making a profit in a big market. I'll give them credit for that, but some of their tactics to save money are somewhat of a shame.

And the allegations in this thread aren't one of them. Start thinking numbers here.

40 people complain.
Let's say they were asked to work a total of 5 hrs extra per week.

5hrs x 40 people = 200 man/hrs extra a week.
200 hrs x 52 weeks/yr = 10,400 extra hours to pay.
10,400 hrs x $9/hr salray = $93,600/yr of unpaid salary.

Walmart had sales last year of $226,700,000,000 (yes that Billions), they had an EBITDA of $15,700,000,000 (more Billions) and run with a profit margin around 3.1%.

Do you think Walmart was truly trying to avoid paying a lil $93k in salary? Knowing that any judge in the country will find them very guilty if it's proven, add to that all the negative press involved.

Andrew

 

[Mark_Mac]

How can anyone think this is the employee’s fault for letting this kind of abuse happen? Not all of America is roses and green grass. For some communities getting a Wal-Mart was a big deal and getting a job there meant a lot to people. Not every one of their 1 million employees can afford to just up and quit, most are probably living paycheck to paycheck.
Some of your comments suggest that Wal-Mart employees are lazy, stupid, bad employees and don’t deserve to have children.
So I guess the Enron employees deserved what they got because they let Enron take advantage of them.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Some of your comments suggest that Wal-Mart employees are lazy, stupid, bad employees and don’t deserve to have children.

From me at least, night-time employees, the folks at the photoshop, the stock boys/girls, and the electronics department people are kind, courteous, and fairly intelligent (well, maybe not the folks in the electronics department). Daytime electronics and cashiers on the other hand aren't.

 

[Trace Downing]

I can't believe some of the callousness of these posts! Praising Wal-Mart for being the low cost retail provider, and the most profitable company in the world, when this is just one shady example of just how they got there.:rolleyes
Where is this "just 40 people" come from?
This is what I counted.
40-Missouri
69,000-Colorado...settled by WM for $50 million
200,000-Texas
120- New Mexico
And there are class action suits in 25 other states, that the article didn't disclose. All for the same work for no pay, exploitation reason.
Look at the margins here...
Wal-Mart operates at a 16.6% cost-sales ratio. That is 4% less than than retail's average. Knowing this is how they treat their employees, and that company budget policies make it impossible for store managers to function without the slavery (and that's what it is, especially when they lock the doors and trap everyone in until they get what they want done), and timecard manipulation (which is as fraudulent as what Worldcom did in cooking their books, just to the "little people who don't matter"), it's not hard to see how this percentage can be achieved.
The sad part about this is, that this is probably much more widespread than just this place. Corporate America has used these last 20 years of union unpopularity to raid the cookie jar, and exploit people in unethical ways, and are praised for being the biggest companies with the fattest stock portfolios in their fields for it. Now before anyone parrots the old "Unions are evil" propaganda that your employer's mandatory video meetings have provided you, let me say that this would never happen if WM had a union looking out for these people. The idea that "The Company" is somehow benevolent and provides you with benefits, and ethical treatments just out of the goodness of their hearts is bullshit. Companies get away with as much as they can get away with. I agree that the workers let this happen. I also blame the workers for believing Wm's mandatory slick anti-union video hook,line, and sinker. It's just sad.:frowning:
"It's also not my place to judge anyone for being a single mother and having to work at WM. Some people just don't have that choice, especially if I was a college student that doesn't need to work, doing the scolding. Such sanctimony also treads on the political, since the argument is used to push some personal conservative "family values" manifesto.

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

Dome, your parents should be congratulated. Now, just how hard would you go to accomplish what they did. Sounds to me like alot was given to you without your having to work very hard for it.

RE: Walmart. I will never shop there again. They are coming to Japan. Just what we need.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Dome, your parents should be congratulated. Now, just how hard would you go to accomplish what they did. Sounds to me like alot was given to you without your having to work very hard for it.

The point with my parents was that you have to be willing to work hard to better your lives. My parents worked hard to provide a great future for me. As for myself, my parents set the bar pretty high, and I'm more than willing to meet that challenge. I'm willing to work my ass off to ensure a better future for my children. Unfortnately, lazy people don't share my viewpoint.