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TOPIC: WalMart!!!

Posted By: Daisy Posted On: Nov 19, 2003 Views: 704	RE: WalMart!!! The most pathetic part about this discussion is the "blame the worker" attitude I see here. It's easy for people who've never been a low wage worker to say things like "stand up for yourself," "don't work for such a low wage." Do you really think that people choose to work at Walmart, like you choose to fly Delta or Southwest on business trips? Working a 6 or 7 dollar an hour job is not always choice but more like something you succumb to when the opportunities in your area are limited and your family needs to eat. BTW, this is a nation-wide issue involving both large and small corporations. The focus here is on Walmart and the damage they've caused, but the real problem is the growing divide between the well-to-do and the poor. And the growing number of educated, thoughtful people like myself who find themselves on the bottom half of the great divide for choosing a career out of love rather than profit.
Posted By: Erin Posted On: Nov 19, 2003 Views: 696	RE: WalMart!!! Has anyone considered that when places like Wal-Mart pay very low wages, we as Americans pick up the slack in our taxes? I read that Wal-Mart posted instructions on how to apply for food stamps. I agree that People shouldn't neccessarily make $30k a year for stocking shelves, but I don't want to pay taxes to make up the income they aren't getting.
Posted By: gilly3 Posted On: Nov 19, 2003 Views: 691	RE: WalMart!!! Some comments: 1. If Walmart puts Toys 'Я' Us out of business, I will go Postal! Toys 'Я' Us is my favorite Toy Store! I hate shopping at walmart - I don't care if I save money, walmart gives me a headache (as noted earlier). 2. People shouldn't make $30k/year to stock shelves? Why not? Is that a high salary? If they are teenagers who are working during the day, I'm fine with paying them minimum wage, but if these are full-time, come in at night, and work till your muscles ache shelf stockers, I say $30,000 a year isn't a lot to ask. I don't know how anyone can live on that. They certainly wont be able to by a home with it. In my town, you need to make nearly 6 figures to afford a decent home - that or live an hour or two away from work. 3. Daisy, with all due respect, what do you propose as a solution? If the workers don't stand up for themselves, the only other solution I can conceive is for the government to enact laws forcing Walmart to pay a liveable wage. The government would have to impose trade restrictions on countries whose people don't earn a liveable wage. To do so would require so much overhead in determining who is compliant and who isn't, that enforcement would be a nightmare and very costly. All this just strikes me as being the wrong approach. Do you think there is a better alternative? By the way, good for you for choosing to follow your heart rather than your pocketbook in your career choices. I like to think it's possible to do both. The walmart workers, I'm afraid, are following neither their hearts, nor their pocketbooks.
Posted By: copa Posted On: Nov 19, 2003 Views: 689	RE: WalMart!!! hey, how did you type the 'R' backwards in "Toy's R Us"? That's cool.
Posted By: gilly3 Posted On: Nov 19, 2003 Views: 687	RE: WalMart!!! Hey, Thanks! The Я is a Russian Character. I put it into the page by using the HTML escape code. Я Just type Я into the comment text box thingy and it will put a Я in the page. Right click and choose View Source to see it as code. Neat huh!
Posted By: The Who Posted On: Nov 19, 2003 Views: 674	RE: WalMart!!! You've gotta be kidding me. It's a department store you morons, not a facist regime. You use adjectives like brutal, ruthless, cut-throat. It's business; all business is that way no matter what line of work. If you think otherwise, you're fooling yourselves. The American government and economy is driven by greed and ego, and CEOs and presidents of big corporations will do whatever they can do save the dollar because they're too blind to see the results of their actions. These mom'n'pop shop owners should stop bitchin and start takin notes, because as quaint and chock full of personality as their stores may be, there's no room for that in this country's business world. It's sad, but its "progress." As far as people getting paid 30k a year to stock shelves...what the hell do they expect to get paid stocking shelves at a Wal-mart? It's menial labor that any jackass with arms can do, why should they get paid more than 30k a year? If you're such an idiot that you can't make anything more of yourself than a shelf-stocker, you deserve that job. And since Wal-mart treats its employees so poorly, why do people keep working there? Because they're idiots. They deserve to stock shelves. The sweatshop labor is inevitable whether you shop at Wal-mart or Nordstroms...ALL big-name clothing designers and producers use over-seas labor, which most of the time is child labor. So unless you want to make your own clothes or go naked, you're going to be "supporting" child labor. Which is stupid really anyway, because like the dude said, if everyone stopped buying these clothes that were made in sweatshops, the kids would be thrown out on the street and they would starve anyway. I'd rather make a dime a day than nothing a day. So why do I shop at Wal-mart? Because I'm livin the American dream, the dream this proud nation was founded on: convenience for me at the expense of others.
Posted By: Daisy Posted On: Nov 20, 2003 Views: 671	RE: WalMart!!! gilly3- I don't have a solution. I only wanted to comment on this post and the comments some have written about low wage workers--that if people refused to work at the Walmart's of the world we wouldn't have this problem. I wanted to bring up the point that if few businesses are hiring and you live in a rural area you may have no other choice than to work at a low paying job. Plus it's not just big companies like Walmart...the "quaint" mom and pop businesses and retail stores are just as sh!tty...at least you can get health insurance from a larger corporation...even if it takes forever. The Who-Read the book "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, it's an eye-opener.
Posted By: Martian Molly Posted On: Nov 21, 2003 Views: 659	RE: WalMart!!! The Who makes my point. It is our culture, our way of life, the american 'dream' that gives rise to the giant, faceless corporation. Walmart is the end result of economic theory that money attracts more money. I can't tell whether The Who is trolling or apologizing for it or what side they're on, but to all those who think that wal mart can be defeated without some sort of total economic disaster taking place (and then, who's going to give a crap about walmart?), like miss Walmart-Sux, then I'd like to sell you tickets to a protest in the Nevada desert. They're, like, protesting bad stuff, and stuff, and like, you can go and protest.

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