Wal-Mart Employees Says No To Union

[Joe]

It may be technically legal, but it's unethical as fuck, and if they didn't treat their employees like serfs, they might not be terrified of unionization.

C'mon Red, unions are absolutely horrible for business. Even if Wal-Mart cleaned up its act tomorrow and started treating their employees wonderfully they'd still be scared of unionization (Publix, a supermarket chain that's big in the South, does not treat its employees poorly, but is considerably anti-union even so).

Publix does have a pretty squeaky-clean operation for being anti-union, I must agree.

By the way: Joe, do you like Publix subs? I grab when at least twice a week on my way back from school. They're orgasmic.

The Publix Deli makes all other supermarket delis look like worthless shit. They make all kinds of good food; they've got great burgers and fries, great fried chicken and chicken strips, absolutely magnificent chicken fried rice with a taste that is surprisingly distinctive from most Chinese places, and their subs are great, also. It's mostly their high quality ingredients; they use great deli meat and their French bread is wonderful (along with the rest of their bread, especially Italian and sourdough).

[TrailerParkJawa]

What is with everyone saying WalMart ruins towns? Do most of you live in isolated rural areas? Within a 30 mile radius of my house there are probably an even number of Targets and Wal-Marts. I'd say 5-6 each. Maybe because I live in a densely populated area the impact is less noticable.

I hate Wal Mart simply because the stores are an unpleasant place to be. Target, while not exactly upscale, its so much better. I can't think of anything at Wal Mart I can't get at Target, Kragens, or Costco. Costco treats its employee's very well considering almost all of the jobs are low skilled. I'd like for more companies to use their model, but then the poor people that shop at Wal-Mart often can't get a Costco membership.

[Bob McDob]

Walmart scares the fuck out of me. The bright lights ... the huge openness coupled with the claustrophobic aisles ... it's pretty terrifiying.

[Darth Wong]

Wal-Mart is a great place to go if you want to buy cheap low-quality shit made by slave labour in developing countries while surrounded by welfare recipients, overweight women yelling at their kids in public, and a luscious ambience which ranks a 9.98 on the Tackiness meter. All with a lovely punctuation of being forced to enter the store by walking through the thick cloud of cigarette smoke being puffed out from beneath the frayed baseball caps of countless white trash tobacco addicts getting their hourly fix outside the front of the store.

[Durandal]

I like Sam's Club. Where else can I buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese by the metric ton?

[Crayz9000]

I like Sam's Club. Where else can I buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese by the metric ton?

Costco.

[Master of Ossus]

It may be technically legal, but it's unethical as fuck, and if they didn't treat their employees like serfs, they might not be terrified of unionization.

C'mon Red, unions are absolutely horrible for business. Even if Wal-Mart cleaned up its act tomorrow and started treating their employees wonderfully they'd still be scared of unionization (Publix, a supermarket chain that's big in the South, does not treat its employees poorly, but is considerably anti-union even so).

Unions also put people out of work, and have a severely detrimental effect on the rest of the economy--not just the businesses that employ unionized labor.

[Howedar]

I suppose you would have been against unionization in the early 1900s as well?

[Alyrium Denryle]

I work at a safeway. We lose tons of business because Wal-Mart keeps its prices rock bottom. I am normally Anti-Union but I really do think that that particular company deserves it.

Though, when you think about it, child labor is improving the lives of those child-corporate slaves. If they didnt work for 70 cents an hour, 14 hours a day, they would be starving. It is better to work a 14 hour day and eat than it is to go to school and starve. Hell, it prevents kids in Thailand from having to utter the phrase "Sucky sucky five dalla me love you looong time"

[AniThyng]

*arises from the depths of lurking*

I work at a safeway. We lose tons of business because Wal-Mart keeps its prices rock bottom. I am normally Anti-Union but I really do think that that particular company deserves it.

Though, when you think about it, child labor is improving the lives of those child-corporate slaves. If they didnt work for 70 cents an hour, 14 hours a day, they would be starving. It is better to work a 14 hour day and eat than it is to go to school and starve. Hell, it prevents kids in Thailand from having to utter the phrase "Sucky sucky five dalla me love you looong time"

i'm not sure of u're being sarcastic or serious, but i think it's worth noting that it's a no-win situation for the child/"slave" labour. if they *don't* work in those atrocious conditions, they starve- and it's not as if thier parents have any better luck trying to make a living. and if the multinationals just move on to another country with even more desperate people, they're still screwed over.

makes me wonder sometimes. my government may be an authoritian islamic theocracy[by this boards standards] but on the other hand me and my peers can afford to blow our allowences on those very same expensive Nike slave labour shoes rather then wondering if tomorrow we will have to work 14 hours sewing those shoes to feed ourselves...

[Darth Servo]

I like Sam's Club. Where else can I buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese by the metric ton?

Mac and Cheese. A.k.a the yellow death.

[Master of Ossus]

I suppose you would have been against unionization in the early 1900s as well?

Wrong. In the early 1900's, the costs to society of unions were very small, since employers were paying workers dramatically less than what the workers were able to produce, and since unemployment would have only been nominally increased by unionization. This was primarily because the major manufacturers had formed a sort of cartel to artificially lower the price of labor. Today, however, that is not the case, and most unions harm a majority of workers outside the union and also do considerable economic damage to the economy by demanding additional benefits, artificially raising the price of labor, and driving non-unionized labor out of town. Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I like Sam's Club. Where else can I buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese by the metric ton?

Pick'n'Slave for me. There I get 12 packs of ramen noodles for about a buck fifty. For ten bucks I can get two month's worth of meals.

-Damien

[Col. Crackpot]

I like Sam's Club. Where else can I buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese by the metric ton?

Pick'n'Slave for me. There I get 12 packs of ramen noodles for about a buck fifty. For ten bucks I can get two month's worth of meals.

-Damien

ughh i am so glad the wife and i are now a two income household. Never again shall i be forced to survive on the yellow death or the salty cup-o-stroke.

[Sam Or I]

I suppose you would have been against unionization in the early 1900s as well?

Wrong. In the early 1900's, the costs to society of unions were very small, since employers were paying workers dramatically less than what the workers were able to produce, and since unemployment would have only been nominally increased by unionization. This was primarily because the major manufacturers had formed a sort of cartel to artificially lower the price of labor. Today, however, that is not the case, and most unions harm a majority of workers outside the union and also do considerable economic damage to the economy by demanding additional benefits, artificially raising the price of labor, and driving non-unionized labor out of town. Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

Here is a good example of what you are talking about.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entert ... 320.htm?1c

As much as I hate the real world, it would boost any towns economy if it came to that towm.

[Col. Crackpot]

Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

a perfect example is the unionization of American textile mills in the 1970's. The mills unionized, drove the price of their product higher than what the market would bear and just about every damn textile mill in the United States closed down or moved overseas.

[Joe]

Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

a perfect example is the unionization of American textile mills in the 1970's. The mills unionized, drove the price of their product higher than what the market would bear and just about every damn textile mill in the United States closed down or moved overseas.

That's textiles, though, the American textile industry has a long and distinguished history of sucking ass. It was an infant industry in the 1790s, it's an infant industry now.

[Joe]

Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

a perfect example is the unionization of American textile mills in the 1970's. The mills unionized, drove the price of their product higher than what the market would bear and just about every damn textile mill in the United States closed down or moved overseas.

That's textiles, though, the American textile industry has a long and distinguished history of sucking ass. It was an infant industry in the 1790s, it's an infant industry now.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Walmart scares the fuck out of me. The bright lights ... the huge openness coupled with the claustrophobic aisles ... it's pretty terrifiying.

In some of the places I went to, they tile the ceilings, and I don't understand why. It just costs money and makes the place seem claustrophobic. I like that open feel where you can see the vents and ceiling supports you get in places like the Home Depot. It seems that the only thing they have a good variety of there is clothes. With everything else, you have a greater selection at the grocery store.

[Glocksman]

I suppose you would have been against unionization in the early 1900s as well?

Wrong. In the early 1900's, the costs to society of unions were very small, since employers were paying workers dramatically less than what the workers were able to produce, and since unemployment would have only been nominally increased by unionization. This was primarily because the major manufacturers had formed a sort of cartel to artificially lower the price of labor. Today, however, that is not the case, and most unions harm a majority of workers outside the union and also do considerable economic damage to the economy by demanding additional benefits, artificially raising the price of labor, and driving non-unionized labor out of town. Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

Oh cry me a fucking river.

Corporate corruption has much more to do with the failure of the markets than unionization. I'd much rather invest in a unionized company that was honest in its reporting of results than in a nonunion company that routinely cooked its books so much that Betty Crocker asked the CFO for the recipie.

My employer's DC's are all union, yet we dominate in our retail category.

And given the abuse I've seen of workers in our plant with the union, I shudder to think what they'd be like without the union.

Unions are still needed today in a lot of industries.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I like Sam's Club. Where else can I buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese by the metric ton?

I know a girl who licks the powdered cheese out of a container that didn't become goo after microwaving her Easy Mac.

The most disgusting thing I've ever beheld.

[Darth Wong]

... Today, however, that is not the case, and most unions harm a majority of workers outside the union and also do considerable economic damage to the economy by demanding additional benefits, artificially raising the price of labor, and driving non-unionized labor out of town. Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

Oh cry me a fucking river.

Corporate corruption has much more to do with the failure of the markets than unionization. I'd much rather invest in a unionized company that was honest in its reporting of results than in a nonunion company that routinely cooked its books so much that Betty Crocker asked the CFO for the recipie.

That's a false dilemma; the notion that a union company must engage in honest reporting is flawed, to say the least. I've seen unions destroy companies before. In the late 1980s I worked for a Kellogg plant. The company was engaged in heated negotiations with the union and warned that if the union didn't give up its demands for wage concessions, the plant would be closed. The union refused to give up its demands, and told all of its members that the plant manager was a worthless liar and he was bluffing. The plant closed soon afterwards, throwing everyone out of work.

Several years later, I was working at Kimberly-Clark in a paper packaging plant. Same thing: the plant management told the workers that their pay was exorbitant (and indeed it was; just as at Kellogg, we had union workers who were barely literate and were pulling down as much pay as the engineering staff thanks to years of aggressive "negotiations" and a labour-friendly NDP government that passed ridiculously one-sided labour laws). Again, the union claimed they were lying and that the plant would not shut down, and exhorted its members to stand firm in their demands. The plant closed down soon afterwards.

And then there's Air Canada: its entire assets are valued at $7 billion, but the ridiculously generous pension obligations negotiated by the union are worth $9 billion. Do I need to explain the problem here? The airline is in chapter 11 and seeking a buyer to help bail them out, and the union refuses to budge on its wage and pension because they're confident that if the current prospective buyer pulls out citing their intransigence as a reason, some other shmuck will happily wade into a losing situation and shell out more than a half billion dollars of his own cash to keep the airline afloat.

And did I tell you about the time I was a temp worker at Ontario Hydro and I was forced to join the union, which was threatening to go on strike in order to get rid of temp workers like me? Do you know how ridiculous that is?

And given the abuse I've seen of workers in our plant with the union, I shudder to think what they'd be like without the union.

Unions are intended as the cure for what I agree to be a very real disease, but there is no assurance that the cure is not just as bad as the disease, if not worse.

[Joe]

That's a false dilemma; the notion that a union company must engage in honest reporting is flawed, to say the least.

I was about to say, nothing could be further from the truth; if anything union companies are going to be MORE likely to cook their books due to the fact that unions drive up the costs of doing business so much.

[Patrick Degan]

I suppose you would have been against unionization in the early 1900s as well?

Wrong. In the early 1900's, the costs to society of unions were very small, since employers were paying workers dramatically less than what the workers were able to produce, and since unemployment would have only been nominally increased by unionization. This was primarily because the major manufacturers had formed a sort of cartel to artificially lower the price of labor. Today, however, that is not the case, and most unions harm a majority of workers outside the union and also do considerable economic damage to the economy by demanding additional benefits, artificially raising the price of labor, and driving non-unionized labor out of town. Make no mistake: in today's economy, unionization harms more than big business; it drives the entire market towards failure.

And yet, ever since union-busting set in, the position of the American worker has deterioriated.

Odd, that...

[Glocksman]

That's a false dilemma; the notion that a union company must engage in honest reporting is flawed, to say the least.

I was about to say, nothing could be further from the truth; if anything union companies are going to be MORE likely to cook their books due to the fact that unions drive up the costs of doing business so much.

I didn't mean to give the impression that unionized companies are more honest than nonunion companies. What I *meant* to say was that management is more responsible for for whatever befalls the company than the union could ever be.

It's like Napoleon's old dictum about how there are no bad privates, only bad Colonels.

Unions are intended as the cure for what I agree to be a very real disease, but there is no assurance that the cure is not just as bad as the disease, if not worse.

Unions can be just as corrupt as any other organization, but not all unions are corrupt. Given the choice, in my current occupation, I'd rather be union.

I make more money (not a lot more, but more) than a Wal-Mart DC worker, I've got good benefits, steady raises, and I've got representation if I'd ever get in trouble.

Despite my being an ex-Steward, bet your ass I'd get a Steward to represent me. Just like lawyers, the steward who represents himself has a fool for a client.