Walmart Holding Food Drive For Its Own Employees

[TronPaul]

Article (via Business Insider)

A Cleveland Wal-Mart store is holding a food drive — for its own employees.

"Please donate food items so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner," reads a sign accompanied by several plastic bins.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer first reported on the food drive, which has sparked outrage in the area.

"That Wal-Mart would have the audacity to ask low-wage workers to donate food to other low-wage workers — to me, it is a moral outrage," Norma Mills, a customer at the store, told the Plain Dealer.

A company spokesman defended the food drive, telling the Plain Dealer that it is evidence that employees care about each other.

"This store has been doing this for several years and is for associates that have faced an extreme hardship recently," spokesman Kory Lundberg told us.

Lundberg says an example of this would be a recent layoff in the family or some other financial hardship.

Wal-Mart has been criticized for paying low wages to its 2.2 million employees.

Last week, 50 people were arrested after protesting the retailer's pay at a store in Los Angeles.

Wal-Mart turned a profit of $15.7 billion last year.

I'm at a loss for words. A company which sells food, having a food drive for their own employees.

[Zaune]

To reiterate what I just said about this article over on The Arch Rival...

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[Simon_Jester]

For one, it's the store, not the company. For another, it's at least implied to be for cases more extreme than "people who work for us are too poor to have a nice Thanksgiving," even if true they're not coming out and saying it.

I suspect that company-sponsored "employees, be generous to those of your fellow employees in need" drives are not that rare at large workplaces. They certainly happen on a grassroots basis; I myself donated money to help a coworker get to the Philippines to deal with family affairs a week or so ago.



I mean, maybe what we'd like to see is the company simply providing the food to the employees themselves, yes?

[aieeegrunt]

Could you just take food off the shelves and put it in the bins without buying it first?

[Mr. Coffee]

Could you just take food off the shelves and put it in the bins without buying it first?

There's a word for taking something frok a store without paying for it...

Shoplifting. Doesn't matter why you're stealing the food for, you're still stealing it.

[salm]

Maybe they could just take the stuff that would otherwise get tossed out. Apparently plenty of stuff supermarkets throw out is perfectly fine.

[Ralin]

Maybe they could just take the stuff that would otherwise get tossed out. Apparently plenty of stuff supermarkets throw out is perfectly fine.

How would that be in any way conducive to Wal-Mart making money off of this food drive?

[Batman]

Not at all. It would however be conductive to what Wal-Mart claims is the reason for the food drive, namely their employees getting a Thanksgiving dinner.

[Block]

Maybe they could just take the stuff that would otherwise get tossed out. Apparently plenty of stuff supermarkets throw out is perfectly fine.

If I remember right it's illegal to do that for health reasons.

[Executor32]

Untrue. They can't sell it, sure, but there's no law against giving it away. Hell, that's the source of most of the food we get from our local food pantry, especially bread and sweets.

[The Cooler King]

Untrue. They can't sell it, sure, but there's no law against giving it away. Hell, that's the source of most of the food we get from our local food pantry, especially bread and sweets.

Back in the early 90s, I worked at a local Pizza Hut. After the lunch rush was over, we ALWAYS had more buffet pizzas and personal pan pizzas than we sold. We always threw them out, in most cases, still hot. I asked my boss if I could box them up and take them to the local shelter; she said okay, so I did. The next day, she told me, ashen-faced, not to do it again. Apparently, she had mentioned it to the corporate office, and they read her the riot act for allowing me to do it. I tried to argue that it wasn't being sold, but given away; I was told that that was irrelevant.

[MarxII]

I've also heard liability issues cited as reasons why giving away excess product is strictly verboten.

[Simon_Jester]

There's a layered idiocy at work here, but I don't think the corporation creates it.

[Grumman]

I assume Walmart offers some sort of Thanksgiving hamper for sale, right? If I was in charge, I'd probably just make up a list ahead of time of all the employees who would like to buy one at wholesale. Assuming you're paying your employees enough that they could afford it, that seems like a nice compromise between just ignoring Thanksgiving and giving stuff away when some of your employees might not want a big cliche Thanksgiving dinner.

[Temjin]

Back in the early 90s, I worked at a local Pizza Hut. After the lunch rush was over, we ALWAYS had more buffet pizzas and personal pan pizzas than we sold. We always threw them out, in most cases, still hot. I asked my boss if I could box them up and take them to the local shelter; she said okay, so I did. The next day, she told me, ashen-faced, not to do it again. Apparently, she had mentioned it to the corporate office, and they read her the riot act for allowing me to do it. I tried to argue that it wasn't being sold, but given away; I was told that that was irrelevant.

Yeah, that's a big no-no. Doesn't matter which company it is. It is a liability issue.

As well, most shelters I know of that have a kitchen staff wouldn't serve it, as they couldn't know what was done with the food before it got there and how long it had been sitting out. Homeless people don't like food poisoning any better than normal people. If it's still hot when it gets to the shelter, the normal staff would probably put it out, but if it has to be reheated it's safer for them to just chuck it.

[Broomstick]

The Chicago Food Depository actually went to the trouble of purchasing refrigerated trucks and jumping through a shitload of regulatory hoops specifically so they could collect and use such food, but they still have to pass on some of it because the food handling rules are strict. Usually for good reason.

[Elheru Aran]

There is a distinction between cooked, 'prepared' food and food that is preserved in a ready-to-eat condition but nonetheless remains shelf-stable or refrigerated. This would be why, for example, Cooler King's pizza was not a good idea (although the intentions were good on TCK's part, of course); it is a cooked product that has to stay above a certain temperature to stay safe, and there is no real guarantee that between points A and B it will remain safe. Hence, liability.

Each local government will have varying regulations on what you can donate, but in general frozen products that have not been thawed above a certain temperature and refrozen are OK, canned products not expired past a certain date, other foods such as bread that are not expired past a certain date, etc... here in Georgia though I will note that I have gotten fruit that was on the near side of rotten from a food pantry, so I cannot say they always enforce such things very well.

Back to Walmart. The ideal would be that either the company pay their employees enough so that they don't have to hold such a drive, or that if the employees are in need, the company provides for them in some fashion (perhaps giving them a temporary discount beyond their 5% employee discount, or just giving them the food... yeah, that one probably wouldn't happen). The fact that they are expecting customers and other associates to purchase food at list price and then contribute it to the food drive shows, quite plainly, that they can't be arsed to take care of their employees beyond paying them insufficient living wages.

[SirNitram]

Elheru hits it on the head. With 17 billion in profit, you can probably afford to help your employees.

[Rycon67]

So I've heard that some people suggest having a Union would be one way to fix issues regarding pay and such at places like Walmart.

Anyone have any idea how comparible pay is between non union companies like Walmart compared to unionized retailers such as Kroger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kroger

[Rogue 9]

If a store tries to unionize, Wal-Mart will close the store. They've done it before and will do it again.

[SirNitram]

If a store tries to unionize, Wal-Mart will close the store. They've done it before and will do it again.

Speaking of which, the NRLB is going to actually try and punish Walmart for abusing their employees who have been trying. Get your earplugs rated for the super-high pitch screeching of the apologists when the charges come.

[Zaune]

If a store tries to unionize, Wal-Mart will close the store. They've done it before and will do it again.

So what happens if several dozen branches organise simultaneously? Or a couple of hundred?

[Ralin]

If a store tries to unionize, Wal-Mart will close the store. They've done it before and will do it again.

So what happens if several dozen branches organise simultaneously? Or a couple of hundred?

My guess would be some sort of military intervention.

[Simon_Jester]

I assume that was a joke.

More realistically, it's hard to say- and the level of coordination that would require between stores is pretty impressive. You'd basically need to create several dozen organizations in parallel, all of them consisting of a few people who can swing into action on the same day, and assume that all of them progress fast enough that Wal-Mart can't just shut down a few stores at a time.

[Zaune]

My guess would be some sort of military intervention.

Yes, and wouldn't that be great for Wal-Mart's share price when every news network in the Western hemisphere ran with it as the lead item? Even in this day and age, getting a tame state governor to sic the National Guard on striking workers is crossing the line.

If enough Wal-Mart employees in enough different states could coordinate their activities, the company could piss and moan all it liked but it'd have to put up with it in the end. There's only so many branches they can close before it starts hurting their market share.

I assume that was a joke.

More realistically, it's hard to say- and the level of coordination that would require between stores is pretty impressive. You'd basically need to create several dozen organizations in parallel, all of them consisting of a few people who can swing into action on the same day, and assume that all of them progress fast enough that Wal-Mart can't just shut down a few stores at a time.

Like a flash mob of shop stewards, in fact. The technology to facilitate it is all there, even with my meagre HTML skills I could probably throw something adequate together in a few weekends*; all that's needed are people willing to take the plunge and sensible enough to keep it from their bosses until D-Day.

* If any Wal-Mart employees are reading this, PM me and we'll talk logistics.