Originally Posted By skinnerbox You know you're an indentured slave when your employer does something like this: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ohio-walmart-criticized-for-holding-food-drive-for-own-employees">http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l...mployees</a> <> Ohio Walmart Criticized For Holding Food Drive For Own Employees Caitlin MacNeal – November 18, 2013, 12:56 PM EST14398 A Canton, Ohio Walmart store is under fire for organizing a food drive meant to benefit its own employees, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on Monday. The store set up bins in an employee-only section of the store encouraging donations of food so that some of the store's needier workers could enjoy a Thanksgiving meal, according to photos sent to advocacy group Organization United for Respect at Walmart. Community members and store workers were upset by the food drive. "That Walmart 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 Canton resident, told the Plain Dealer. One Walmart employee described the food drive at "demoralizing," noting that Walmart is not fully addressing how little some people make working for the company. Vanessa Ferreira, an organizer for OUR Walmart, a group that organized strikes in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio on Monday, was angered by the food drive. "Why would a company do that?" she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "The company needs to stand up and give them their 40 hours and a living wage, so they don't have to worry about whether they can afford Thanksgiving." Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, defended the food drive and said it was an example of coworkers looking out for each other. "It is for associates who have had some hardships come up," he told the Plain Dealer. "This is part of the company's culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships." Walmart workers have been staging strikes across the country since Black Friday 2012, protesting the company's low wages and focus on employing part-time workers. <> Quiz time! Q: What percentage of Walmart is owned by the Walton Family? A: They own over 50% of the company and now control it. Q: What is the approximate net worth of the Walton Family? A: One hundred and fifty BILLION. The six members of the Walton Empire have a greater net worth than the bottom 30% of the American population. This is why I refuse to shop at Walmart.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <One hundred and fifty BILLION. The six members of the Walton Empire have a greater net worth than the bottom 30% of the American population.> That's astounding.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>That's astounding.<< Indeed, the concentration of wealth we are witnessing is like something out of a dystopian scifi novel.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck The Walmart heirs simply do not exist in the same dimension that the rest of us do. They seem more like animatronic machines than real people. It is about what you would expect from ultra privileged snots who have no concept of the tribulations of the working poor. Meanwhile, the Dow cracked 16,000 today. It would seem the "haves" are having a field day.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney >>>This is why I refuse to shop at Walmart.<<< This for me too, and it's dirty and disorganized, and the fact that they sell guns...
Originally Posted By doombuggy What popped in my head after reading this story. time mark 1:15 <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4uvLXCUhVg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...vLXCUhVg</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Not sure this is all that terrible. Read that the collection box was set up by an employee (with WalMart approval of course) and not by the company. Some people at WalMart make good money. My late wife had a relative who was a WelMart manager in a small town... he was in his mid-twenties and made $40K per year. That made him damned near rich compared to most local wages. Isn't it appropriate for those at WalMart who are well-paid to perhaps make a contribution to those who are minimum wage and part time? We need to take care of each other. We used to to do that... now we put it off on the government and then bitch about our taxes.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf I think it's easy to pick on Wal-Mart because they are in retail, where wages are low across the board, and they are the largest domestic retailer. I think if you look into it you will see that their wages are average within their industry. Store managers make well into six figures. Most retail jobs generally don't take a lot of skill or experience, hence their low wages. One thing our economy teaches us is that it takes some education and skills to earn a living wage in this country. It's those who don't understand this who tend to languish - and there are lots of those at WM.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox I'm sick to death of posts like the last two (#8 & #9). Wages across the board in our nation for the bottom 90% have severely stagnated for decades. Inflation has outpaced worker's wages at an alarming rate, increasing the disparity between the haves and have nots even further. The government needs to step up to the plate and stop the corporate demonization of labor and start forcing the haves to take a little less so the vast majority of the country can have a little bit more. Families will thrive, the economy will thrive, and everybody wins. Everybody except the greedy jerks at the very tippy top like the Waltons and the Kochs. There is simply NO EXCUSE for six Americans to amass so much personal wealth that hundreds of thousands of their employees need to rely on government assistance in order to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. If every one of the six Walton family members running Walmart were to forgo a few billion of their personal wealth so that Walmart could increase their minimum hourly rate to a measly $12 per hour, they would still hold over $22 BILLION EACH!! Why does anyone need to be worth over $25 BILLION at the expense of their employees health and well being? Unless the Waltons intend on taking over our government through a leveraged buyout, why do they need to be immorally rich like this when so many of their employees live in poverty? We would never accept this from a third world nation being run by a rich dictator. Why do we accept it here at home?
Originally Posted By oc_dean Couldn't agree with you more Skinner .. on every single point you made. My mom is constantly telling me stories how the late 50s and 60s ... the wages then .. cost then .. people could live. My dad was able to buy a home, while my mom played mom. Today ... cost of living is absolutely ridiculous in ratio to wages. People can't afford homes. More people are forced to rent now more than ever. And then we have retailers like Walmart ... that emphasize, you're never going to do no better than rent a place with multiple people splitting the rental costs - for the rest of your natural life! I'm not thrilled to see where America's future seems to be heading.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I don't really care that you are sick of posts like #8 & #9, said by a person who lives in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. while on disability payments. SOMEONE has to pay for all that shit. Perhaps you would like to have a Cadillac ATS too. I sure would. Someone had a good idea and made a fortune from it. What is wrong with that? Tax the hell out of it and that I would agree with it. But to say they somehow don't deserve it is insane. Where the hell would we all be without Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others who have contributed massively to the life we live today? I'm glad that we let innovators get rich. Otherwise we would all be living like we did in 1900. No thanks. People who inherit massive wealth, that I have a problem with... there should be a major tax on inherited wealth to prevent a wealthy class of people who have really done nothing but to be born well. But he people who EARNED that wealth... leave them the hell alone.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck Didn't the Walton heirs inherit their fortunes from the old man? They may have improved them, but that's not hard to do when you start out at the top. I think they are sick, inhumane people, whose net worth has separated them from reality. Based on their incredible wealth, they should be ashamed to have employees struggling to make ends meet.
Originally Posted By EdisYoda You are correct TikiDuck and I definately NOT put the Walton heirs in the same innovator category as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs... NOWHERE near the innovator category.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Sam Walton, (died 1992) the founder of WalMart, started life piss-poor. If his heirs inherited a fortune they didn't deserve, well I have already addressed that. You can say that Bill Gates got rich off a good idea and that Sam Walton got rich off a bad idea, but that is not really for us to decide. If someone gets rich off of their idea, they obviously provided something the people wanted. No matter how much YOU may hate WalMart, Americans obviously spend a fortune there. Do we have any right to take that away just because we don't really like their business model?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Opining that the obscenely wealthy Walton heirs should pay their workers a living wage is "taking away Walmart?" Un, no.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Do we have any right to take that away just because we don't really like their business model?<< YES! They make America a less perfect union. We have every right to screw up their business model. The mafia has a profitable business model too ...
Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<But he people who EARNED that wealth... leave them the hell alone.>> Up to a point, I agree with you. But at some point we have to say, as a society, enough is enough. When the vast majority of the wealth in this country is held by 1% of the entire population, something is very, very wrong. And I'm not even talking morals here - allowing 1% to control that much wealth and power can have very destabilizing effects on our democracy. These extremely wealthy people have far to much sway on our government, and it only seems to be getting worse. At some point you're going to end up with a very large population of unhappy poor people who can't get ahead, and a small elite...a situation that usually ends in revolutions.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck Look at what a company with Humanity is capable of, compared to Walmart. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://youtu.be/B_5vttTJxgA">http://youtu.be/B_5vttTJxgA</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip That's where <<Tax the hell out of it and that I would agree with>> comes in. Didn't you see that?
