As Government Retreats, Wal-Mart Dictates National Healthcare and Retirement Policies

Originally posted by CyberKat
See what I'm saying? I certainly hope so, 'cause by now, I'm not even sure myself.

Not really. It seems to me that you are bemoaning the corporatization of America. If I miss your point forgive me for hijacking your thread

Many people and a few Presidents have warned about the 'real power' behind decisions being made. The NWO belief may be nothing more than smoke and mirrors to detract from the real power or it may be the real power, I don't know.

Probably from time immemorial some group has striven to control everything. For centuries this was represented by royalty. Many are of the opinion this is not so since some great event such as the American Revolution or one of the world wars disrupted these groups.

What if it is still true? What if under cover of say corporations and trusts, foundations and organizations the royalty (a royal group) is still very much on the same path?

Why would something as earth shaking as the American Revolution not destroy their tentacles? Perhaps because they lost little or nothing in the process. The French Revolution certainly brought more force onto the world stage. Virtually all of Europe decried the slaughter of French royalty, eventually joining forces to squash the new Republic.

Britannia magazone
Culturally, the French Revolution provided the world with its first meaningful experience with political ideology.

While I don't agree with this as stated, I do agree that the French Revolution was a watershed event. The article is fascinating and lends much credence to the argument that the French Revolution has led more to the modern world than the American Revolution has.

Not to argue either point of view. Within the French destruction of its government, forces were unleashed upon Europe that I believe caused to royals to hide themselves in the future.

*royals-1=aristocrats-1=oligarchy
The royals are at the top, their aristocratic supporters are immediately below them in power and they in turn are supported by the much broader oligarchy. The Oligarchy are the only ones that get caught up in public battles. Within the Oligarchy there may be more than one group.
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CyberKat, thank you for your response. I certainly did not mean to imply that you even had a union stance; I simply thought it a good thing to know when I read the article.

Everyone has an agenda of one sort or another, and no one has the absolute truth about anything. One way to eliminate bias, I believe, is to find out what kind of ax an author has to grind and then compensate for it.

For example, if I read an article that bashed a particular company and learned that it was written by a competitor, it might make me a little more leery of the spin that the article gives.

(Except for articles that deal with Airbus Industrie, the Servants of Satan. Even if the article were written by a Boeing employee, you can agree with all that's said there. But I digress...)

I personally have mixed feeling about Wal-Mart and big boxes iin general. The bad things they do is to eliminate a lot of competition on the retail level, simply because they are more efficient at delivering cost-effective product thanks to the economies of scale. The good thing they do is to actually be more efficient and the consumers pay a lower cost for their goods.

Wal-Mart has driven Levi Strauss out of the domestic manufacturig business, because Walmart said they wouldn't stock Levi's unles the wholsale price was down to X dollars. The only way Levi's could make the cost that low and still mke a profit was to send its factories overseas, so they did. If you want a pair of Made-in-the-USA britches, they won't be Levi's.

Again, the up-side is that the American consumer wins by paying a lower price for equal quality goods.

Now a lot of people may believe that it would be better if all the stores paid their employees "good" wages, and all the suppliers kept their factories here in the United States and paid their employees "good" wages, too.

The problem is that, by doing so, the cost of goods to the consumer would double, and we, being consumers, would look for better deals.

Over the past hundred years, Americans have chosen to do a lot of things that help people, like passing minimum wages, forced contributions to a retirement scheme, environmental laws, safety laws, child labor laws, and so on.

But these same things we do that help people also hurt people, because not everyone in theworld has these laws, so it's a lot cheaper to build stuff overseas, and this lower cost gets passed along to the American consumer.

Wal-Mart is not big because it's bad, it's big because it offers equal-quality goods to people at a better price. But you can't have it both ways. Wal-Mart in in the business to make a profit, and they do. They're not going to cut their own throat by increasing the costs associated with their production and distribution, because if they did, the would lose market share and end up going out of business, and all their employees would not be underpaid ...

...they'd be unemployed.

[edit on 20-3-2005 by Off_The_Street]

I'LL post this. The store in your area will very.

Walmart Pay Rate and Salary

Posted by walmartworker at 2004-10-14 12:03


I thought I would post some info on walmart pay that people could compare to other retailers.

Company Statistics

Hourly Positions

Support Mgr my rate is $14.98 but in my store the five supports make between $9.93 to $21.23 an hour. The person making $21.23 has been with company 26 years so he skews the average. Btw we don't follow company policy about discussing rate of pay

Dept Mgr $10.62
Sales Assoc. $8.27
Overnight Stockers $9.29
Cashiers $8.05

The average walmart hourly pay $9.26

Salary Positions

Regional VP $279,772
District Manager $177,149
Store Manager $89,000
Co-Manager $56,317
Asst. Manager $37,322
Mgmt Trainee $22,371

Keep in mind these are the average pay for Female workers. I figure I would list them because most walmart employees are female. If your a male probably make about 5-6% more in an hourly position (not much of a gap) or around 44% more in the upper upper position werea regional male makes $440,000 vs the $279,000 a female makes.

One other thing a lot of walmarts hire people in at various rates (the lowest rate possible). In my area the four stores hire in people about the same anywhere from $7.50 To $8.50 an hour for 1st/2nd shift and $8.00 to $9.50 an hour for 3rd shift. However only 90 miles south of us the stores hire people in at $6.00-$6.50 for all three shifts.

The asst. managers are hired in at $32,000 + gap pay. Gap pay is a cost of living adjustment added to your pay depending where you live and is only given to salary managment. In my area its 8%. So a typical person promoted to asst. manager would make $34,560 in my area.

The difference between hourly and salary pay besides overtime rules and gap pay is that currently hourly employees don't "cap" out in other words every year they get a raise where as salary management does and I think its in the $50,000 area. This doesn't include bonus pay though. For example a Co-manger can cap out at $50,000 but will also get his/her bonus check on top of that.

One last fun fact my current store turnover rate is 79%. I'm not sure what the company average is but I'm sure its that high too. Imagine that within one year 79% of the people you work with won't be there. Thats walmarts little secret to low wages.

Good data, Roper!

Does anyone here have similar data for other big boxes like KMart or Target?

Terapin says:

"In my personal oppinion, Walmart is an evil empire and I refuse to hand over my money to them."

You are certainly entitled to your opinion as am I -- and just about anyone else here.

"The asian children ... have no health care at all, no safety laws regarding their work environemnt and often work with toxic chemicals, no paid meal breaks, no pension plans, a much longer work day, and if they dont grow up and have kids of their own to support them in their old age, they can look forward to no help from the govt of any kind."

That's at least partially true. These asian governments (some of them, anyway) do not choose to emulate the Uniterd States in its solicitousness for its citizens.

"They earn extreemly low wages that would never allow them to even purchase the items they are making for Walmart. "

Actually, that's not the case. Remember that those relatively low wages and harsh working conditions the offshore workers undergo is better by a good factor than the job opportunities that were available to them before the offshore factoies came around, and the result is that there is a growing middle class (or 'purchasing' class) in the Third World.

"The corperate world cares nothing about individuals... "

I work for a corporation (as a matter of fact, it is the largest exporter of products in the United States); and they care for me a lot. I get a pension plan, a 401(k), family healthcare for about $40 a month, no cost for all tuition and books for the schools of my choice, and a good salary. Of course, the company does this becaue they want me to stay and be a good little doobie, but the fact remains that it is a win-win situation.

If the corporation for which you work does not do that, you might want to consider changing employers.

"Shop responsibly and get others to do so and there might be a chance."

Well, isn't getting the best buy for your dollar "shopping responsibly"?

"Live responsibly and stop being a thoughtless consumer."

I always thought that shopping for the best deals (e.g., Wal-Mart as opposed to Nordstrom's) was being a "thoughtful consumer"!

"If society could change their consumption..."

I do not understand. You seem to be very anti-Wal-Mart, and yet you seem to want us all to "change our consumption" which, I suppose, means that we should pay more by shopping at boutiques?

By the way, do you know what's in front of the McKeldin Library?

Thank you for your kind words, terapin. On the front of McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland is a life-size bronze statue of a terrapin, which, as I'm sure you know, is the mascot of U of Md.

According to the school legend, the terrapin, nicknamed "Testudo", would arise from his perch and fly around the quadrangle and light again on his pedestal the day a virgin graduated from U Md.

Legend has it that, on several occasions, he was seen to stir on his pedestal, but after the last prom, there were no virgins left, and he stayed hunkered down.

I took my English undergraduate degree at Maryland (1969), and went back there last year to my high school's 40th anniversary. It was the first time I'd been back at U of Md for about 33 years, and Ol' Testudo looked like he hadn't flown yet.

Today I saw something that raised the hairs in my neck, as I was taking my daughter back to college after spring brake we exit the main highway, and got into the small towns one way roads to cut time.

In an area that took us to cover in 1 hour we count one full working wal-mart and 3 new wal-mart been built, and all were located it in that same road withing one hour drive.

I though that was spooky.

Walmart in Tempe Arizona very conveniently hires mostly Mexicans (i have nothing against working Mexicans) for $6.00/hr.

They are treated like crap too. I live right behind Walmarts and one of my neighbors kid works there.

Nothing like taking advantage, huh?!

Well Marge, how many people will be put to work? That means more people paying in to the IRS,SS,MC,etc.

Someone has to work, there is getting to many that aren't.

I heard that the Calif. Medical fund is broke, due to being overwhelmed by illegals. Food for Thought.

Roper

Well, DG, since I know what you look like (as long as you don't change that brown dress and hair-style) I am going to drive all around Hardy Drive and Grove Parkway until I find your house and then ....

...I'm sending in the Missionaries!

"Two clean-cut young men with short haircuts, white shirts, and black ties: coming soon to a neighborhood near YOU."