wal-mart and unions

[EarlCat]

If they want to keep making that money, they will have to keep employing people, and you can't outsource retail.

You can't?
...and I didn't say they'd ALL be unemployed, but it's ridiculous to think WalMart would employ as many people at a higher wage as they would at a lower wage.  Those who either get laid off or don't get hired at all will be unemployed.

Making it POSSIBLE for walmart employees to unionize is not going to increase your taxes, instead it will be more likely to lower them when walmart can stop handing out brochures on how to obtain welfare support.

Fail.  The original discussion was about what would happen if Democrats win in November.  1) WalMart will get unionized.  2) Your taxes will go up.

[brianwithani]

The crash had nothing to do with liberal tax policies.  Now it is arguable that liberal policies may have worsened the depression initially but laissez faire economic policies would have destroyed the country, literally.  Anarchy, chaos, revolution. Chicago School, laissez faire, free market, trickle down economics, etc. do nothing but concentrate wealth in a very small number of people...and lead to revolution.  See nearly all of South America in the last 40 years...

[Jamie Stringer]

I don't care about Walmart's profits, I care about my own taxes going up because of the cost of benefits for their underpaid employees. That, and the exploited workers themselves.  I have nothing good to say about Walmart.

1.  Define underpaid. 

2.  Define exploited.

Seems to me the workers at WalMart get a fair wage for what they do.  If you don't want to pay higher taxes for someone's benefits, there's other ways to stop that.

http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2004/Wal-Mart-Workers-Lock-Ins18jan04.htm

I know, you'll probably say that these employees have choices and could work elsewhere.  However, as has already been mentioned, when you don't have much education and you're living in a town where many other smaller businesses have likely gone under due to Walmart's presence, that tends to reduce your options quite substantially.

If you can't find a job you like, you have a few options:
1) Stop working altogether and suck at the teat of the government
2) Do like unskilled workers have done since the dawn of capitalism - move where the jobs are.
3) Suck it up, work, get a college degree and get a better job.
4) Suck it up and just work hard.  there are countless stories of people starting as stock boys, becoming store managers and moving up through the company.  OR
5) Whine and female dog, try to unionize, force walmart to go non-union anyway and hire other people while your unemployed ass whines and bitches even more.

There are a lot of responses to your points, but I don't feel like going line by line right now.  I do, however, want to address the main point behind your post.  Are you saying that Walmart's practice of locking in employees and threatening them if they attempt to leave (even when in need of medical attention) is not exploitative?

[Julie Fern]

did you say that when took new job? julie guessing not.

No, the previous guy got paid more, so their cost of labor went down.

well, maybe if you in union...

[Julie Fern]

Please explain to me the idea that wal mart owes their employees anything more than an agreed upon wage and some hours. Last time I checked, no one is forced to work at wal mart. And the wal mart starting wage is well above the minimum. And their average hourly wage is well above the norm. And most companies won't give part timers health insurance.

julie never say otherwise.  issue is for what they can contract.  (actually, issue wal-mart's political campaigning for mcsame.)

[Julie Fern]

apparently wal-mart not realize there lot more employees than managers:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755649066303381.html

Not really -- they're just focusing on the people they're allowed to speak with.

Also, managers are of course employees.

ok, preppie.  peons and managers.  and there always more peons.

[brianwithani]

...and I guess you blame the miserable losses that GM and Ford are taking right now on labor costs, right?  Those evil unions are causing the 12 billion dollars in losses...surely it's not that the management refused to use any of the windfall profits from their SUV sales in the 90's and early 2000's to invest in better fuel economy.  Noooo, no corporate responsibility, that would be heresy.  No they just jacked up the compensation packages for the upper management and played hardball when it came contract time for the hourly employees.  Now all the fund managers are crying in their beer because their pyramid scheme in the mortgage industry is falling apart and the oil speculators are driving oil prices into the stratosphere.  And you can blame China and India for the high gas prices all you want but even conservative economists put $40-$50 of the price of a barrel of oil on pure speculative mark up. 

My point is, and I do have one, that every position in this argument has a scapegoat.  Mine is executive level management.  Yours is the working poor, wage earners.  You can claim it's the evil unions, but ultimately it's the workers getting the shaft. 

[sheltron5000]

First of all, walmart is the largest single employer in the US. That means that there are more walmart jobs than jobs of any other kind, that is why we pick on walmart. That means that without unions the employees have absolutely no power to negotiate wages. Just as all the conservatives have said, if you work for walmart and tell your boss you want $0.50 extra per hour, they'll laugh at you or fire you.
Second of all, labor is not a resource like other things. If you have an ounce of gold and someone offers you a price you don't like, you can hold on it it and wait for a better price. If someone offers you a bad job with no health care, eventually you are FORCED to accept it--you have to pay for all those bigmacs somehow.

But the truth of the situation is that walmart is already running with as few employees as they believe they can and still make money. Increasing labor costs (or making them reflect the real cost on society) is not going to cause massive layoffs at walmart. And neither will it hurt the company, which does not operate at slim margins, it is wildly profitable.

So yes, walmart hates unions; they cost walmart money. But just as walmart negotiates with the factories in china (which by the way, lindbergh, I never complained about), unions negotiate with walmart. The problem is that as the law stands now, walmart can very easily quash any unions by threatening all their employees with firings.

As for the taxes issue, MY taxes aren't going up, and, likely, neither are yours, Earlcat. And yes, I do have a problem with walmart's not paying its fair share of the tax burdon.  Rather than trying to close the tax loopholes that they are sooo good at creating, I'm asking my congress person to ask them to shoulder it in a different way, by making it easier to unionize and force them to pay the REAL costs of labor.

If you have a problem with your taxes going up, I suggest you take that up with your congress person, you might mention corporate loop holes.

[Gengiswump]

Let me just note for the record that I think it's terrible that companies like walmart and costco provide low-cost goods for working class families, improving their standard of living. 

I think it's terrible that they purchase good from China, meaning a higher standard of living for people far worse off than the poorest american.  I also think it's terrible that such trade creates economic interdependence, and minimizes the risk of military conflict with such countries. 

Finally, I think it's terrible that such companies provide jobs for low-skilled people, until they can find better jobs. 

Given that the standard of living for most americans has gone up over the last few decades, not down, and that the unemployment rate has gone down over the last few decades, not up, it is clear that such policies are harmful to our nation, and must be stopped. 

Umm, just to chime in here, you can't put WalMart and CostCo in the same group at all when it comes to employee welfare and benefits.  For 1) it's just patently disingenuous to have them in the same group as they are not generally recognized as the same market - it should be Sam's Club and CostCo, not WalMart and Costco.  2) CostCo pays a much better average wage ($18 p/h on the floor, as I recall, yes there is, in fact, an article that articulates this fact while detailing the somewhat revolutionary managerial style of CostCo's CEO) than Walmart/Sam's Club and provides better benefits.

I mean, if you want to defend WalMart I think you're a raging loony, but at least be honest in your lunacy.  Let's not pretend like the salaries paid at Walmart are super reasonable, nor that the benefits provided are astronomical to the community at large.  Not to mention that WalMart just loves censorship.  C'mon now.  If you want a company to hold up as a positive example of non-unionization, at least pick one that's a wee bit less controversial in employee treatment, like IBM or something.  (Though IBM's controversy isn't exactly nonexistent, at least it's more difficult to assert that people aren't being paid and don't have other options.)

For the record, if it isn't clear, I'm distinctly pro-unions.  And very, very anti-WalMart.

[EarlCat]

Are you saying that Walmart's practice of locking in employees and threatening them if they attempt to leave (even when in need of medical attention) is not exploitative?

This is already illegal, but nice job moving the goal-posts.