Regarding Costco vs. Walmart - Costco has about 4x the sales per store, and 3x the sales per employee, so they can afford to pay more, labor costs are less of their overhead. Nothing wrong with Costco, but it’s a different business model.
^
I realize that it is a different business model, but Costco doesn’t have to pay their employees as well as they do. They choose to do so, and so could some other merchants.
Meanjoe, that ain’t so.
I met with top flight lawyers. I have no protections.
As to my coworker, I’ll not say what if any additional protections she may or may not have had. I’ve already slipped up and violated my own principles by disclosing her gender.
So, Joe, unless you’re an experienced lawyer licensed to practice in NH and specializing in this area, I’m going to take their word for it.
Regarding db4590’s comments about working for a dealer and being coerced into performing jobs for free; I will say that practice is very common.
It might be noted that recently in CA a lawsuit was filed over this and the 9th Circuit upheld the ruling that employers would have to at least pay the mechanics minimum wage when they were not performing flat rate piece work.
For what it’s worth, the last full week I ever worked for a dealer my take home pay that week was 89 dollars; and that’s after a full 40 hour week and a 150 miles round trip commute every day.
Think Wal Mart people have it bad on a 35 hours X 9 bucks an hour week?
It amazes me just how greedy many employers have become and the level of mistreetment many employees are willing to put up with. At some point even the desperately poor will walk away from a job, I know I have. For more than 30 years I was self employed, largely because I was never convinced that my pay was adequate to my work.
"It amazes me just how greedy many employers have become"
Absolutely…
If you look at the website for Forbes magazine, their listing of the wealthiest Americans includes 4 members of the Walton family in the top ten. Their aggregate wealth would exceed that of the two wealthiest, Bill Gates & Warren Buffett.
While it is entirely possible that the Walton clan are very generous benefactors to charities, I don’t have any concrete evidence of that fact–UNLIKE both Gates & Buffett who have essentially committed their fortunes to charitable works.
So, if one is to adhere to the old maxim that says Charity begins at home, couldn’t the Walton clan somehow subsist on a few million fewer $$ per year, so that so many of their employees wouldn’t have to rely on the foodstamps and other government programs that WE all pay for?
The 19th Century industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, was ruthless in his quest for wealth in his younger years, but once he attained an advanced age, he discovered religion and declared, He who dies wealthy dies in disgrace…or something to that effect…and he then gave away almost all of this vast fortune to build community libraries all over the US.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Walton clan decided that they could somehow get by on a bit less money and instead, decided to finally give the employees who built their wealth a better wage and better fringe benefits? Or, is it better for The US if all of us to have to continue to subsidize the living expenses of the folks from whom the Waltons derive their incomes?
When I left the dealer, I believe my hourly rate was $24/hr
To clarify, that means I get $25 x the amount of hours I got paid
Some days I may flag 12 hours, while other days I may flag 5 hours or less
For kicks and giggles, I sometimes averaged the amount of hours I flagged. Through some simple math, I was able to deduce that my effective hourly rate was roughly 1/2 to 2/3
There were obviously many reasons why my effective hourly rate was much lower, all of which are well known to anybody who’s ever wrenched at a dealership
I love wrenching, and I miss working on those Benzes, but I don’t miss the system
Yeah . . . even though I’m no fan of Walmart, they don’t have a monopoly on jerking around the employees
Management books are filled with case studies of unfair management practices. Its why unions and bloody confrontations have been in our history. Just read in this months Rifleman about the bloody Blair Mountain gun fight between miners and owners with the help of white collar public. I’m pro labor and also pro business. Just be fair and practice good business and all will usually be well. A number of us 50 year old white boys at the time and even a 50 year old black boy, felt the wrath of a 30’s white female staff determined that no good could come from male management over 50. So much for federal laws. I won though and she cried. On the other hand, we had to force people to take their breaks and lunch away from their work stations in order not to get dinged by the feds so guess there is some teeth in the feds. How WM and others get away with not paying people for work makes one wonder though.
So in my view it is short sighted and poor business practice to treat people poorly and the business will eventually suffer or fail. I believe WM is guilty of some of those practices. I left South Dakota to avoid some of this, and commuted to the big city for years to not be beholding to business thugs. I worked with guys though that never would have left no matter how they were treated. Sad but a lot of them walked to work. Of course the business failed eventually. Just think the idea that you’ll sell yourself for minimum wage, take being treated poorly, is based on fear and a poor self view. Take classes, upgrade skills, stay in school, and move for heavens sake. There are areas of the country doing well and businesses that treat their people well. Now that I think of it, that’s what my Dad did so maybe got it from him.
It’s a question of the economy. If the economy were robust and jobs plentiful, employers would have to treat employees fairly and decently. Currently, there are no jobs, and little hope for a turnaround in the immediate future. Thus, employers can get away with treating employees badly. And some do.
@TSMB: were you discriminated against on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin? If not, then you have no recourse…if you were, you do.
@db4690: If an employer found it necessary to steal from me by not compensating me for my time…I think I’d keep track of amounts owed, then take something of equivalent value on my way out the door…all while doing as many moonlight jobs with company supplies as I could muster.
All illegal as hell, mind you, but karmically-justified civil disobedience!
Enjoying the interesting discussion.
I’ll toss in a few observations based on my own experience and that of several people I know.
Back in 1969 and 1970 there were only two Walmart stores, located in Bentonville and Rogers, Arkansas. Both were privately owned and managed by Sam Walton. Every week, when local competing stores ran ads in the local newspapers, Walmart always managed to run competing ads for the exact same products and always with severely undercutting prices. Mind you, the local competitor owners chose what items to put on sale in their individual stores so they were making up and taking those ads to the papers; these weren’t coming from a corporate headquarters. Yet week after week, whatever they put on sale ended up being directly undercut that same week by Walmart. And the Walmart ads always had preferential placement. Even as a kid I wondered how much Sam Walton was paying someone at the newspaper to let him know what ad copy had been brought in by the competition so he could undercut them each time.
At the time Sam Walton and his wife also still owned five Ben Franklin franchise stores. Same thing. Whatever sales were advertised by locally owned competitors, those Ben Franklin stores always magically had a sale on the exact same items at severely undercut prices for that week advertised in the same newspapers.
In the early 1990s I knew someone who had worked as an assistant store manager and later as store manager at Walmart for some years. He wasn’t paid enough to be the sole support of his family of four so his wife also worked. His job as manager required him to work 14 to 16 hours per day with only two half days off each month. You read that right – two half days off per month. Also, he was moved to a new store in a different small town almost every year and always had to pay all his own moving expenses; no expense allowance from Walmart, no job assistance for his wife.
A couple of years ago, the daughter of a friend found different work because her job as department manager at Walmart paid so low she had to share an apartment with two other young women to afford even a low rent apartment. Again, she worked seven days a week with only two half days off per month.
When sales reps for companies call on Walmart headquarters they are put in a small room and left to wait for several hours past their appointment time until a Walmart buyer finally comes in and demands that the supplier will supply X number of units at Walmart’s stated price, take it or leave it, no negotiation, and that the supplier’s production will give precedence to Walmart needs over all other customers the supplier has. Suppliers have sometimes been threatened that if they refuse to do business with Walmart that Walmart will find a way to ruin them. Decidedly bully tactics.
At least one independently owned product quality control testing company that Walmart began contracting with to test products supplied to Walmart soon found Walmart demanding they work exclusively for Walmart and drop testing for the myriad other companies they had served for many years. Once the company signed a contract to work exclusively for Walmart and dropped all their other customers, Walmart turned around and cut the price they would pay by almost 50%, take it or leave it. Since the company had already dropped and lost all their other customers, they accepted the price paid by Walmart rather than go out of business.
Walmart isn’t just low priced and efficient; they are cutthroat with their business practices. They have been since the very beginning, going back to good ole country boy Sam Walton.
@RodKnox
I really don’t have to tell you because you get it. Benefits packages, what little they may get, keep many employees at jobs. As long as we are in an employer based healthcare system, which, don’t get me wrong was absolutly necessary for some time, you will get employees you sacrifice their lives, literally for their families and work at these nowhere jobs. My dad worked at a papermill for over 40 years, the last 20 as a machine tender which was a satisfying position with all the responsibilities and pay that went with it. The first twenty had to be brutal. I worked there a few years during college summers and the jobs were as abhorrent as any sweat shop job. From shoveling lime cars to breaking fingers hustling broke to battling acid burns to loosing your hearing as everyone did, money and healthcare benefits were the shackles that kept you there.
Third world labor was and is alive and well in the US of A. Job satisfaction is at it’s highest in countries that offer non employer base, non profit, single payer healthcare. That single influential factor is irrefutable.The solution we are trying to put through now stinks. It’s only salvation is that it stinks less then what we had before. Sorry, but I will beat this drum until we all admitt that we have lost much of our personal freedom with for profit employer based healthcare. The same goes for the millions who work for greedy companies as undocumented workers. They are just as shackled too. Everyone needs healthcare and no one is ever in a bargaining position that allows the free market to determine the price they pay for it. It has been mandated that you and the company you work for, including the LLBeans and the Walmarts through penalties if they don’t offer benefits, will make people rich who do nothing more then deny benifits to increase profits for insurance companies.
@meanjoe
When I left, I was so happy to get out of there, that the thought of “getting even” never even crossed my mind
@ Dag,been my experience that Health insurance is a mighty tempting carrot,also been my experience,that some people no matter how much they are paid will not buy their own health insurance(things like new vehicles,lottery tickets are more important)the point is anyone with a halfway decent job,can probaly afford some type of health insurance.Its a matter of priorities.
And of course some people you couldnt run off,no matter what,some employers are so happy to get thier low cost,non benefit help,they are extremely tolerant of thier quirks and of course the brownies get most of the perks.I’ve tried 10 times or so to get employment at Lowes over the past year (despite being extremely well qualified and each time they tell me" regretably,we have selected other candidates for the possistion" while at the same time they job is still being posted.
So discrimination is being practiced in hiring practices( even got knocked out of a mininum wage job by a kid,who I was led to believe didnt work a week,I had even been interviewed) but that was probaly as a result of my BS felony charge.so I know how discrimination works,if you are Black you just as well figure that you are going to have a dreadful time getting a job in this area(no quotas now) and woman are certainly not going to have much of a chance either,( the fellow Wolves wont leave them alone,(seems like our type of work attracts a certain type of people) anyway discrimination exists and some people will gladly work for beer and cigarettes no matter how greedy the owner is-Kevin
Kevin
I know those same people. But,
When your company, day in and day out, forks over huge sums of money to help pay for your insurance, it has a huge impact on how they do business, who they hire, for how many hours and what other benefits they can afford. Walmarts are no different. This is where I part company with many liberals. Corporations should not be required to contribute one cent toward the healthcare of their employees ! It’s a system whose time has past. Plus, we all should be mandated to have healthcare and it’s not our employer’s job to provide it.
@db4690 's unfortunate experience is indirectly related in part to the company he worked for and it’s benefits packages they must provide. If all you have to do is pay your worker’s salary, and they must compete with other employers for the same good workers, who aren’t tied to benefits packages and have complete freedom to move from one job to a more satisfying one, working conditions improve as workers seek the jobs they like and not the ones they need. We should all be paying for our own healthcare, through our own taxes and savings after, not before companies pay there employees. They would certainly not demand that workers shovel out lime cars in terrible conditions !
Everyone , even the healthy needs healthcare ! That’s why other non profits and not your company should be mandated to provide it. Whether it be the govt. or private non profits is no concern to me.
Other countries are very successful either way. Personally, I prefer private non profits who also must compete for your contributions as well for they to offer the best HC package. Politicians are too corrupted at this time to be given HC dollars they can then rob and put to other uses.
Re insurance. Healthcare in America accounts for 15% of the GNP yet 30 million+ have no insurance. Somehow the providers and the insurance companies are doing very well. Something has to give. I see no solution more practical than single payer.
Meanjoe, if you decide to apply to the bar, I strongly suggest you get some education in law first.
I’ll not respond to any more law advice from anyone who isn’t a member of the bar.
@same
Does the club bar I belong to qualify ? 
We solve all the worlds problems there after a few under our belt.
Wrong bar. But it often makes more sense than the bar I was referring to.
^
I’ll drink to that!
(Actually, if somebody is serving Johnny Walker Black Label, I’ll probably drink to whatever is mentioned.)
;-))