Saturday, February 12, 2005

Wal-Mart is an anti-union bully

As if there were not already enough reasons to despise Wal-Mart for its deplorable treatment of its workers, its shameless disregard for communities that it plunders and its ownership's anti-public education campaign, here's another:

Workers in Canada had successfully voted to form a union when Wal-Mart closed the store. Read the full story.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.

7 comments:

Dr Pezz said...

At least Wal-Mart didn't lock them in like they did in Texas and Arkansas. Just locked them out.

Anonymous said...

Wal-mart may not be the best place to work (It's wal-mart for crying out loud!), but a union will only tear it up more from the inside. You can always quit. I thought it was funny seeing a story about wal-mart employees not getting the benefits they wanted it on tv. They were all fat disgusting cows!

Dr Pezz said...

Brilliant comments, Anonymous.

Firstly, unions were part of the reason unfair labor practices were abolished. Without the ability of the workers to unite and rally with their strength of numbers, management could basically do whatever it pleases with no regard for the workers. Wal-Mart has been known to lock its workers in, force unpaid overtime, and has one of the worst sexual harassment records of any major company just to name a few problems.

Secondly, Wal-Mart is obviously being dishonest in this case. Only that particular store was having enough financial troubles to need to close? Yeah, right. Wal-Mart will now have to prove this in the Canadian courts.

Thirdly, your comments about their looks only reveal your arrogance and ignorance. Have an informed and relevant opinion.

Anonymous said...

I'm well aware of the problems Wal-Mart presents. I find it a disgusting store, so I don't shop there.

While I think unions do some good things, they create far too many problems. I think a reason why unions are so radical today are because they give the democratic party so much money. The democrats don't want to lose it, so they'll support them more and more and more and more.

My uncle and one of my cousins both work at Wal-Mart. My uncle doesn't complain about it, he's also a very hard worker. My cousin was able to get the job with no experience in that field at all and nothing more than a high-school diploma. He was making over 8 dollars an hour (in Arizona) and was receiving close to 40 hours a week. If he doesn't like it, he will QUIT.

As the middle-aged looking lady with brown hair raised her arm up in the air to hold her sign that I interpreted as her wanting more benefits, fat--yes it was fat for a fact--jiggled on her arm. Another lady stood up that looked (in my eyes) to weigh in excess of 300 pounds. It is my firm belief that from what I saw, around 75% of the people at the rally were what would be considered "obese". I'm a firm believer that overweight people are probably more likely to be greedy and want (and in this case get, such as food) more than they need. What's to say that these benefits they desire aren't also a bi-product of greedy minds?

Dr Pezz said...

Anonymous,

Your comments are so ridiculous, I don't even know how to respond. Clearly, your views are skewed by appearances, prejudice, and some sort of perceived conspiracy. Bizarre.

All I can say is that without unions or other similar types of worker representation, workers would be exploited without mercy. No union is perfect or reflects any individual's every goal; however, they fight for their workers' rights, compensation, and security. History reveals that the absence of unions or worker representative bodies allows corporations and their governing bodies to coldly abuse the lower wage earners.

Anonymous said...

We need some sort of union reform. Unions can do some good things, but they have way too much power. I KNOW the democrats see this, but they won't do anything about it as long as unions keep giving them money.

Dr Pezz said...

Here's the deal with why Wal-Mart wants to keep out unions. Without unions management has absolute control. This used to be conducted in a positive manner (if you're anti-union) because Sam Walton paid his associates (he refused to call them employees) with their small wages and stocks. This made many of the "associates" from the 1970s and early 1980s very wealthy. Now, he is not the head of the company, and the company looks to cut costs more drastically all the time.

The workers did not need a union because they used to be paid well above evryone else. Now that has changed. This includes the end of the stocks as part of the workers' payment, higher and higher medical benefit costs (or none at all), and less job security just to name a few changes.

Now, you may still want to believe that Democrats only support unions to garner more power and that's fine--shortsighted but fine. However, using your conspiracy laden logic why would Democrats need to support unions? Would it be that Republicans support big business so much that Dems need to support the common man? This is obviously an oversimplification but shows where your argument can lead.

Bottom line: Wal-Mart looks to cut costs anywhere and everywhere but mainly from the bottom up. Executuve salaries remain untouched and the costs of business are shifted to the bottom wage earners (another indictment of trickle-down economics).