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Sun, 28 Apr 2002

Wal-Mart is evil

/meat/ @ 16:34 on Sun, 2002-04-28
Here's an interesting article on why working for Wal-Mart is evil. Essentially you're disallowed unions, work for more than 28 hours a week and other such obvious benefits.
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Re: Wal-Mart is evil

Antwana @ Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:15

People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union". Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority. Unions serve to empower. Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an enviornment where there are fewer hurdles.

Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the indistry dominated by the middle and lower classes. Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins. They all do it. Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise. So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.

I believe the coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to just this::Sam Walton's WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.

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Re:

Steve Pomeroy @ Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:35

You obviously are very passionate about this subject to write a response to a 3 year old post. Oddly, however, you don't seem to want to link your writing to yourself in any valid way (your website as linked does not appear to exist).

But I digress.

I find it absurd that anyone could state broadly and simply that unions are there to "enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly[sic] without addressing their disfavor".

Any successful union exists not to only set a standard wage, but to address the concerns of the workers. If providing a unified voice for workers is not "addressing their disfavor" then must be misunderstanding your statement.

From what I have learned in a basic economics class, I can understand how providing low-paying jobs can help those who have no job acquire one. But Walmart does not then help them get a job that is worthwhile. I suspect that the money an individual makes from Walmart rarely covers all the expenses of even an individual (let alone a young family) and so anyone who is employed at Walmart must also have another job.

Working 2 jobs is stressful on an individual and deters one from putting even more time in to search or train for another job. Were an individual trying to better themselves, but stuck in a poor situation (let's use your example of a bad family: say where a person is living with their extended family, having to provide for ill or disabled family members as well as their self), they would be virtually unable to! How does one add education on top of that?

Would you pay a Walmart employee more to let them have an opportunity at a better life (if they chose to invest their money in that endeavor)? Perhaps I'm misreading you, but I'm going to guess that you would have to reply, "Probably not."

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