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More Proof that Walmart is evil!

Tmy said:
Didnt Walmart buy its way onto a town referendum ballot in order to do an end around the towns zoning board?? I think theyve done this in a couple places. Nice.
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That is outrageous! They should bribe the city council like everyone else. Those bastards, letting voters decide!
 
Grammatron said:
Do they?
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They do indeed. I don't dispute that many Walmart employees have a great employment experience, but having been involved in a representative sample of this state's recent contested unemployment cases, I can tell you that Walmart stands out where usually only nut-job sole-proprietors with a personal vendetta normally tread when it comes to firing people for arbitrary and irrational reasons, and then going to extreme lengths to dispute obvious legitimate claims and indignantly filing groundless appeal after groundless appeal.

Walmart is currently subject to a class-action suit in Minnesota by employees over the last few years who have been made to do work while off the clock. This is the kind of nonsense that you expect from a small employer who doesn't know better, but which is inexcusable from a corporation like Walmart (and yet suprisingly common).
 
I don't see what is so evil about this. Women generally get paid less than men because they generally work less than men because they take time off to have kids.
 
On a lighter note.
I knew a guy, completly deaf, who applied for a janitorial job at Wal-Mart. They told him thay couldn't hire him because he was deaf, so he asked them to put it in writing for his unemployment insurence, and they obliged.

I suppose the $3 million dollar settlement he got could be called "unemployment insurence". :D
 
rdaneel said:
On a lighter note.
I knew a guy, completly deaf, who applied for a janitorial job at Wal-Mart. They told him thay couldn't hire him because he was deaf, so he asked them to put it in writing for his unemployment insurence, and they obliged.

I suppose the $3 million dollar settlement he got could be called "unemployment insurence". :D
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In the middle of that I thought you were going to say "...he asked them to put it in writing because he was deaf and couldn't hear what they were saying."
 
Whoracle said:
I don't see what is so evil about this. Women generally get paid less than men because they generally work less than men because they take time off to have kids.
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It is wrong to pay an individual less for the same work just because they belong to a class that may not work as much over an entire career. We're not talking about lifetime earning of career employees, we're talking about paying hourly wages for hourly work to transient employees. Walmart is taking advantage of the fact that working women often have to work at any price, while men can often afford to be more selective.

Even if it were the case that this was simply a matter adjusting for the fact that women have babies, we have, as a society, decided that it isn't right to financially penalize women because they bear out children. It's evil, and it's illegal, too.
 
Michael Redman said:
It is wrong to pay an individual less for the same work just because they belong to a class that may not work as much over an entire career. We're not talking about lifetime earning of career employees, we're talking about paying hourly wages for hourly work to transient employees. Walmart is taking advantage of the fact that working women often have to work at any price, while men can often afford to be more selective.
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It's interesting the way you say this, although I'd change it slightly. WalMart is taking advantage of the fact that women are willing to work at any price, while men can often afford to be selective.

Personally, I don't like the idea that women get paid less, but OTOH, there is a priniciple here that I also am uncomfortable with. If WalMart negotiates its employees salaries independently (the workers aren't unionized), and women are willing to work for lower pay, then it seems to me that it isn't surprising they are paid less on the whole. Moreover, I don't see how that should be WalMart's fault, and, as you said, is more a reflection of the attitudes of society than anything else.

OTOH, given the lower salaries, it also seems to me that WalMart should also have a lot more woman employees than they do men, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. So the bottom line comes down to the following: WalMart can pay women less (because women will accept less) and therefore employs more women, or pay more, and therefore have a lower number of women and more men.

This same sort of thing is going on in the veterinary industry in the US. Competition for jobs is pretty high, so the salaries are pretty chincy for a medical professional. As a result, few men are willing to go through what they need to in order to become a vet, and current vet classes are about 80% women. OTOH, if you increase the salary to a higher level, the net result is that you will make the profession more attractive to men. Since there are only a finite number of positions available, what it means is that the number of women will decrease, as the balance comes to more closely reflect the total working population.

So here's the question: which is better, from a woman's issue standpoint? Having 80% of the positions at a lower salary? Or only 50% of the positions but those that get the jobs have a higher salary?

This same issue shows up in the fast food industry, which is paying minimum wage. One of the consequences of increasing the minimum wage is to take jobs away from teenagers, who are willing to work for less. Sure, it helps the people who are getting jobs, but those people who don't get jobs now because they are fighting against a much bigger applicant pool are not served at all. Thus, if you are an advocate of working teens, it's not at all clear that you should support an increase in the minimum wage, because it will cost your group jobs.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the argument that WalMart uses. Sure, they pay women at a lower rate, but that allows them to employ more women, so in the end, it is a wash, and the total payroll dedicated to women employees is the same as that for men. I'm not sure it will work, nor am I sure it should work, but it's not a simple issue.
 
There are two factors that people can use to justify the fact that men get more:

1. Seniority. I mean, everything else being equal, should the person that has worked longer get paid more as a reward for those years of service? If so, then taking time off to have kids is a reason you might get paid less.

2. Being better at something just because you've done it longer, i.e., you have more practice. If X has worked ten years while Y has worked five, maybe X will get the promotion because he is better suited for the job. Not because he's inherently better suited for it, but he's simply worked more and has more experience and as a result is in a better position to move up. This sounds like it could be the same as seniority but for seniority I meant to refer to two people doing the exact same job.

How these actually play out is another matter. I'm just saying that theoretically they are two reasons why I could see a difference between two groups that are employed for a different number of years in their career.
 
The problem isn't paying certain women less because they have taken time off, and have less seniority, and less experience.

The problem is paying all women less than men with identical experience and qualifications, and denying them the opportunity to advance in the organization in favor of men, because they might take time off in the future. This is what Walmart is accused of.
 
Well that doesn't sound very defensible. I think that if Wal-Mart did it then they're up the creek on that one.
 
Well, like all such cases, it's a matter of the plaintiffs showing the discrepancy was sex-based, and not explainable by other individual factors. It's possible that Walmart has been fair, but the women who self-select to work there are less qualified on average than the women in general, or maybe Walmart attracts supermen who make the women look feeble by contrast.

Or, they're patronizing and sexist. Who knows? The jury is sure going to hear a lot about it, though.
 
IIRC, I believe part of their complaint is the lack of women promoted also. One of the stories stated that a woman was told if she couldn't stack 50lb dog food bags, she couldn't be a manager.

I come in the pixie size variety and I can stack 55lb cases of chicken up to my chest. I can't imagine the 50lb dog food bags going up that high.

So either that was "little girl", an honest comment that was taken as "little girl", the woman had a back problem, or some other explanation.
 
Diogenes said:
In any event, we should start seeing a lot more women in Walmart in the blue vests, with walkie-talkies and heavily populated key rings...
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Sounds like someone has a fetish.
 
Even if it were the case that this was simply a matter adjusting for the fact that women have babies, we have, as a society, decided that it isn't right to financially penalize women because they bear out children. It's evil, and it's illegal, too.

What sounds evil to me is letting women take time off work while they go have kids, and then giving them the exact same amount of money as the people who have been chained to their desks the whole time working 40 hours a week. Having children is a lifestyle decision, one that greatly inconviences the company. When the woman is gone, someone else is going to have to do her work. If you're not working, naturally you aren't going to get raises/promotions. I see nothing wrong with that, especially when it was your choice not to be working in the first place.
 
Whoracle said:
Even if it were the case that this was simply a matter adjusting for the fact that women have babies, we have, as a society, decided that it isn't right to financially penalize women because they bear out children. It's evil, and it's illegal, too.

What sounds evil to me is letting women take time off work while they go have kids, and then giving them the exact same amount of money as the people who have been chained to their desks the whole time working 40 hours a week. Having children is a lifestyle decision, one that greatly inconviences the company. When the woman is gone, someone else is going to have to do her work. If you're not working, naturally you aren't going to get raises/promotions. I see nothing wrong with that, especially when it was your choice not to be working in the first place.
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Fine, what about me? I'm a childfree working woman. Should I be penalized because I would be capable of having children?

What about the women who have children and are working so they can feed their family? Because they have children should they be living at the working-class line?
 
LostAngeles said:


Fine, what about me? I'm a childfree working woman. Should I be penalized because I would be capable of having children?
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No. As long as you provide competitive amount of work you should be paid accordingly. If that is the case in the Wal-Mart suit then I hope Wal-Mart gets the pants sued off of them.
What about the women who have children and are working so they can feed their family? Because they have children should they be living at the working-class line?
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Well you don't spontaneously have children, why didn't they plan their finances before having them?
 
Having children is a "lifestyle decision" that is necessary for the continuation of our species, and strongly encouraged by our biology, regardless of how we rationally plan our lives. If men fulfilled their equal responsibility for their children, this wouldn't be a problem. Instead, we force the women to do most of the child care, and then punish them when they return to the workplace. That's fair? No.

Diogenes said:
Perhaps someone is projecting..
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You know, my wife did work at Sam's Club for a short while.
 
Whoracle said:
Even if it were the case that this was simply a matter adjusting for the fact that women have babies, we have, as a society, decided that it isn't right to financially penalize women because they bear out children. It's evil, and it's illegal, too.

What sounds evil to me is letting women take time off work while they go have kids, and then giving them the exact same amount of money as the people who have been chained to their desks the whole time working 40 hours a week. Having children is a lifestyle decision, one that greatly inconviences the company. When the woman is gone, someone else is going to have to do her work. If you're not working, naturally you aren't going to get raises/promotions. I see nothing wrong with that, especially when it was your choice not to be working in the first place.
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The evil comes in penalizing all women for the lifestyle choices of some. Some women choose not to have kids, some women are unable to have kids. if you pay all women less than men, you are penalizing those women every bit as much as the ones that DO have kids.

Further, men can take parental leave too (at least they cn in Nevada, and I doubt we are unique in that respect). Therefore, there is no logical reason to to pay women less because they might take time out to become parents.
 
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