Walmart

Was watching a Documentary filmed 2 years ago about Walmart.
It was showing the terrible conditions in China and other countries that its clothes production factory workers had to live and work. Being paid approx 3 dollars a week.

It then talked about the amount of attacks to its customers in America due to no security at its carparks.

Has there been any improvements since this Documentary came out?

 

Did you happen to notice what network that program was broadcast on?

Did they mention what the workers were doing and how much they made BEFORE they started working for Walmart suppliers?

did they research what those muggers were doing before they started robbing Walmart customers? Let me guess.. they were clerking in some nice little neighborhood store, that was put out of business by the big bad Walmart.


- This is that old 'American Multinational Corporate' exploitation crap again.

Like every other 'liberal' meme, they never have the whole story. Because most Liberals dont like to think... it's always better to 'feel'.

 

Is it OK to exploit someone slightly less than they were being exploited before? Could Walmart forego some of its profits to increase the working conditions?

I believe it is not always in the interests of a country to increase the wages beyond the growth of the economy as inflation would be detrimental to the rest of the country.

Are you condoning muggers? I am not familiar enough with US culture to know if it is common to have security in car parks to protect the business users. If it is then it is a sad enditment on the state of the police that muggers feel safe to hang around busy areas.

 

This documentary was shown on Sky movies here in Ireland during the week.
Pettyfog you cannot be serious with your statement.

Waltons are billionaires. Why not pay proper wages to their staff in China, Honduras and other countries?

Why not employ Security staff at their stores to cut down on the assaults, rapes and murders?

 

Re: RE: Walmart

YOU cannot be serious!

Of course they are billionaires...it is because Sam Walton made a business plan and tried and improved it, over and over. And there are thousands of millionaires in the US because of it. Who used to be cashiers, stockers and janitors at Walmart

Why dont you guys go to the library and get some books and periodicals on multinational 'sweat shops' and 'worker exploitation' from 30 and 40 years ago.
Then come back and point out what countries they were talking about, then.
Let me point out the obvious:
Walmart is a company, not an NGO, not a country.
Walmart does not hire or employ those 'exploited' workers.
SOME income is better than none.
Working in a hot sweaty noisy dusty shop is usually better than scouring through rubbish heaps and dumps. If you have to earn a living by that.
AND exploited and abused workers dont make good quality products, even if they only THINK they are exploited and abused.
If you have ever worked in a factory, you would know that. You might not admit it, but you know that!

Let's remember what Churchill said: Democracy -and by extension Capitalism- is a lousy system. But it's a helluva lot better than anything else, so far.
Again, who are these muggers and rapists? Where was that store? How much security would be enough?

Walmart IS guilty of some sins... for instance, they had numerous cases of local 'councils' seizing private residence and business properties to allow them to build their stores. Thus increasing their tax base.
They had cleaning contractors who employed illegal immigrants.

Overall though... if you would ask Walmart employees and customers if they would rather things went back to how it was before Walmart, guess what the answer would be!

This is another freakin case of the 'intellectual superior' pointing out the sins of a system they dont understand and refuse to understand.
There are low-tech commodity items, such as various fixtures and hand tools sold in these 'big box' stores that are now BETTER QUALITY and cheaper than they were 30 years ago.

Was it Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price?
That movie has been debunked. When you have millions of employees, you're going to have considerable numbers of them who arent happy.

It really pisses me off to have to defend companies that really should need no defense as they were built for and by the 'working man' and have never forgotten that.
The collich educated 'informed', though they have probably never been in the position of those they espouse to protect, slash at one of the best things that ever happened to the lower middle class.
You dont see those darlings of academia shopping in Walmart though... too depressing for them to see all those 'poor uneducated, sister marryin, bible thumpin, redmeck, exploited people' with their mountains of goodies piled in the shopping carts.
Read what Walmart has to say for itself
Note that Walmart has spent millions just recently on 'greening itself'; they just ordered a new fleet of trucks, to lower emissions and decrease fuel consumption. They have several pilot stores built to use green technology, including far more efficient lighting systems, and heat recirculation.

Now... how about we start a running discussion on what's happening in the new worker's paradise of Venezuela? Hmmmm? I dont think Chavez is gonna allow any Walmart exploitation there... and the people must be dancing in the streets on account of that.

 

That is pitiful, even for a devout lib, Don... AGAIN you cannot debate a point without sidetracking it.

We are talking about Walmart and the LONG TERM effect on the economies where they do business.
Dont expect ME to stick to the point if you cant...

What we see here, in this thread, with the reference to BILLIONAIRE Waltons is exactly the Lib agenda JEALOUSY!
The FACT is there are hundreds of thousands of good liberal lemmings who have gone to the trouble of getting themselves informed and 'educated' (I read indoctrinated) for years; and they can speak and write well and have an appreciation of 'The Arts' and YET there are high School dropouts who make more money than they do... just by showing up for work and doing a good job, and getting promoted for that.

Their elite 'astute political minds' dont mind exploiting the underclass to get and keep votes, once the underclass is dependent on the governemtn why would they even try to better themselves... that's only fair.
When a corporation actually DOES give the less fortunate a way to pull themselves up, it's exploitation.

 

-sigh- The fact that I - non-college educated - have to point out the benefits of capitalism to those who owe much of their indoctrination to earlier Robber Barons such as Rockefeller and Carnegie, truly blows my mind.

I got no money from Carnegie or Heinz or Rockefeller trusts. Yet I understand those guys better than the ones whom they have inadvertently bankrolled to despise them.

I cannot understand the lack of critical thinking by some who supposedly went through an additional four years of what is SUPPOSED to be training in how to think critically!

Of course it's because I think critically that I became disgusted with academia, in the first place. Yes, my own particular shortcoming is that I have no self-discipline. I never have suffered fools.

 

Yeah, Don.. your trolling worked!

Let's think dispassionately. Discarding the concept of slavery, only looking at the end result... de-facto.
Is that statement true or false... those descendants are, on the whole, better off.

Let's see if you can discard, or better just ignore, your touchy-feely ideals JUST ONCE!

 

No, it isnt... you are fully entitled to post your own lame semi-sequiters.

And jibe away... it's fun seeing you squirm out of answering the simple question that shows there are no black and white easy answers.

Here's my watrchword Don... it's only dreamers that thinnk you can change things overnight, or make some editct that will end world injustice.

Everything is connected and what counts is the drirection in which we go, and what the result is far down the line for us, but only an eyeblink in the whole of human history.

Which I think you and your kind should consider when 'promoting your let's end all injustice, now!' follies... aint gonna happen, there is always evil intent, and motivation.

Because we're human.

 

Wal-Mart is in it to make money and as much money as they possibly can. Capitialism is far and away the best system out there but it is undoubtedly vicious and exploitive at times.

As someone who is currently employed by a regional big box chain I can tell ya they treat there employees like crap. Its just what they do. They pay just enough as to ensure that turnover stays at a controllable level. Many employees in their low twenties are "part-time" yet work 50+ hour weeks on a regular basis yet will remain part-time for the foreseeable future, because if they were to be made full time they'd be eligable for the tiny benefits offered to full time employees, and well that would expand the payroll. I myself am regrettably going to have to work on Easter Sunday because my employer couldn't possibly close its doors for one day, there's money to be made! In a perfect world a corporation which produces massive profits would do the right thing and pay a few bucks more than the bare minimum but these guys aren't out to make a perfect world there out to make money.

I'm just a kid making money to save for college, go to the occasional movie, or buy the new copy of 4-4-2 so me being paid as little as possible isn't really all that criminal. The problem is there are people living on the wages they pay, working 50+ hour weeks just to be broke.

The flip side of all this is that people have to pull themselves up. You shouldn't be working at a big box store for over 30 years. You should have the courage and intuition after all this time to seek greener pastures. Unfortunatley many don't seem to, so maybe they get what they deserve??

 

So... then it comes down to an individual choice? or the culmination of a series of individual choices?

That's what I got out of that... plus I could extrapolate that working at Walmart or Lowes or Home Depot gives SOME a second chance at success.
Very good post!

But that's just me... who hasnt always taken advantage of that second or third chance.

As soon as we've exhausted the 'Evil Walmart Empire' meme.. I think we'll start on General Motors and how THEY ran their company. And how that Big Daddy corporate concept is doing now.

Maybe it will be like a stick in the eye to some libs, maybe they'll ignore it.

 

there is always someone willing to do the dirty work no matter how bad the conditions, pay, or whatever it may be. That's why These corporations can do what they do. "you don't like it? we'll find someone else." and find someone else they do. Those people working in those conditions choose to do so. nobody's holding a gun to their head

 

A very shabby statement. Just because something is better, does not make it right.

I beleive that companies like WalMart have a moral oblligation to ensure that at least the minimum level of heath and saftey laws within their parent countires are applied to all their factories thoughout the world. That would remove accusation of poor conditions, it would also make a statement that a Chinese worker's life is as important as a US worker's life - that's the hippie in me.

 

I think Pettyfog might be a shareholder.
Maybe not

 

If I was as smart then, as I am old, now...I'd be an old millionaire.

Please step back from the abyss, folks. You are taking the word of a propagandist, who only wishes he had the skill of Michael Moore.

Did any of you do ANY independent reading and research? I have, and have been doing so for years.

 

show me in my post where I took a stance on whether the issue was right or wrong? That's right...you can't because I didn't. I just posted the facts. Go to a fast food joint in the States and you'll catch my drift.

 

I made no accusation against you, I merely pointed out that it is a shabby argument. Are working conditions in US fast food eateries dangerous? I would have though, that in a litigious culture, proprietors of these restaurants would avoid accusations of negligence for fear of being sued – even if most of the money is pocked by a “no win no fee lawyer”. That option will not exist in third world countries where there will be little or no protection of the workers.

The way I see it, these conditions are not dissimilar to that faced by the poor in Victorian England. Conditions changed only because of cohesive industrial action – again in a market economy where unemployment is high and saftey of workers is not a consideration, it gives the employer all the power.

With regards to “That's right...you can't because I didn't.” - It could easily be argued that the assertion that "nobody's holding a gun to their head" is an opinion, but like I said, I made no personal attack on you, or a position that you may or may not hold. I still maintain "Those people working in those conditions choose to do so." is not a good argument.