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clayjohanson said:
And I am glad to see the hatred of Wal-Mart growing among you... it's like the opposite of the Force: We WANT people to hate Wal-Mart, enough to put them out of business. :)

For me it isn't growing... it's WAY beyond that. But in this case I'd have to (oh GOD I HATE to do this) to... side with the evil empire. We don't ask any other company to improve PUBLIC roads, and this is a road in the city itself, not a driveway. Better roads is one of the reason I LIKE paying taxes, I just wish more tax money would GO to infrastructure instead of Halliburton's raping of America... for only one of the billion or so examples.
 
paulwhannel said:
I've started shopping at Costco, not because I think they're too much better (in terms of being a "good" company), but because wal-mart considers it a major threat.

Actually, Costco is kind of a "good" company, according to the Wall St. Journal:

Employees covered by company health insurance
Costco* 82%
Wal-Mart 48%

Insurance-enrollment waiting periods (for part-time workers)
Costco 6 months
Wal-Mart* 2 years

Portion of health-care premium paid by company
Costco 92%
Wal-Mart 66%

Annual worker turnover rate
Costco 24%
Wal-Mart 50%

Also, from this article

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=amSB.R0Q2nAQ&refer=us

at Bloomberg.com:

"Costco wouldn't have to raise salaries with Kerry's proposal to increase the minimum wage to $7 an hour, from $5.15 now. It already pays hot-dog vendors as much as $16 an hour. The lowest wage it pays -- $10 an hour -- is still higher than Wal-Mart's average wage of $9.96, even after Wal-Mart raised it from $9.64 last month for full-time workers.

"And the 1.4 million-member Teamsters Union said its workers at Costco have the ``best retail contracts in the country,'' according to Rome Aloise, head of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, California, which represents 1,000 of the company's workers.
 
TopGear said:
Actually, Costco is kind of a "good" company, according to the Wall St. Journal:

Exactly... We have a Costco in my town, EVERYONE wants to work there. I admire their commitment to community, their workers and the greater good. The Super Wal-Mart here can go to hell. I refuse to step in it if possible. When I MUST (which is rare) I always point out the self-checkout to the workers and ask them when their job will be eliminated. One time I told a person who was new that day and being trained "Make sure you make the union meeting tonight". The trainer wasn't none too happy! I'd LIKE to take in a handful of fliers saying "UNIONIZE!" but they have cameras everywhere.
We had a neighbor who was a manager at that Wal-Mart. We got along okay at first, but talk eventually got around to Wal-Mart. Any possibility of a friendship was crushed when he extolled the virtues of the company. I took exception, calling it a cancer to the people and this country. Weeks later a Wal-Mart employee was severly injured when she chased a thief. She was hit by the gettaway car. Wal-Mart tried to refuse workmans comp because "of carelessness". Funny that Wal-Mart employees are TOLD to do EVERYTHING possible to protect the product! Suffice to say she won the case. Wal-Mart has more pending litigation than every other company in the world by orders of magnitude. Money is more important to them than their own workers, hence they are scum-sucking pricks. One day Instant Karma will get them.
 
Les Kern said:
Weeks later a Wal-Mart employee was severly injured when she chased a thief. She was hit by the gettaway car. Wal-Mart tried to refuse workmans comp because "of carelessness". Funny that Wal-Mart employees are TOLD to do EVERYTHING possible to protect the product! Suffice to say she won the case.

Don't get me wrong, I hate Wal-Mart. But, why in the Hell did she chase the thief? I've worked at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toys R Us, and a friggin' horse racetrack where you are personally responsible for your money. Upon training, I have always been told to NEVER try and stop a theft or apprehend a thief. At Wal-Mart they even went as far as to say if you are taken hostage, pretend to faint, because if they get you out the door there is no telling what will happen to you. Wal-Mart isn't stupid. They know a couple hundred bucks worth of cash or merchandise isn't worth the lawsuits from injured employees playing policeman.
 
TimDaddy said:
Don't get me wrong, I hate Wal-Mart. But, why in the Hell did she chase the thief? I've worked at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toys R Us, and a friggin' horse racetrack where you are personally responsible for your money. Upon training, I have always been told to NEVER try and stop a theft or apprehend a thief. At Wal-Mart they even went as far as to say if you are taken hostage, pretend to faint, because if they get you out the door there is no telling what will happen to you. Wal-Mart isn't stupid. They know a couple hundred bucks worth of cash or merchandise isn't worth the lawsuits from injured employees playing policeman.

They were told to do whatever possible to stop them, but not go as far as to threaten your own safety. She tried to get a license and got run over. Wal-Mart said she didn't follow the rules and went too far. She also got fired for it. Nice, huh?
 
If that was in CT a year ago Gov. John Roland could have sold his lake house and built in bermuda with that wasted gov money. (for all of you that don't know Roland he is corrupt govener who has just been sentenced to prison).

That is the biggest amount to BS i've ever heard. Why didn't they just have the gov buy them a fleet of helicopters.
 
If you there they are evil for their retailing practices . . .

Try organizing a union drive at one. It gets real messy quick.

See: http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2005/02/09/walmart-050209.html

It seems Walmart would much rather close a store than pay a fair wage. This case is only the tip of an iceberg in Canada where there are more unionize Walmart votes happening every month.

Since they can't possibly close down every store that votes to unionize, it will be interesting to see how it pans out in the long run.
 
we have a fedx hub going in to Greensboro airport, lots of companies will follow to drop ship. So Dell puts the feelers out, NC ponies up 300,000,000 million dollars for 700 full time jobs and 700 temp jobs! What a load of bullsh1t!
Most of these companies are coming anyway to be near a fedx hub. I was mad a heck! lets put that in the school systems.
 
Thanks Topgear, i assumed Costco must be just as bad because of the low prices... This just goes to show there are other ways to keep prices down besides screwing your employees! Now I have at least one place where I can look employees in the eye without feeling bad...
 
TimDaddy said:
Our unemployment rate was around 0.8% while Clinton was president, and about 1.5% during todays "hard times".

BTW, Clinton signed the free-for-all trade agreement with China, (no quotas as of 3 months ago). This caused all of europe to cave-in as well, since once the US broke-in, they had to in order to be competitive. Funny how nobody ever talks about this.
 
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