Shop at Wal-Mart, Stop.

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
B

bonoman

Refugee
Joined
Jun 6, 2000
Messages
1,398
Location
Edmonton, Canada- Charlestown, Ireland
Subject: Information on WalMart
What every American and Canadian needs to know.

The owners of one of America's premiere retail corporations is comprised of five of the ten richest people in the world, all from the same family.

Their personal wealth eclipses $100 BILLION dollars. Last year the
company's CEO was paid a cool $11.5 million, more than the annual salaries of 765 of his employees combined!

The company's profits are over $7 BILLION annually.

In these difficult economic times how do they do it?

This company runs ads featuring the United States flag and proclaims "We Buy American". In 2001 they moved their worldwide purchasing headquarters to China and are the largest importer of Chinese goods in the US, purchasing over $10 BILLION of Chinese-made products annually. Products made mostly by women and children working in the labor hell-holes China is famous for. Their average employee working in the US makes $15,000 a year,$7.22 per hour! - These employees gross under $11,000 a year.

The company brags that 70% of their employees are full time, but fails to disclose that they count anyone working 28 hours a week or more as
full time. WalMart refuses to stock Emergency Contraception at its
pharmacies.

There are no health care benefits unless you have worked for the
company for two years. With a turnover rate averaging above 50% per year, only 38% of their 1.3 million employees have health care coverage. In California alone it's estimated that the taxpayers pay over $20 million annually to subsidize health care benefits for these employees who get none from this behemoth corporation.

According to a report by PBS's "Now" with Bill Moyer, their managers are trained in what government social programs are available for these "employees" to take advantage of so that the company can pass on those costs to you and me. It allows
them to not only keep their $7 BILLION in annual profits, but to do so by substituting benefits they refuse to provide with benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars.

This company holds the record for the most suits filed against it by
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A lawyer from "Business Week" (not exactly the bastion for supporting Labor) said, "I have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for the law." They had to pay $750,000.00 in Arizona for blatant discrimination against the disabled! The judge was so incensed that he also order them to run commercials admitting their guilt.

The National Labor Relations Board has issued over 40 formal
complaints against the corporation in 25 different states in just the past five years.

The NLRB's top lawyer believed that their labor violations, such as
illegal spying on employees, fraudulent record keeping, falsifying time cards to avoid paying overtime, threats, illegal firings for union organizing etc., were so widespread that he was looking into filing a very rare national complaint against the company. (The company contributed $2,159,330.00 to GW Bush and the GOP in 2000 and 2002. The NLRB attorney was replaced when President Bush took office.).

Nearly 1 MILLION women are involved in the largest class-action suit every filed against a corporation. Although women make up over 65% of this corporations work force only 10% of them are managers. The women who have become store managers make $16,400 a year LESS then the men.

The corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on
their employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this."

They force employees to work after ordering them to punch out. In Texas alone this practice of "wage theft" is estimated to have cost employees $30 million per year. Wage theft or "off-the-clock" lawsuits are pending in 25 states. In New Mexico they paid $400,000.00 in one suit and in Colorado they had to pay $50 MILLION to settle one class-action case brought against them. In Oregon a jury found them guilty of locking employees in the building and of forcing unpaid overtime.

With 4,400 stores they practice "predatory pricing." They come into a community and sell their goods at below cost until they drive local businesses under. Once they have captured the market the prices go up. - Locally owned and operated businesses put virtually all of their money back into the community which helps keep the local economies vibrant. This
corporation sucks the money out of the local community, decreases wages and benefits and ships the profits out of state.

This company doesn't buy locally or bank locally. They replace three decent paying jobs in a community with two poorly paid "part-timers". - In Kirksville, Missouri when this company came to town, four clothing stores, four grocery stores, a stationary store, a fabric store and a lawn-and-garden store all went under. Eleven businesses are now gone. (The above information can be found in "Thieves in High Places", James
Hightower, The Penguin Group, New York, NY, 2003 p. 166 - 193.)

Now you know how they can claim, "Always low prices."

Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world, larger than General Motors and ExxonMobil. Wal-Mart will
reap over 250 billion in sales in 2003, which is larger then the entire gross national product of Israel and Ireland combined. It has over 1.3 million employees. It sells more groceries, jewellery,
photo processing, dog food, and vitamins than any other chain in the world. Wal-Mart is owned by the Walton family. They will also never see a dime from my wallet again. Please feel free to circulate this memo to everyone on your email lists. Only we, the citizens of this great country can stop this race to the bottom. ""Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, Anthropologist
Click to expand...


I received this email from a labour head friend of mine.

Next time you go to or think about going to Wal-Mart think about their practices and find a store that supports its neighbours!
 
Last edited:
nice post :up:


I would encourage people to read How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (and the World) by Bill Quinn. Definately an eye opener.
 
A number of generalizations and partial facts. Until people lose their appetite for lower prices, Walmart should be around for a long time.
 
actually wal-mart often does not have the lowest price, but their prices are low enough and you have the convienence of having everything in one place and that will keep people going there. I don't see wal-mart going away any time soon, but there are a growing number of communities that have/are working to keep wal-mart out.
 
Tell me where the partail facts are and the generalizations!

No they are not going away but in LA they are stopping them from going further. They are so scared of what wal-mart supercenters will do they are banning them. 75,000 people are on the picket lines in California because wal-mart is making competiors lower benefits and wages. This war has only begun.
 
I have 2 friends who work there. They say they will fire you for missing one day without a doctor's note, but they can't afford to miss a day's work and go to the dr. since they don't have ins. and can't lose the pay. So they have to go to work sick and cough all over the customers. I'd never work there because that ignorant morning cheer song makes me sick! :yuck: They all have to meet and stand in a circle and clap hands and sing then cheer at the end!
 
I've seen a number of e-mails similar to this one about large corporations.

Don't beLIEve everything you read! As NBCrusader said...some generalizations and some partial facts. If you do not believe us, all you have to do is do a search "news" search on Wal Mart and try finding all of these lawsuits, etc.

Now, I am not saying that Wal Mart is a desirable company...I am just saying that not every e-mail you get is 100% truth. Otherwise I might have the biggest penis ever and have made millions of dollars in transactions from Haiti!
 
I can't believe anyone would want to go into a Walmart willingly.

It disgusts me. Yeah, the shampoo and toilet paper are cheap, but overall, the store is creepy. The best thing about moving to an urban downtown core is no Walmart. It's the suburbs that kill you.
 
nbcrusader said:
A number of generalizations and partial facts. Until people lose their appetite for lower prices, Walmart should be around for a long time.
Click to expand...

I agree. Also, in a lot of places, WalMart is the only store of it's kind. My boyfriend is from a small town in Iowa, home to the world's smallest WalMart, and it's pretty much the only grocery store besides Hyvee, or whatever it's called, unless you want to drive 45 mins to Des Moines. However, here we're in a big city, and I don't even know where a WalMart is (we have Meijers and Targets galore).
 
The corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on
their employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this."
Click to expand...

:barf: That is just horrible!!!! :rant:

I've really despised Walmart since the first one opened in my home town. We now have 3 Walmart super centers with another one on the way.
:| :|

We only have one Target. All the Kmarts shut down and we've lost two or three grocery stores since Walmart came to town. I can't even count how many mom & pop shops are gone because of them. :(

It is not worth it to me to save a nickel here or there to go inside that place. I would rather get my paper towels and such at the dollar store. All though the dollar stores are breeding like rabbits I just don't get that big corporation sick feeling in my stomach when I shop there. :shrug: Anyway I would rather spend a little extra time and clip coupons and shop at United or Albertsons before going to WM.
 
OHhhhh, it is UNION PROPAGANDA.....

How is the punch? :D


Again....do not beLIEve everything you read!

I live in a mid-sized town in Illinois...adjacent to the property that my work sits on is a Super Wal-Mart....I will grocery shop there for the prices. It is a fairly clean store...and, oddly, the employees seem happy. I try not to spend more than 20 minutes in there EVER...the clientele gives me the creeps. ;)

There isn't a single non-chain store in our town...which means that the majority of the mom-and-pops were driven out years ago. We have two Wal-Marts in town, and they are trying to put in a third, but, thankfully, the residents who would live adjacent to the property will end up blocking it. :up:

All hail Target! :bow:
One of the GREATEST companies I know of (Target Corporation).
 
Well I have first hand experience with some of the questionable activities that go on with this company. The firm I work for does consulting work for them. They are often up to 9 months behind paying us for our services while they obviously still expect us to continue our work.

Walmart drives out the majority of competition in most small towns so the people have no choice. Walmart purposely sell toys and such items where they don't make profit therefore driving out any competition in larger towns i.e. the bancruptcy of Toys R Us and Kay Bee Toy stores. Then they pay their architects, contractors and other consultants late in order to keep the money in the bank longer to earn from the interests rates in order to make up for these losses.
 
I don't like Wal Mart either..I have one near me, and I've only been in it twice. It gives me the creeps, and I've heard about the insurance issue before. No surprise though that people that rich would operate a business in that manner.

A good alternative if you have one nearby is Costco. Reasonable prices/better quality than Wal Mart. I've heard/read nothing but good things about how they treat their employees. I have no affiliation w/ them other than I shop there, but just to throw that out there...
 
The corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on their employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this."
Click to expand...

I don't like WalMart as much as the next person, but this is actually a normal company thing. In fact, most of you probably have the same thing if you work at a large company. The company gets the insurance money to cover lost productivity and revenue if an employee dies.

As for the Laurie family [Sam Walton's heirs], I have issue with them. Went to school at the Univ. of Missouri where Sam Walton went. He was from the area in fact. The university is now getting a brand new arena it didn't need because the Laurie family donated the money to build it. Meanwhile, tuition keeps going up and the student seating policy for the basketball games in the present arena is beyond horrible. But that's a different story -- don't get me started.
 
I won't go to Wal-Mart. In fact, I'd rather pay more elsewhere than step into that hellhole.

Melon
 
I heard Walmart's enroaching into the SoCal. supermarket industry precipitateed the LA labor union strikes.

Companies like Ralphs and Vons couldn't figure any other way to compete with Walmart than to cut workers' benefits... Of course, WalMart is non-Union... so I guess WalMart employees could never go on strikes like those other supermarket companies. :rolleyes:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm..._latimes/misstepshurtunioninsupermarketstrike

It could be that no matter the approach, labor simply wouldn't be able to win a fight against supermarkets committed to significantly lowering their costs as they prepare for an assault from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other big discount grocers.
Click to expand...

It's not just what I've gleaned from news. But my business professors and their guest speakers have pointed out the same thing.

Walmart's evil.
 
Last edited:
Is Toys R Us bankrupt? How bizarre. I wonder how many of our chains are owned by these companies you guys are talking about. Here Coles Myer own or have companies which own the Toys R Us chain, Target, KMart, Coles supermarkets and Grace Bros/Myer dept stores and now have their fingers in Shell Petrol. They also have something to do with Dick Smith. Which means nothing to anyone outside Australia, but its interesting. If our Coles Myer are somehow connected to you guys overseas, your Target stores might not be as saintly as you imagine. Even more interesting is that Woolworths Ltd still have the stronghold on the retail industry here.
 
bonoman said:
Union propaganda i think not.

Why is that LA is banning Super Wal Marts if they are so good for the community?
Click to expand...

I love how this post comes before, Ironically, this post! :up:

theSoulfulMofo said:
I heard Walmart's enroaching into the SoCal. supermarket industry precipitateed the LA labor union strikes.

Companies like Ralphs and Vons couldn't figure any other way to compete with Walmart than to cut workers' benefits... Of course, WalMart is non-Union... so I guess WalMart employees could never go on strikes like those other supermarket companies. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Again...Yes, Wal_Mart could be seen as "evil" - I am in complete agreement with this! BUT, what you are being fed by your Union IS IN FACT Union Propaganda (I'm still wondering how the punch is!?). The grocers union controversy in SoCal right now is due to Wal-Mart. Do you see the realtionship?

In this case, the Von's and Ralph's are JUST as bad as the Unions and Wal-Mart in this whole picture.

Why are the Unions bad:
They are nothing more thn companies just like the Vons and Wal-Marts who are out there to turn a profit - often putting up this front of "working for the small guy." The unions ask the "small guy" to go and picket these grocery stores and bother customers to scare them away from the stores. Some of the picketers have followed customers to their cars, yelling at them. HELLO...what happens when this strike is settled? These same people the picketers bothered, with be 1) shopping at Wal-mart or 2) getting their revenge on the produce clerk who harrased them. NO ONE WINS in the end.
 
Target in America is actually a decent company. They treat their employees pretty well and give back about 1 million dollars a week to charities...primarily educational institutes (schools, etc.).

Now, they do have their issues with products made in third world countries...and are often called out for that stuff...but they also make an effort to correct these issues.

They are quite the ethically proactive corporation. I have said it a few times....I would LOVE to be working for Target Corporation at their headquarters in Minneapolis.
 
zoney! said:
Why are the Unions bad:
They are nothing more thn companies just like the Vons and Wal-Marts who are out there to turn a profit - often putting up this front of "working for the small guy." The unions ask the "small guy" to go and picket these grocery stores and bother customers to scare them away from the stores. Some of the picketers have followed customers to their cars, yelling at them. HELLO...what happens when this strike is settled? These same people the picketers bothered, with be 1) shopping at Wal-mart or 2) getting their revenge on the produce clerk who harrased them. NO ONE WINS in the end.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Unions do not like Walmart because they have not been able to profit off of Walmart.
 
zoney- my previous post was something that was on my mind for a long while (as early as LAST DECEMBER). But i didn't want to get into arguments that i couldn't back up from what i gleaned from the news. I've seen reports from LA's local news stations and LA Times.

This guest speaker (for a business class I took last semester), a financial analyst, mentioned the link between Wal-Mart and the supermarket strikes. He also gave the class this copy of information on Wal-Mart (which I will transcribe in the following):

It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year -- nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation's largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.

Wal-Mart's decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.

The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart's checkout lines.

Yet Wal-Mart's astonishing success exacts a heavy price.

By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.

Wal-Mart's penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company's own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.

Then there are casualties like Kelly Gray. As Wal-Mart exapnds rapidly into groceries, it is causing upheaval in yet another corner of the economy. When a Supercenter moves into town, competitors often are wiped out, taking high-paying union jobs with them. Wal-Mart's plans to enter the grocery business in California early next year have thrown the state's supermarket industry into turmoil. Fearful of Wal-Mart's ability to undercut them on price, the Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons chains have sought concessions from their unionized workers in Southern and Central California, leading to a work stoppage now entering its seventh week.

Wal-Mart Facts

* Number of visits to U.S. Wal-Marts weekly: 100 million

* Single-day sales record: $1.4 billion for American stores on Nov. 29, 2002 - larger than the annual GDP of Belize, Greenland, and Monaco. (Source: Wal-Mart & the CIA World Factbook)

*Number of new employees Wal-Mart plans to hire through 2008: 800,000 -- the equivalent to adding all the workers at General Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Co. combined (Source: Wal-Mart & Hoovers)

*Number of ocean shipping containers imported in 2002: 291,900. Home Depot was No. 2 at 182,000.

*Missouri has both the largest and the smallest Wal-Marts in the country. Store No. 146 in Lousiana, Mo., is 29,700 square feet. Supercenter No. 1484 in Kansas City, Mo., is nearly nine times its size bigger at 260,514 square feet.

*Wal Mart's distribution center in Bentonville covers 1.2 million square feet, which could hold 24 football fields, 800 tennis courts or 7 Major League Baseball fields. (Source: Wal-Mart)

* President Bill Clinton, then Arkansas Governor, played saxophone at the 1990 dedication of the Wal-Mart Visitors Center in Bentonville, Ark.

* Wal-Mart is the country's top seller of dog food, disposable diapers, photographic film, toothpaste and pain remedies. (Fortune magazine, Feb. 2003 article)

*Wal-Mart is three times the size of Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer. (Source: Retail Forward)

* Wal Mart stores premit recreation vehicles to park for free on its lots on a store-by-store basis, making Wal-Mart an unofficial campground chain for cross-country travelers.

* Wal-Mart is the No.1 retailer not just in the U.S., but also in Canada and Mexico as well as the U.S. (Source: Wal-Mart)

* If Wal-Mart were a country, its 2002 sales of $245 billion would make it No. 31 on the list of the world's largest economies richest nations, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Austria. (Source: CIA World Factbook)
Click to expand...

(If I remember correctly, the information above was extracted from L.A. Times)
 
I partook in the anti-Wal-Mart crusade for a couple of years, but we hardly made any ground with the mainstream. When money is scarce and the economy sucks nobody cares if they're unfair to their employees.

I live in Stillwater, OK where it feels like half the ecomony is centered around Wal-Mart. I know quite a few people who work there and HATE it. I haven't heard stories about labor violations, but I know they're pricks about everything from break-time (often asking that you skip breaks in order to help stock) to over-time (if you're still on the clock after your shift is over you get "written-up").
 
fah said:
Let us know if the sucking up works.:wink:
Click to expand...

:mad: :wink:


Really, though. Target Corp. is a GOOD corporate citizen. A model for other companies.


I have a fascination with retailers history and how it changes our culture. A good example of this is SEARS and its catalog business (now only a little more than a memory).

Sears sold cheap (read: accesible) guitars through their catalog. These guitars infiltrated the southern states and pushed along the development of the blues (especially in the Mississippi Delta region).

In addition, Sears also sold houses through their catalogs. If you Take a look around a Midwestern and Western city, it is not hard to find a "bungalow" style house. This style of house was propigated by Sears (and similar catalogs). People would pick out their house and find a builder. Everything needed for the house would come on a single-car train flatbed.

Is Wal Mart the Late 20th/Early 21st Century version of Sears? Kind of scary to think that our American Culture (or, should I say a "lack of") may be influenced by Wal Mart.

Wal Mart is America though! America thrives/lives for our own currency/profit...and who is better at building a profit than Wal Mart?

GOD BLESS AMERICA. When are we going to wake up?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

O
Better late than never “they” say…
Replies
1
Views
275
Headache in a Suitcase
Headache in a Suitcase
prbiker15
U2:UV Boxscore Discussion
Replies
20
Views
1K
DeVaul
DeVaul
Digital Spy 2
I am back
Replies
2
Views
262
Digital Spy 2
Digital Spy 2
N
NBA 2023-24 Thread
10 11 12
Replies
332
Views
10K
gump
gump
Reggie Thee Dog
Are we NOT discussing the Dolby Atmos Mix of Achtung Baby?
Replies
13
Views
1K
count rushmore
count rushmore

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom