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WALMART STRIKE A BUST

By: longtimeconservative (Diary)  |  November 25th, 2012 at 07:25 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The nation-wide attempt to adversely impact Walmart’s business and intimidate their customers failed. Walmart’s employees are neither forced to work for the company or pay union dues. Whether their salaries and benefits are less than higher class retail establishments is questionable.

The company has a different business model and caters primarily to both under-privileged and a middle class clientele. Their prices on merchandise reflect this company policy. That’s why their shoppers like Walmart.

Unions claim Walmart intimidates employees who are disloyal. Why should any company tolerate employees who antagonize or harass customers or deliberately encourage  patrons to boycott their own store? Any company providing steady employment and paying regular salaries has the right to demand worker allegiance.

What many, including unions, conveniently overlook in mass marketing are retail establishments like Walmart that do more than profit from business.  How often do we see other stores that hire the disabled? Its not unusual to see a Walmart employee tending a cash register while sitting in a wheelchair or a physically handicapped person greeting customers, providing store information and directions or tending shopping carts.

Walmart is successful because it also has a heart in addition to reasonable prices for millions of customers.  It provides job opportunities for thousands of dedicated workers, including some who could never attain employment elsewhere if they are handi-capped or disabled. The public was absolutely correct  crossing picket lines of professional protestors bused in from out of state by union bosses.

COMMENTS

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  • dustinrose

    I’m sure I will get people mad at me but I honestly don’t understand the conservative position on this issue. I am a moderate and I am reading this website to try and understand the conservative movement. Walmart’s employee’s make so little that most of them are on food stamps and medicaid. From talking with people who have worked there, Walmart gives out information on how to apply for government assistance when they get hired because the company knows that they can’t survive on their paychecks alone. The average checker makes $18,000 a year, which means that if they have kids, they are getting quite a bit of help from the government. I know that if you are working at Walmart, you shouldn’t expect to live high on the hog but I don’t like that they are contributing to the deficit because they can’t survive on their paychecks alone. Shouldn’t we be encouraging them to unionize so that they make at least enough to not be on government assistance?

    When I have talked to conservatives about this, they say to get a better job but someone has to work for Walmart or be the janitors in life. Not everyone can get a better job so shouldn’t we want the people who work at the bottom rung to make enough money that they don’t have to choose between getting government assistance or letting their kids starve to death? A hundred years ago, people lived in rural communities so they could grow extra food or go hunting so that their kids wouldn’t starve but that kind of thing isn’t an option for most people now. Places like Walmart also use randomized scheduling so that people don’t know when they are going to work from week to week so they have trouble getting second jobs. This is another issue that a union might be able to help with. Even if they don’t increase their incomes, they could regularize their hours so that they can get a second job, which would lessen their dependence on the government.

    Again, I really don’t understand the conservative position on this issue and I am honestly asking.

    • commonsenseobserver

      That’s for individual employees and employers to decide.

      The Conservative position is not that Walmart is a good employer or anything. It’s not a charity, of course, but we support it as an example of how free enterprise allows even those “at the bottom” to get some decent, proper work while providing goods and services for ordinary consumers at a low cost. Of course, we mostly favor it as a “checkpoint” of sorts on the pathway to better jobs with employers (and customers) that can afford higher labor costs.

      • dustinrose

        However, one individual employee at Walmart, doesn’t have any leverage to negotiate. An employee can negotiate a better salary or benefits if they have special skills that they bring that a company needs and that is not the case with these types of jobs. A group of them might have the leverage and if they work together to negotiate then why is that a bad thing? The end result is that they are more likely to get off of government assistance and we all win.

        • commonsenseobserver

          That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

          On the other hand, neither is their failure. The fact is, unions tend to be corrupt and, in a way, overly aggressive, with many of their tactics backfiring on workers themselves.

          Walmart employees have the right of free association, which Walmart cannot deny them, and if they choose not to exercise that right, or fail to do so successfully, you can understand that we Conservatives are not advocating for meddling and raising costs. Especially given the past conduct of the union bosses and their thugs.

          We believe in free enterprise, we also believe in free association and free speech, and we reject the notion that conflict between these is inevitable.

          • dustinrose

            That makes more sense to me that they have the right to unionize but not necessarily any help with it.

        • Dave_A

          @dustinrose

          “An employee can negotiate a better salary or benefits if they have
          special skills that they bring that a company needs and that is not the
          case with these types of jobs.”

          Then they should not get the better salary or benefits. They do not deserve it.

          • dustinrose

            There are a lot of areas where I agree with conservatives but this is just not one of them. People should have to work hard and they should have to accept the consequences of their actions but I can’t go along with the idea that people who are in unskilled jobs are just nothing and don’t deserve anything better. I have a good friend who is working as a janitor right now and she takes pride in her work and it doing it well. She raised 4 wonderful kids and loves her grandkids. She is a solid member of our congregation and I wish I had a chance of being as kind and humble and as good of a person as she is. It is not that she doesn’t deserve a higher salary but it is that she doesn’t have the leverage to negotiate for one. Freedom shouldn’t mean that the person with more money and more power is always right and always wins.

          • Dave_A

            You deserve what your skills are worth. Period.

            Every penny that is paid in employee salaries and benefits comes out of customers pockets.

            Eg, my pocket. And I’m sorry, but I don’t make enough to subsidize the lives of everyone who made a mistake & thus never learned a marketable skill. I worked my way through college (full time student, full time employee), spent the time getting job-experience… I really don’t enjoy having to pay more (in taxes, or prices) to carry the weight of someone who didn’t put in the effort, when I did….

            It’s just as wrong to use a government-protected union to pick my pocket, as it is to use welfare programs & taxation.

            They are the same thing.

            Now, if there was no government protection of unions – if it was ‘go ahead, form a union… you’re all fired’ vs ‘If you fire us, no one will take our place’ & let the free market pick the winner…

            Then I wouldn’t be so vehemently opposed – because the union would not be able to attain above-market wages/benefits….

            But when we have closed-shop laws, mandatory dues deduction, and abjectly NO freedom to NOT associate (or pay for) the union on the part of the employees…

            Then it becomes an extortion racket. Which is wrong.

          • minto

            I am fine with there being no government protection of unions. I don’t think that closed shop is a good thing. However, there does need to be a balance in that government can’t help business either so that it doesn’t artificially depress wages, like at the turn of the last century where they would arrest picketers. You also need to make sure that people can get loans for education and training so that even if their parents are poor, they can work hard and move up the ladder.

          • Dave_A

            Government should apply the law equally – if ‘picketers’ are trespassing on private property, they get arrested… If they are on the public sidewalk, they’re protected by the Constitution…

            As for loans for education/training, that actually raises the price of said education & training (the #1 cost-driver for college tuition is the existence of government student aid), defeating the purpose of the loans.

    • Jack_Savage

      I think your problem is that you believe someone’s station in life is static – it will remain as such for the rest of their life. We believe one’s station in life can change for the better if one applies themselves, makes good decisions, and does their very best to improve.
      I live comfortably now, but it wasn’t always so. Wal Mart would have been a vast improvement over where I started.

      • dustinrose

        Of course I know that people’s lives aren’t static. My life is much different than when I started out also. However, there has to be people who work at the bottom rungs in life and they aren’t all teenagers. Even if they are just working at Walmart while they get training or after they lost their jobs and are looking for “real” work, wouldn’t we want them off of food stamps and medicaid?

        • Dave_A

          We want them to live within their means, as motivation to increase said means…

          Not use extortion to force management to pay them more than what the work they do is worth.

    • Dave_A

      The conservative position, is that having children and a family is a choice, that should not be made if you cannot afford it.

      Not every job is supposed to pay enough to ‘support a family’. Essentially NO job’s ‘starting wage’ – save for those that require a college education – is supposed to do that…

      Besides, if you start working at WalMart at 16, and you are still working at WalMart at age 26-30 (family-having age) then you will not be making 18k anymore…

      P.S. The US Army doesn’t pay an E-1 enough to ‘support a family’ either….

      • dustinrose

        But 18K isn’t the starting wage. It is the average wage. I understand that people aren’t going to come out of high school and immediately make enough to be in the middle class. I’m not suggesting that things be handed to people on a silver platter. However, isn’t it better for them to form a union and negotiate a better deal so that they are off of government assistance? The reality is that one employee doesn’t have enough leverage to negotiate a better deal but a group of them would.

        • commonsenseobserver

          That’s for no one to know and them to find out.

          Obviously a union would have much more leverage. On the other hand, unions also tend to overreach, with a much larger cost to the employee.

          If employees are willing to accept the opportunity of working in Walmart, with lower wages and fewer benefits, as a step on the ladder, I don’t see why it’s your business. Workplace relations are not a matter for us to judge in such a large company. The same definitely applies to the failures of union activities. Many rigorous regulations and protections for employees already exist, many of them overly onerous, and many more are to come with this administration’s pro-union bosses sympathies.

        • Dave_A

          No, it’s not better…

          Because then I have to pay for whatever unearned salary they extort from their employer, when I go to the store and shop…

          They’re NOT SUPPOSED TO GET A BETTER DEAL.

          That’s the point.

          They’re supposed to get the ‘deal’ their skills allow them to obtain… It’s supposed to suck… It’s supposed to motivate them to learn better skills – or at least to work hard enough that they can move up to a higher wage…

        • Melody Warbington

          Isn’t it better for them to form a union…? Having watched the union systematically put a company in my hometown out of business which resulted in the loss of hundreds of jobs, the answer is an unequivocal “NO.” I worked at that factory both in the offices and on the line during summers while I was in college and saw first-hand the union intimidation tactics and what the union required with regard to the number of breaks, having multiple workers paid to do the job of one person, unreasonable demands for pay, etc. until it got to the point the company wasn’t making enough profit to stay in business. So they closed up shop.

          Further, I have several friends and relatives work at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, all of whom have managed to support their families without going on food stamps (and despite liberal talking points were not given those apps). In one instance, a relative had a special needs child, and Wal-Mart let her work however many hours she could, whenever she could until her situation got to the point she could no longer work outside of her home. The government, on the other hand, penalized her anytime she managed to save any sum of money over a certain threshold even though she was trying to better her situation and stay off of assistance.

          In another instance, a friend who suffers from ectrodactyly and is confined to a wheel chair. Wal-Mart is one of the few places who offered him a job where he was told by one of the managers that he could make as much of the position as he wanted.

          There are certainly cons to Wal-Mart as with any business, but overall it serves a purpose in many communities by providing affordable pricing as well as a major tax base, not to mention the charitable and civic donations it makes. The union, not so much.

          • dustinrose

            I am not saying that unions are perfect. There have been some corrupt ones in the past, which is true of any human organization that gains power. The trouble is that business are also human organizations that gain power but if you have two opposing forces that have to negotiate, then I think you are more likely to get imperfect but better outcome.

            I am glad that your friends have had good experiences with Walmart. I am not trying to say that everything Walmart does is bad anymore than I am trying to say everything unions do is good. It just seems to me that we want as few people on government assistance as possible and one practical way to do it is to have people use unions to negotiate for better incomes.

            I did want to mention though that if your relative was having trouble with the government because she was saving too much money, then it was most likely because she or her child were on medicaid. Wouldn’t it be better if she made enough money to not need that type of assistance at all?

          • Melody Warbington

            My relative’s child (now an adult) suffers from an undiagnosed, untreatable condition and requires full-time supervision due to seizures. As such, it became impossible for his mother to work outside the home, so she started keeping children in her home and taking in laundry and ironing to support herself even though her son received SSI due to his condition. She is a prime example of how to stay off as much of the system as was possible, and she managed her finances so she was able to buy her own home and stay out of government housing, but the government made it difficult for her. My point was that Wal-Mart provided her a flexible schedule until things progressed to the point she had no choice but to work from home.

            The problem with the unions, in my experience, is that they negotiate themselves incomes so high the companies eventually go out of business because they cannot afford their demands. They do not negotiate comparable with private sector pay/benefit scales.

    • eltuba

      If your old, disabled, have a record, have no education, or if you need a no brainer job while your in High School or College, Walmart is probably an ok place to work.

      If you have a family to support and Walmart is the best you can do, your just out of luck. You need a 2nd job, or a spouse/significant other with a job. It sucks but that’s the way it is.

      What I find amusing is when tough, fire breathing, freedom loving, anti government conservatives act like fanboys at a Star Trek convention when it comes to mega businesses like Walmart. Walmart spends a lot of money greasing political palms, getting property tax breaks, fighting for pro-Walmart employment regulations, and lobbying for anti union legislation. They’re a big business and shouldn’t be trusted any more than big government, big media, big military or big church.

      • dustinrose

        That is a conservative school of thought that I am more likely to get behind. I don’t like the idea that big business is somehow better than big anything else.

    • http://www.bohnetlaw.com rightappeal

      So are you suggesting Walmart’s employees would be better off with no employment income so they could depend entirely on government assistance? Because that is what would happen to many of them if Walmart were unionized. Plus they’d have to pay more for their groceries and many other necessities because Walmart wouldn’t be able to keep its prices so low.

    • satchman3

      My problem with unions is the legally enforced participation. I believe that workers should have the right to assemble and collectively bargain for better working conditions, but on the flip side workers should also have the right to individually bargain for better working conditions and leave the union if they think they can do better on their own.

      With a union the worker has no option but to pay the union dues (in some cases you don’t have to technically join the union but you are still required to pay dues – a distinction with little difference).

      If unions were simply a voluntary association of workers pursuing better working conditions then I think conservatives would have far less problems with unions. As it is the unions have the backing of legislation that forces workers to pay dues into the union just because of where they work. That is wrong.

      • dustinrose

        I can understand that issue. I don’t think that people should be required to pay dues or join.

        • satchman3

          Without those requirements there are no unions.

          You’ll hear pro-union advocates tell you that forced participation is a requirement to avoid the free rider problem. To me that’s a situation where the cure is worse than the disease and I don’t buy that argument.

  • mikeymike143

    walmart is a great store. and i will always support a non union business whenever i can. by the way, excellent article. :)

  • commonsenseobserver

    And, naturally, consumers would prefer if things didn’t progress to the stage of strikes. And who initiates strike action?