The Latest Liberal Crusade - (NY Times prescribes "social contract" for Walmart!-the nerve!)

REAL CLEAR POLITICS.COM ^ | MAY 10, 2005 | THOMAS SOWELL

[CaliGangsta]

Here's a thought - if you work at Walmart and you feel you aren't getting enough pay then ask for a raise. If you're refused then start looking for a higher paying job. This is NOT communist Russia, this is AMERICA. You don't deserve ANYTHING more than you are worth, it's a free market!!!!

[kenavi]

The intellectuals can tip the store clerk to make up the difference. What, they can't afford to?

[zip]

According to The New York Times, Wal-Mart's average employee earns an income that is above the poverty line for a family of three but below the poverty line for a family of four

Note "employee" (singular) earns, how about both parents working? Wow, double the income, but I forgot, liberals only use the parts of stories that support their lies so I guess one of the four people have to starve to death. Seems unfair to me but what do I know?

[Lancey Howard]

So the New York Times wants Wal-Mart to emulate European-style cradle-to-grave socialism, the same thing the paper wants for America. Isn't that cute? Nice to see the New York Times trying to "broaden its appeal" this way.

Why won't that newspaper just hurry up and die.
Hardly anybody believes a word they say.

[Lancey Howard]

What all this pious talk amounts to is that when third parties want somebody else to pay for something, they simply call it a "social responsibility," an "obligation" or a "social contract."

Nothing is worse than the phrase "giving something back". Whenever I hear about somebody "giving something back" I want to puke.

[this_ol_patriot]

My son who is a CompSci major and a junior in college works for Wal-Mart in the summer and during breaks to earn money for tuition. He has been there for 2 years and managed to get several raises up to $7.90 an hour and saved every cent. They are not used to seeing people that actually show up everyday, do work and don't steal the place blind so I guess they were impressed.

Yesterday when he went back for the summer they told him that he must now work for $6.45 because they are "equalizing" wages between the stores. The reason they said they could do this is because when he went to back to school after spring break he was considered terminated and the time he put in did not count. That is a now a new store policy.

So take this for what it's worth. I know and he knows that companies will do what they want within the laws, that's how it works, but we also know that Wal-Mart will get the workers they deserve.

Meanwhile my son is still following up on some IS intern jobs that he applied for and maybe he'll latch on to one of those.

[iopscusa]

Why are you blaming Walmart? Did your son go back to work at Walmart without discussing pay? And does he not have the same right to find higher paying job as Walmart has to hire him at the wage they did? Jeez, you make it sound like he has been forced to work at Walmart. In the real world a little negotiating skill will go a long way....maybe he should take a course in that while in school.

[this_ol_patriot]

Hey, hey cool down. Read my post nobody is blaming anybody. Just relating what happened. Jeez you guys who jump over anyone who even sneezes at Wal-Mart is sick.

For your information I think Wal-Mart is entitled to pay what they want, they will also get what they pay for. I do not think Wal-Mart is evil or a corporate bad-boy. I do think that if they want loyal productive employees maybe they ought to look at their policies especially with someone with a proven track record.

My son did learn a valuable lesson, bust your ass then be prepared to bend over. I will try to persuade him otherwise, that hard work does pay-off, sometimes, you just have to be sly about it and kiss the bosses ass.

Meanwhile he still gets the 10% discount and we have a lot of shopping to do.

[bpjam]

I have a handful of clients who actually worked their way up in Wal-Mart who now own half-million dollar homes. They have six figure salaries and they were promoted up the chain. That doesn't happen in that many companies where you start out at minimum wage.

But the real answer to all of this is...don't ever, ever shop for a bargain. Do not ever buy anything on sale. Do not compare prices or buy wholesale because all of those things are feeding low wages. Every dollar you greedily hang onto is another dollar that employer cannot turn over to an employee. So remember when you complain about high gas prices that if you pay less you might be taking food out of the mouth of the 4 kids of the gas station attendant. You evil, evil consumer.

This noxious campaign by the AFL-CIO against WalMart is being flanked by the NYT and every other liberal outlet. If you can't compete, you lose. Unions can't compete and want to remove competition from America so they can just keep bankrupting more industries like they did the airlines, trains and trucking. No company is perfect but I'll be damned if I'm going to do anything to help a corrupt union leadership destroy another industry.

[vpintheak]

Of course you know people are beating the doors down to be reporters because they make so much money right? Screw the slimes and everything they stand for. Hypocritical SOB's! Excuse my rant, I am getting sick of the fruitcakes.

[Cementjungle]

And my mother-in-law still insists that the NYT is too right-wing for her!

[driftless]

You'd be amazed at the number of people who don't realize that there are great opportunities out there for them. Many feel that they simply can't get another job. The truth is that many people are unwilling or fearful about moving away from their present homes and jobs.

It's like when Big Media goes to Appalachia and does interviews with many of the poverty-stricken hill denizens. These people always bemoan the lack of jobs in mountain country.

The solution for these unfortunates seems obvious to the viewer. MOVE!!! Get off the mountain and move into the city. Go to where the jobs are. And if you don't like your present low-paying job, go to school and learn the skills necessary to get a higher-paying job. These people have to be shown that it can be done. Because millions of Americans do it every year.

[driftless]

Since libs are so concerned about the poor, why don't they donate a share of their enormous wealth towards alleviating the "distressful" situations of the unfortunates depicted in the Slimes's story. I would estimate that the total wealth of all the libs and Dems in the country must easily total a trillion dollars...probably much more. Since most "poor" people and "minorities" vote for Dems, wouldn't it seem incumbent on Dems and libs to donate a portion of their enormous wealth to help the people who have helped make their great wealth possible? Don't hold your breath waiting for the George Soroses, Babs Streisands, and Peter Lewises of the lib elite to do this.

[tm22721]

This could have been an article from 1910 before the trust busters and unions gained power to break up the blatant exploitation of sweat shops and child labor practices.

Times have changed and so have our standards. We cannot regress to the lowest common denominator of the turd world.

Prudent warning to Walmart - Change before you have to.

Or the mobs in the street will change it for you.

Or you can always pull an 'Atlas Shrugged.

BUMP

[driftless]

Good story. I hope your son does well. Incidentally my wife worked at Wal-Mart for nine years. She got low wages, but she also bought into the Wal-Mart stock option plan. She did very well thank you. So wages aren't everything. But a number of her co-workers didn't take advantage of the opportunity. They preferred to spend their money as fast as they could and had little to show for their years at Wally World.

According to the writers of the book I'm currently reading "The Millionaire Next Door", saving and investing money wisely is of utmost importance in creating wealth. People who have relatively modest incomes (under $100,000) but who save and invest wisely, almost always end up with much more wealth than people with much higher incomes but who spend it as quickly as they earn it. Many people do not understand the difference between income and wealth and think it is the same thing. The authors of the book show that it is not. People with modest incomes can become very wealthy with prudent financial choices and discipline.

[Modok]

How do you handle the word sustainability? People have no idea of the idiocy that has become common in some corporations.

[RushLake]

"Why should other people have to retire on less money, in order that Wal-Mart employees can be paid what The New York Times wants them paid, instead of what their labor is worth in the marketplace? After all, they wouldn't be working for Wal-Mart if someone else valued their labor more."

I have never walked into a Walmart store and seen a help wanted sign on the door. I don't look at the want ads in the papers very often, but when I have, I've never seen a help wanted ad for Walmart, which is not to say that such things do not exist. The two or three Walmarts that I am most familiar with do not seem to have any trouble staffing although, like a lot of places, the staffs at Walmarts seem to be able to duck the customers when there is a need for assistance.

[RushLake]

"The intellectuals can tip the store clerk to make up the difference."

I've asked liberal elites why they don't just skip the tax system and dip into their own pockets to help the so called poor that they champion. "We all have an obligation to help" is their general response. I ask the same people why they don't offer to house convicts whose paroles they champion and they're not interested.

[RushLake]

Sounds like your son just took a deep breath of reality. As we know, life isn't fair. Mine took a deep breath of reality on Monday when he arrived at Parris Island for Marine boot camp. Good luck to your son in his IS job search endeavors.