Walmart employee Thanksgiving donations at Canton store cause controversy

[Corki]

I would say the starting pay is just. The rest of Walmart’s practices are questionable at best. Such as dropping people back down to base pay if they transfer departments or move from one store to another.

Well, that’s a whole different discussion. If Walmart forces people to transfer departments or to move to other stores and then cuts their salaries as a result, that would be an unfair practice for sure. I am not defending all of their HR practices - just saying that a wage is not unjust simply because it is minimum wage.

And their scheduling is horrendous. You pretty much have to schedule your life around Walmart.

That’s called working in retail

 

[Corki]

1. I hope you are not suffering under the allusion that our system is designed to spread wealth across the globe.
2. As for what is a fair wage? Well I don’t think anyone should work for less than 20% over the poverty level. Assuming they are working full time. Though at this rate, they would be hard pressed to provide health insurance for themselves and their families. But one cause at a time I guess.

ATB

minimum wage already puts a person above your threshold of poverty level plus 20%.

Poverty level for a single person is $11,011 120% of that is $13,213.
Minimum wage puts annual income at $15,080.

Not to mention that “poverty” calculations in this country are a complete fiction. They are not adjusted for geographic area nor include actual costs of living.

1. Lets just stand together and right the wrong that is Walmart. Think of the relief our welfare system will experience.

Based on the above, the solution to “right the wrong that is Walmart” is to pay employees based on family size. That would also be unjust.

Walmart may or may not be a just organization. No corporation is perfect. But the “wrong that is Walmart” isn’t that it employees thousands of workers at minimum wage. No one is forced to work for Walmart and I doubt that you could find more that a handful of workers who were lied to about their starting pay. If we were in a robust economy, the only people working for Walmart or any other minimum wage job would be teens, unskilled workers just starting out and people seeking to supplement their income with a second job.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Well, that’s a whole different discussion. If Walmart forces people to transfer departments or to move to other stores and then cuts their salaries as a result, that would be an unfair practice for sure. I am not defending all of their HR practices - just saying that a wage is not unjust simply because it is minimum wage.

I would say that if people want to transfer departments and they know the result is a drop in pay I would not have a problem with that. I am not sure why anyone would want to do that though. There are some employer practices that are morally problematic though. For example, I once had an employer who refused to pay overtime and made us forge time sheets to put the hours on the next week. That was a government employer though, and supposedly one of the guys did get overtime because he threatened to go to the labor board, It was fun though to watch a minimum wage worker make his boss nervous though. I kind of figured it was a venial sin of the employer because it was a once a year type thing.

That’s called working in retail

I learned years ago in retail that flexible hours means flexible for the boss, not for you.

 

[Rence]

What is a “fair” wage? Who decides what “fair” is? Is $10 an hour fair? $15? $20?

In a free market system, wage rates are decided through the market, and are based on productivity. Wal-Mart jobs are not skilled labor. Period. Their wage reflects that. If you don’t think that’s fair then you would have to change the way we distribute goods and services in this country. Economic theory has shown that the price mechanism is the best way to distribute scarce resources and coordinate billions of people across the globe.

This whole thing is ridiculous. Of course non-skilled laborers are on the bottom of the pay totem pole and they always will be. These cashiers and stockers at places like walmart, as well as fast food workers, want to get paid more than skilled workers in hospitals and offices, and other areas of services. Pay is matched with experience/skill/education/difficulty level. It always will be that way. The only thing that will be accomplished by bumping up their pay to $15/hr, is that the cost of products will be driven up and the cost to employ more skilled laborers will also be driven up. Everything will be driven UP, and these unskilled laborers will still be on the bottom of the totem pole. Places offer cheap food and products because their costs are lower by paying unskilled workers less. Make them pay more for their laborers and you will pay more for their products and services - in all industries.

So some cashier at McDonald’s makes, for example, $8/hr (I have no idea how much they get paid). My SKILLED nursing techs at my hospital get $9-12/hr. So the cashiers at McDonald’s gets bumped up to $15. Then the nursing tech says, “HAY!! I’m skilled, I work at a higher level of competency, and a higher level of education. I won’t work for less than these cashiers at McDonalds.” and then the nursing techs get bumped up, and then the LPN’s say, " “HAY!! I’m skilled, I work at a higher level of competency, and a higher level of education. I won’t work for less than these nursing techs”. And their salary gets bumped up. Then the nurses say, “HAY!! I’m skilled, I work at a higher level of competency, and a higher level of education. I won’t work for less than these LPNs.”
and their salaries get bumped up. What does this accomplish? Well for starters, the dollar menu at McDonalds will not longer be a dollar menu. The costs to the customers will go up, as well the services to the patients in a hospital. All the costs will go up. All the costs of services and goods in all fields will rise, and so will the cost to employ skilled workers in all fields.

Jobs requiring no skills, no education and no experience were never meant to be career jobs.

 

[Cider]

How dare they try and be charitable.

 

[gnjsdad]

When did they begin that? They didn’t have it when I worked there about a year and a half ago.

Sorry, I may have been inaccurate here. While the existence of a specific Walmart program has not been acknowledged, McDonalds, through its “McResource” help line, does indeed encourage its employees to seek government assistance.

Moreover, according to Fla Congressman Alan Grayson,

*Wal-Mart employees are the **largest group *of Medicaid recipients. They are also the single biggest group of food stamp recipients. Wal-mart’s “associates” are paid so little, according to Grayson, that they receive $1,000 on average in public assistance. These amount to massive taxpayer subsidies for private companies.

bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html

Grayson makes a telling point, which ought to resonate with Tea Party Republicans. Giant corporations like Walmart and McDonalds have become powerful versions of the proverbial “welfare queen”, milking the system and taxpayers while raking in huge profits. In effect, they are allowed to benefit from huge taxpayer subsidies, all the while keeping their workers in grinding poverty.

If I may make a theological point here, I will say that the people running Walmart and McDonalds and other corporations need to be informed that if they persist in doing what they’re doing: stealing the labor of their workers, and withholding a living wage – they risk eternal damnation. Sexual sin isn’t the only way to get to hell.

 

[estesbob]

Sorry, I may have been inaccurate here. While the existence of a specific Walmart program has not been acknowledged, McDonalds, through its “McResource” help line, does indeed encourage its employees to seek government assistance.

Moreover, according to Fla Congressman Alan Grayson,

*Wal-Mart employees are the **largest group *of Medicaid recipients. They are also the single biggest group of food stamp recipients. Wal-mart’s “associates” are paid so little, according to Grayson, that they receive $1,000 on average in public assistance. These amount to massive taxpayer subsidies for private companies.

bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html

Grayson makes a telling point, which ought to resonate with Tea Party Republicans. Giant corporations like Walmart and McDonalds have become powerful versions of the proverbial “welfare queen”, milking the system and taxpayers while raking in huge profits. In effect, they are allowed to benefit from huge taxpayer subsidies, all the while keeping their workers in grinding poverty.

If I may make a theological point here, I will say that the people running Walmart and McDonalds and other corporations need to be informed that if they persist in doing what they’re doing: stealing the labor of their workers, and withholding a living wage – they risk eternal damnation. Sexual sin isn’t the only way to get to hell.

Bogus stats. There is no way one can track foodstamps and medicaid by employer. This another one of those bogus stats that people throw out over and over again that has no basis in fact-kinda like the poster who told us costoc pays wages 5 times higher than Walmart

If I can make a theological point providing employment helps affirm the diginity of man. Wal-mart is the largest private employer in the world.

 

[estesbob]

Sorry, I may have been inaccurate here. While the existence of a specific Walmart program has not been acknowledged, McDonalds, through its “McResource” help line, does indeed encourage its employees to seek government assistance.

Moreover, according to Fla Congressman Alan Grayson,

*Wal-Mart employees are the **largest group *of Medicaid recipients. They are also the single biggest group of food stamp recipients. Wal-mart’s “associates” are paid so little, according to Grayson, that they receive $1,000 on average in public assistance. These amount to massive taxpayer subsidies for private companies.

bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html

Grayson makes a telling point, which ought to resonate with Tea Party Republicans. Giant corporations like Walmart and McDonalds have become powerful versions of the proverbial “welfare queen”, milking the system and taxpayers while raking in huge profits. In effect, they are allowed to benefit from huge taxpayer subsidies, all the while keeping their workers in grinding poverty.

If I may make a theological point here, I will say that the people running Walmart and McDonalds and other corporations need to be informed that if they persist in doing what they’re doing: stealing the labor of their workers, and withholding a living wage – they risk eternal damnation. Sexual sin isn’t the only way to get to hell.

What a surprise. unskilled workers rely more on medicaid and foodstamps than skilled workers,! Would you prefer they were unemployed so they could get higher benefits?

Let me make a theological point.a job is crucial to affirming the dignity of man. Wal-mart is the largest private employer in the world. Would you take this dignity away from them because you have personally decided they arent paid enough?

 

[Dawnia]

Sorry, I may have been inaccurate here. While the existence of a specific Walmart program has not been acknowledged, McDonalds, through its “McResource” help line, does indeed encourage its employees to seek government assistance.

Okay. I thought maybe there was something new that they were doing.

 

[seekerz]

Where would those employees work? At one of the thousands and thousands of small retailers that WM has put out of business perhaps?

I heard today that the six Walton heirs together have more assets that the bottom 40% of the population of the entire country. That’s far from an equitable distribution of wealth. They pay their employees so poorly that many of them qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Thus the U. S. taxpayer winds up footing the bill so the Waltons
can make even more billions.

Higher prices? If WM took JUST the billions they use for stock buy-backs, they could give every employee a $6/hour raise without raising prices a penny. That would almost double their pay. Having that much money pumped back into the economy would create thousands of jobs as well as alleviate some of the burden on the rest of us tax-payers, who, unlike the Waltons, have earned income rather than capital gains and so have much higher tax rates.

Whatever happened to the idea of social justice and the responsibility to pay a just wage? Their pay may be legal (if all of their employment practices are not) but it is not ethical or moral.

And it’s destructive to the country as a whole. A poor person today has a much better chance of pulling himself out of poverty in many other countries than he does in the U. S. If that’s not a recipe for social unrest and upheaval, I don’t know what is.

Bump

Interesting to see the comments and I think yours in right on point.

Either we believe that every human being has a right to obtain certain basic necessities (through work or assistance) or we believe in survival of the fittest.

There is no middle ground on this one.

 

[estesbob]

Bump

Interesting to see the comments and I think yours in right on point.

Either we believe that every human being has a right to obtain certain basic necessities (through work or assistance) or we believe in survival of the fittest.

There is no middle ground on this one.

Nobody has denied that everyone has the right to obtain basic necessities through work and assistance. in fact what we have seen is people denigrating those who provide work.

 

[gnjsdad]

What a surprise. unskilled workers rely more on medicaid and foodstamps than skilled workers,! Would you prefer they were unemployed so they could get higher benefits?

“Unskilled” workers are still entitled, in justice, to a living wage. I would prefer Walmart paid all their workers a living wage.

 

[seekerz]

No.

I’ll defer to a Jesuit-educated Democrat from Buffalo whose father was a sanitation worker on that:

“All of us in government, corporate America, labor unions, academia, churches, synagogues, mosques and, yes, the media, must teach, cajole, motivate our children to finish school, learn a skill, hold a job, get married, have a baby — in that order.” (- the late Tim Russert)

These people ARE holding a job, so I’m not sure what you’re saying here. If we were all perfect, terra firme would be called heaven.

 

[seekerz]

Nobody has denied that everyone has the right to obtain basic necessities through work and assistance. in fact what we have seen is people denigrating those who provide work.

There is work, and then there is…work. Providing work is meaningless, immoral and unjust, if you are profiting off anyone who cannot afford to feed themselves.

 

[Country_Gal]

How many anti Walmart people here still shop there for low prices?

 

[seekerz]

People, including Walmart employees, have the opportunity to earn more. You see, the wage scale in this country goes from $7.25 or so per hour to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) pay of 2.5 Billion for 2012.

What’s great is if someone is on the $7.25 end, or even anywhere on the scale and they want to earn more, they can!

From forever though, there have been a group of people in society for whatever reason, from circumstances out of their control to an intentional decision, will earn less than they need. We as a society should do things for them. A nice gesture is collecting items which might be beneficial to them. In higher pay scales we call this a Christmas (or more likely now “Holiday” bonus). For those less fortunate, it is delivered in the form of food.

What’s wonderful is we don’t need a bunch of beauracrats to dictate this, in America we can each change this instantly by making a decision to live how we want. If that is more wealthy, we can make that happen. Less wealthy but more satisfying we can make that happen as well.

PAX.

I’m confused: people earn less than they need for their basic necessities because they choose to do so? Is that what you’re saying?

 

[seekerz]

A wage mutually agreed on between the employee and the employer

Not according to Catholic doctrine apparently:

b. The right to fair remuneration and income distribution

1. Remuneration is the most important means for achieving justice in work relationships.[659] The “just wage is the legitimate fruit of work”.[660]

They commit grave injustice who refuse to pay a just wage or who do not give it in due time and in proportion to the work done (cf. Lv 19:13; Dt 24:14-15; Jas 5:4). A salary is the instrument that permits the labourer to gain access to the goods of the earth. “Remuneration for labour is to be such that man may be furnished the means to cultivate worthily his own material, social, cultural, and spiritual life and that of his dependents, in view of the function and productiveness of each one, the conditions of the factory or workshop, and the common good”.[661] The simple agreement between employee and employer with regard to the amount of pay to be received is not sufficient for the agreed-upon salary to qualify as a "just wage", because a just wage “must not be below the level of subsistence”[662] of the worker: natural justice precedes and is above the freedom of the contract.

1. The economic well-being of a country is not measured exclusively by the quantity of goods it produces but also by taking into account the manner in which they are produced and the level of equity in the distribution of income, which should allow everyone access to what is necessary for their personal development and perfection. An equitable distribution of income is to be sought on the basis of criteria not merely of commutative justice but also of social justice that is, considering, beyond the objective value of the work rendered, the human dignity of the subjects who perform it. Authentic economic well-being is pursued also by means of suitable social policies for the redistribution of income which, taking general conditions into account, look at merit as well as at the need of each citizen.

(emphasis mine)

Source: catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7216

 

[estesbob]

Not according to Catholic doctrine apparently:

Source: catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7216

Thanks! I learned something today!

 

[estesbob]

I’m confused: people earn less than they need for their basic necessities because they choose to do so? Is that what you’re saying?

For a single mom with two kids walmart wages are not enough to lift her out of poverty. for a married mom with two kids and a husband who works they probably are.

 

[seekerz]

Thanks! I learned something today!

Don’t mention it. I just learned that too, today.