Walmart hiring policy change.....

[lockedout]

Before the healthcare change stores would hire people in low level or entry level positions as part time. So they didn't have to offer them healthcare. Now these same business's are trying to find another loophole to not provide healthcare. Working as intended IMO.

[Roxinius]

i honestly wouldn't be sad if every walmart in America burned to the ground place is run by scumbags

[Merie]

The core issue here that I see is that our mentality has shifted gears so much since the 50's. Businesses needed a powerful middle class as without a middle class with disposable income, there was no one to buy their products. That sort of interdependency is much of what made businesses have a vested interest in their empoyees well being. Corporations were also not as large as it was more difficult to turn a blind eye to the end consequences of cutting back on grunt pay and benefits. It's only too easy to author a signature that will adversely effect the employees but help the executive bonus when you're doing it from the penthouse in NY and the people you are hurting are in some basement of another division in another state. It's another to tell Carl or Sue who you know and see everyday working hard for you that their quality of life is about to take a tumble for yours.

These days it's all about the bottom line and the big bonuses. A CEO used to make 60 times what their average employee made back in the day. Now they in general make something to the number of 300 times their average employee. The wealth in the corporations and by extension the country has shifted hands in a seemingly unending downward race to the bottom perpetrated by the nations collective corporations. They just don't care like their parents or grandparents did. That is the core problem. The greed. The lack of interest in the common good. The mentality change.

That was where Obamacame came in. One politicans attempt to make the corporations help take better care of their employees if they were not going to be responsible enough to do so without being told to like their predecessors had done. But while you can pass any law you want, you can't pass a law that stops greedy, wealth mongering ass hats to stop being greedy, wealth mongering ass hats. They will always find another, alternate way of screwing over the majority for an elite few. Don't like paying taxes, amass an army of accounts to exploit the loopholes in the taxcode. Loophole gets fixed, create an off shore tax have. Tax haven becomes illegal, Lobby for lucrative regulation changes and pass them off as pro-business legislation that will pay off upfront, or introduce new tax holes to exploit. You can't control this monster, government. They now hold all the cards. We and our government officials are now powerless to reign in those driving our nation into a downard spiral. And there is not a thing left we can do about it.

[Remilia]

Another result alongside the progress humanity has made in the past centuries. Thank you capitalism. Thank you economic liberty.

Poverty seems backwards to humanity.

not everyone is cut out for military life.

I'm on anti-depressant, I'm not allowed to to begin with. \o/

The replacable get abused, it is like that is MANY unskill workforce environment, it isn't something new, and it isn't going away.

Just cause something happens a lot does not make it good or allowed to be tolerated.

[Spectral]

Doing shit like this constantly is extremely bad PR. Which (I hope at least) might end up causing them to lose more money than they make. Pissing off the world is a good way not to get customers.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just craft better policies rather than hoping that companies with unpleasant work conditions lose money?

[This name sucks]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just craft better policies rather than hoping that companies with unpleasant work conditions lose money?

I was going more for if they start to lose money because they've alienated the lower/middle class so much they might reconsider giving benefits to their employees.

[Spectral]

I was going more for if they start to lose money because they've alienated the lower/middle class so much they might reconsider giving benefits to their employees.

That seems like a slog of a process. I'd rather just have a better national health care policy to make it a non-issue.

[Grizzly Willy]

That seems like a slog of a process. I'd rather just have a better national health care policy to make it a non-issue.

The sooner we get to a single payer system the better. Just need to get past this "socialism is evil!" mentality.

[Malfecto]

The sooner we get to a single payer system the better. Just need to get past this "socialism is evil!" mentality.

We already have a single payer system. It is medicare and medicaid, and look how well that is working out. In another decade, at the most, unless something is changed, these systems will have been so poorly run and the need so high as to outstrip the ability of the taxpaying base to support them. It isn't about "socialism is evil". It is about how incompetent and ineffecient our government is in managing these types of programs. I personally do not want my life and well being in the hands of our government.

---------- Post added 2013-01-26 at 01:49 PM ----------

but root of the problem are companies refusing to do their jobs and allow their employees to provide for themselves.

I don't understand this mentality. I graduated in 1996 with a degree in Polymer chemistry. While looking for a job, my loans started to come due. While my father did not pay for my college, I was still under his tax filing as a dependent, and therefore could not qualify for grants and such as his income was too high. I had to take out personal loans, which did not offer the benefit of deferment.

In order to live and not default on my loans, I had to take 2 jobs while I looked for a job in my field of study. I worked 18 hours a day 6 days a week. I lived in an apartment with a roommate, which helped with the bills, but it was always tight from month to month. One day, around the holidays, I got a blood infection in my leg. My foot, then my lower and upper leg swelled to the point I could not walk on it. Neither job I worked offered benefits, and at that time I was also out from under the coverage of my father's insurance. I, of course, was admitted to an emergency room, treated and released with an $800 dollar hospital bill. I was out of work for over 2 weeks, and though I was able to keep one of my jobs when I came back, the 2 weeks without income put a serious stress on my finances.

Unfortunately that hospital bill went into default, and I carried it as bad debt until I finally got a decent job. Eventually, I cleared it up, and my credit is spotless today. At any rate, my point is, my illness was no one else's responsibility but my own. It wasn't the fault of either company I worked for, nor their responsibility to give me insurance as that was not in the terms of my employment. I got better, kept working hard and eventually paid what I owed. I was lucky to have a job to go back to, to be honest, and I'm thankful for that.

In short, I don't understand where the mentality comes from that once you enter a simple employer/employee relationship, that the employer is now responsible for your well being. It is simply not how the world works. The are a private company in a free market, just as we are free citizens in a free market. I have the right to work wherever I like. If I didn't like the terms of my employment, I could have worked elsewhere. But at the time, they were the only jobs I could get fresh out of college; and that was with 8 years of work experience, in various jobs, as a teenager in high school all the way through college. They didn't owe me anything that our contract didn't stipulate. Once I got a better job, where my value was higher, I was offered benefits as an employee. One can't simply walk into a job and expect that the value of the job you do is the same as all other jobs. It isn't how our country works.

Yes, it is at times unfair. For those that can't physically or mentally work, then there should be a net to catch them. For those that are fit though, the world is a big and scary place you need to carve your life out of. No one, especially not my tax dollars, are OWED to you. I put in my hard days, got my degree, worked hard for what I have. I don't feel that it is my repsonsibility to pay for someone else, who is capable, to not work just as hard.

You should be thankful that you have a job. That you can support yourself, albeit perhaps not in the fashion you wish you could. There are plenty of people out there that do not have jobs, that have children hungry at home, losing their home, and their minds under the stress that would give their left arm for a job at walmart, just so they can feed their family.

On side note, related to this sort of, my wife has a friend who lost her job she had been working at a physical therapy medical billing company for 15 years because Obamacare limited the amount of money that could be paid out for physical therapy. So physical therapist cut billing hours, which cost her her job. That happened 2 weeks after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

So tell me, who's fault is that?

[Orlong]

The sooner we get to a single payer system the better. Just need to get past this "socialism is evil!" mentality.

OR we could promote self responsibility and you could go out and get a job and pay for your OWN healthcare instead of expecting me to

[Fugus]

The are a private company in a free market, just as we are free citizens in a free market. I have the right to work wherever I like. If I didn't like the terms of my employment, I could have worked elsewhere.

There is no such thing as a free market and there never has been in my entire 31 years of life. What we have is crony capitalism at best.

They get the luxury of cherry picking where and when they get stuff. They can choose to hire whom they want and where. I can't choose to get my home in Southern Florida, my car from Germany, my food from Minnesota and my healthcare from Canada.

They get to choose where and when they buy their items and at what price and where they can open business where the people are most desperate for money.

The current system favors them tremendously and is stacked against the normal person at the moment unless we actually band together collectively and unfortunately they are trying to make unions near impossible.

In short, I don't understand where the mentality comes from that once you enter a simple employer/employee relationship, that the employer is now responsible for your well being. It is simply not how the world works.

Move to any other first world country, you will see that mentality except they will see it as a social contract between themselves and their government (instead of the business) but you will also see them working fewer hours for better pay and better benefits from their companies.

If I didn't like the terms of my employment, I could have worked elsewhere. But at the time, they were the only jobs I could get fresh out of college

What happens when you are in an area where they have effectively pushed out many of the options you could have had to get out. I personally am trying to go back to college for another 2 years just to get my life started finally instead of having to rely on a job that doesn't do its job and not feeling up to the stress of putting 60 hour weeks again going into business myself for a second time nor do I have the capital to get that ball rolling again even if I wanted to.

Yeah, they legally do not owe you anymore than you got in your contract, but for a fair contract, you need to have more say so than "Here it is, take it or leave it"

For those that are fit though, the world is a big and scary place you need to carve your life out of. No one, especially not my tax dollars, are OWED to you. I put in my hard days, got my degree, worked hard for what I have. I don't feel that it is my repsonsibility to pay for someone else, who is capable, to not work just as hard.

I agree, those that are fit should be able to work and that you personally don't owe anyone else anything. But you collectively owe everyone for your entry level education unless you were private schooled (which puts you in an income bracket above what most of us are talking about more than likely), for your protection from the police force and fire department even if you personally never used them and many other factors. Healthcare SHOULD be one of them and the ability to make sure that our jobs pay us a livable wage should be another.

If they aren't willing to pay you a wage you are capable of surviving on, who in their right mind would work for them if they had any other option? No one would who was out of high school but they know people are hurting and have no choice. This kinda of employee exploitation should not be legal.

You should be thankful that you have a job. That you can support yourself, albeit perhaps not in the fashion you wish you could. There are plenty of people out there that do not have jobs, that have children hungry at home, losing their home, and their minds under the stress that would give their left arm for a job at walmart, just so they can feed their family.

Thankful I have a job..... I have heard that BS comment my whole life. Not even going to go into describing the flaws in that argument. I would rather have a job that gave me a paycheck I could support myself off of, not a job that just gave an allowance I could use as spending money.

Yes, I have a job but no I can NOT support myself. I can HELP to support myself while relying on family, friends and government aid just to make ends meet while living under someone else's roof but that is not supporting yourself anymore than using your parents vehicle while they are paying taxes and gas and maintenance on it and claiming you have your own transportation.

I don't have children, even though I would like them, cause I know I couldn't afford to feed them and will not put them through that life. I can't lose a home I never could afford to get in the first place and many working at Walmart feel like they are ready to lose their minds from the stress of working and still being borderline unemployed anyways due to the lack of money. The only good portion of working there is they qualify for MORE government aid since they can claim they have a job. Sorry, but $950 a month doesn't get you far in an area where it costs $500-800 for basic housing in a bad area on the outskirts of town. Let alone let you feed a family.

On side note, related to this sort of, my wife has a friend who lost her job she had been working at a physical therapy medical billing company for 15 years because Obamacare limited the amount of money that could be paid out for physical therapy. So physical therapist cut billing hours, which cost her her job. That happened 2 weeks after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

So tell me, who's fault is that?

I would say corporate climate as a whole combined with a healthcare plan that was compromised into uselessness with people who fought having any effective healthcare at all.

Now, if they had just scrapped Obamacare and gave us true single payer system with taxes, how much would that have helped and prevented this as the companies couldn't weasel their way out of doing what they should.

---------- Post added 2013-01-26 at 07:11 PM ----------

OR we could promote self responsibility and you could go out and get a job and pay for your OWN healthcare instead of expecting me to

Sure thing, you make jobs pay a livable income so anyone can afford most things and we can get right on it. But since a broke arm costs us about $20,000 to fix but the jobs only wish to pay us less than $20,000 a year for many people and insurance costs so much that most can't afford it without starving to death or losing their homes....

Or we could just do like the rest of the first world instead of the ass backwards approach you are describing which doesn't work so long as healthcare is seen as a "For-Profit" venture even though it does not follow any supply/demand curve as the demand is static regardless of the supply as it is critical infrastructure and does not follow any free market ideals (which we never had to begin with).

[Tradewind]

OR we could promote self responsibility and you could go out and get a job and pay for your OWN healthcare instead of expecting me to

Do you pay for your own personal health insurance?

[Kujako]

Do you pay for your own personal health insurance?

He also only drives on toll roads, doesn't use public bandwidth and has his own air & water supply. He's not one of those leachers trying to be part of a "society".

[Grizzly Willy]

OR we could promote self responsibility and you could go out and get a job and pay for your OWN healthcare instead of expecting me to

Interesting that that's the first assumption you jump to. Do you also assume I live off of welfare?

[Zhangfei]

No, and such experience is unnecessary.

How is actual experience on the ground ever "unnecessary"?

Yes, it might suck for new employees, but it might also backfire for the employers if they can't get enough applicants or if the employee turnover is too high. Either way, the employer is certainly within its right to offer worse employment contracts for subsequent new employees.

But it's immoral and financially unsuitable.

[Grizzly Willy]

Define immoral. If it's financially beneficial to the company and sustainable, there is no reason for them not to do it.

[Zhangfei]

Define immoral. If it's financially beneficial to the company and sustainable, there is no reason for them not to do it.

Moral reasons? Social responsibility? Doing the best for everybody?

It's why America has gone so far downhill since the 80s - the "greed is good" attitude replacing the attitudes of the 40s, 50s and 60s where America flourished.

[Valanna]

Moral reasons? Social responsibility? Doing the best for everybody?

It's why America has gone so far downhill since the 80s - the "greed is good" attitude replacing the attitudes of the 40s, 50s and 60s where America flourished.

Everybody? I'm pretty sure what they're doing now is better for both their customers and shareholders. They're a company and their employees are a means to an end. Depending on how valuable employee is, they'll be awarded accordingly. The only responsibility of private companies is to their shareholders, and to keep within the bounds of the law. It's not their job to provide for their employees, their employees hold the responsibility to provide for themselves.

[Zhangfei]

Everybody? I'm pretty sure what they're doing now is better for both their customers and shareholders. They're a company and their employees are a means to an end. Depending on how valuable employee is, they'll be awarded accordingly. The only responsibility of private companies is to their shareholders, and to keep within the bounds of the law. It's not their job to provide for their employees, their employees hold the responsibility to provide for themselves.

I disagree, it sounds incredibly immoral and dysfunctional. I guess that's why we made so many laws to correct this attitude. It's certainly not better for their customers, who in the long run have their local economies wrecked.

[Grizzly Willy]

I'm not promoting it, just asking why morality matters. Our society is designed to hoist up and support companies that maximize profits. That is the epitome of the capitalist system, and it's what our nation wants. Therefor, it is morally acceptable. Whether or not it's beneficial to customers and employees is ultimately irrelevant.

Should also point out that the argument regarding what's best for everybody would be countered by the assertion that they are doing what's best for everyone. By maximizing profits they are able to grow. By being able to grow they can increase productivity and hire more people. They can pay their higher ups more, and as they get more money they can then spend that money, pumping it back into the economy. The counter argument can be boiled down to the trickle down theory. I don't personally buy it, but there it is.