CNN interviewed a WalMart exec...

[Fugus]

Well if you like the union stores then shop there, not wallmart. the fact is: most Americans prefer lower prices over supporting union teamsters. Why do you think almost all the stuff Americans buy is made in sweatshops in poor countries? Americans want everything, immediately, at the lowest prices possible.

Stop blaming wallmart, and outsourcing for that matter(not you, people in general), for the spending habits of Americans.

Most Americans nowadays are short sighted with no real knowledge of history and I do blame them partially for it. But you also have to remember Walmarts business practices as well, when they first come into an area, they are a great place to work for and shop, it is after they have gotten a foothold in the area and shut down most of their competition that they start going bad.

I am blaming Walmart for practices that go above and beyond to take the pay from their employees. Back when Sam Walton was alive, the place wasn't too bad to work for from what I have saw, since he has died though, anything that made his business good his bastard children and the CEO made sure to kill. Any honorable dream for his company he may have had died with him.

I blame the American public for not informing themselves of what is going on (only about 1 in 50 out here seemed to even know about the strikes and most of them have no clue about how Walmart treats their employs and are surprised when I tell them). But that does not absolve Walmart for what it has done and continues to do and how they flat out exploit their employees rather than actually respecting them as employees.

[Olianda]

I've got a friend who makes $15/hour doing overnight stocking at Wal-Mart, while it's not great, it's certainly better than the $9/hour I make as an assistant manager at the Dollar Tree.

[Fugus]

I've got a friend who makes $15/hour doing overnight stocking at Wal-Mart, while it's not great, it's certainly better than the $9/hour I make as an assistant manager at the Dollar Tree.

Where is this at? Our overnight stockers make less than $9 on average in Hope Mills, North Carolina.

And how long has be been there? The stockers we have that have been there over 10 years are still only just breaking $12 an hour.

[Olianda]

Where is this at? Our overnight stockers make less than $9 on average in Hope Mills, North Carolina.

And how long has be been there? The stockers we have that have been there over 10 years are still only just breaking $12 an hour.

He's been there just over a year. Vadnais Heights, Minnesota. I should have said, he's also full time, not sure if that makes a difference for Wal-mart.

[Vespers99]

This week its walmart, next week the complaints will be about another large retailer. I am curious as to what kind of pay you expect to get as unskilled labor? $20 an hour, $30, $50. Get real, when I started working minimum wage was under $4 and hour and I knew there was no way I could ever own a house from a job like that. People just want to much and don't want to have to do anything to get it. Go to school, take night classes, take free classes at community college, enlist for a couple of years in the military of your choice and learn some skills. Wait I can hear the crying already starting, "but its not fair this young family can't support themselves they have 3 kinds and both parents are young and only make minimum wage." Sounds like they already made their life choice to me, life has choices and consequences, deal with it and don't expect everyone else to pay for the consequences of your bad choices.

[Fugus]

He's been there just over a year. Vadnais Heights, Minnesota. I should have said, he's also full time, not sure if that makes a difference for Wal-mart.

Ah, got family up there in Murdock, Mn. It is much easier to find work up there with much better pay than down here. Up there they have more work than they have people to do it it felt like when I was up there.

At the Walmarts of the more populated ares where they have people dying to find work are much more fucked up with how they act. Our store has over 500 employees. Over 65% of them are part time and the full timers have been there about 7 years or more and got grandfathered into the new way they run as full time and they can't even change positions without getting busted down to part time. And the paychecks are MUCH less. You have to be there over 4 years to break $9 an hour for most people. The only people I have seen breaking $12 have been there 10 to 12 years MINIMUM without making management and they have a big thing about hiring retired military for the salaried positions if they can so they can avoid paying them benefits since tricare covers it. We have managers who were hired directly into the managers spot after retiring without having to work their way up to anything. Our store manager went hit store manager within 3 years of starting due to his military background.

Edit: Off to work so no more responses from me for now.

---------- Post added 2012-11-24 at 09:54 PM ----------

This week its walmart, next week the complaints will be about another large retailer. I am curious as to what kind of pay you expect to get as unskilled labor? $20 an hour, $30, $50. Get real, when I started working minimum wage was under $4 and hour and I knew there was no way I could ever own a house from a job like that. People just want to much and don't want to have to do anything to get it. Go to school, take night classes, take free classes at community college, enlist for a couple of years in the military of your choice and learn some skills. Wait I can hear the crying already starting, "but its not fair this young family can't support themselves they have 3 kinds and both parents are young and only make minimum wage." Sounds like they already made their life choice to me, life has choices and consequences, deal with it and don't expect everyone else to pay for the consequences of your bad choices.

What year were you making $4 an hour? Cause minimum wage hasn't kept up with the rate of inflation since about 1981 from what I have read so your minimum wage went further than minimum wage now.

[Krysann]

I am a state licensed veterinary technician (veterinary nurse to our European friends). The US national average for vet techs is $15 an hour. (see http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes292056.htm. While those technicians working at vet colleges, pharmaceutical companies and research facilities make considerably more, most technicians can expect to see between 10-13 an hour directly out of college. I personally graduated with a 25k student loan debt from my three year program (one year of general science pre-reqs, 2 very intense years of actual program). I have to maintain 10 hours of continuing education (on my own time and my own money) per renewal to keep my license current which I then have to pay for. I have to answer to a variety of governmental agencies from my state vet med board and pharm board to the DEA, US Game and Fish, and USDA (to name but a few I submit paper work to on a regular basis). Not a day goes by that I do not get some bodily fluid on me or have to clean up feces, urine, blood or other fun stuff not to mention the bites, scratches, tail whips (multi-species practice here), knocked into walls, cabinets, etc, cause Fluffy didn't want her temp taken. I am one of the higher paid technicians in my area at a lovely $12.00 per hour.

Oh and I work or am on call on every single holiday. (Went in 4 times on Thanksgiving)

Retail sucks. Anyone who has worked it while searching or working towards something better knows it. To pay the guy stocking shelves at Walmart more than white collar professionals who are floating in a sea of education related debt is stupid. And for those who say "Well I have a college education and all there is is walmart/retail" you should have done more homework before getting that super cool Biblical Studies degree (my brother, the genius).

[Fugus]

Retail sucks. Anyone who has worked it while searching or working towards something better knows it. To pay the guy stocking shelves at Walmart more than white collar professionals who are floating in a sea of education related debt is stupid. And for those who say "Well I have a college education and all there is is walmart/retail" you should have done more homework before getting that super cool Biblical Studies degree (my brother, the genius).

We all know retail sucks nowadays, it has never been glamorous but it used to be a LOT better than it is now. And if I knew anyone who had such a useless degree as that, I wouldn't know whether to laugh at them or feel bad for them (probably end up doing both). And evidently you have never seen a place where Walmart really is the only place that is hiring, trust me, they are out there. Where ever other place just flat out isn't hiring with many places having signs up just to say they aren't taking applications to keep people from asking and Walmart is still hiring due to their insanely high employee turn over right. I know my store has gone through at least 15 people just on 3rd shift in the past 2 months and 3rd shift is the skeleton crew with the fewest people on it.

[buck008]

This week its walmart, next week the complaints will be about another large retailer. I am curious as to what kind of pay you expect to get as unskilled labor? $20 an hour, $30, $50. Get real, when I started working minimum wage was under $4 and hour and I knew there was no way I could ever own a house from a job like that. People just want to much and don't want to have to do anything to get it. Go to school, take night classes, take free classes at community college, enlist for a couple of years in the military of your choice and learn some skills. Wait I can hear the crying already starting, "but its not fair this young family can't support themselves they have 3 kinds and both parents are young and only make minimum wage." Sounds like they already made their life choice to me, life has choices and consequences, deal with it and don't expect everyone else to pay for the consequences of your bad choices.

Oh stop it. There will always be unskilled labor. Society needs people running cash registers and stocking shelves. It always will. No one that does these jobs is asking to get rich doing so. They are asking to make enough money to get by. So take your assumptions that these people are lazy mooches elsewhere because they are shockingly incorrect and arrogant. I had a breakdown a few pages ago of a typical low income person's expenses and how that compares to a minimum wage salary. Maybe you should do a little number crunching before you yell about things you don't understand.

Also, free classes at community college? Where do you live? The CC that I went to was $150 a credit hour. That was damn near 10 years ago.

[Deleted]

Oh stop it. There will always be unskilled labor. Society needs people running cash registers and stocking shelves. It always will. No one that does these jobs is asking to get rich doing so. They are asking to make enough money to get by. So take your assumptions that these people are lazy mooches elsewhere because they are shockingly incorrect and arrogant. I had a breakdown a few pages ago of a typical low income person's expenses and how that compares to a minimum wage salary. Maybe you should do a little number crunching before you yell about things you don't understand.

Also, free classes at community college? Where do you live? The CC that I went to was $150 a credit hour. That was damn near 10 years ago.

Why should they be paid more for labor than what it is worth? The prices of everything, including labor, supply society with crucial information. It allows us the opportunity to make the best decisions, by being fed information about what the rest of the world is doing - without actually specifically knowing what they do. If we somehow artificially elevate the wage of retail workers beyond what their labor is worth, the information it signals will not reflect reality. In reality, the demand for retail workers isn't at all as high as the price would tell us it is.

In the worst case scenario, artificially elevated retail wages would convey the information that their labor is too valuable and costly to be employed in actual retail labor, instead automating the whole process (or as much of it as is possible). While automating parts of the retail sales business is inevitable as technology advances, doing it prematurely because of scewed information would be harmful for society.

[Rupture91]

12$/hr? Shiieet, i think its time to go work for WalMart!

[Fugus]

Why should they be paid more for labor than what it is worth? The prices of everything, including labor, supply society with crucial information. It allows us the opportunity to make the best decisions, by being fed information about what the rest of the world is doing - without actually specifically knowing what they do. If we somehow artificially elevate the wage of retail workers beyond what their labor is worth, the information it signals will not reflect reality. In reality, the demand for retail workers isn't at all as high as the price would tell us it is.

In the worst case scenario, artificially elevated retail wages would convey the information that their labor is too valuable and costly to be employed in actual retail labor, instead automating the whole process (or as much of it as is possible). While automating parts of the retail sales business is inevitable as technology advances, doing it prematurely because of scewed information would be harmful for society.

They aren't asking people to be paid more than they are worth, we have enough of that at the top of the income bracket that we need to fix. We are asking for them to stop paying us LESS than what we are worth just because we can. I would honestly rather see them have successful strikes and government regulations to fix it unless you would rather we go the route of revolution or riots if I could help it.

If you are working for a company and only making minimum wage, then they are not paying you what your labor is worth unless the company is in such bad shape that they are operating at a loss.

If they are making well over $10,000 a month off of you, you are worth more than $1,000 a month to them for your labor. You don't seem to understand that. You would rather think that even if they made 1 million dollars a month off your labor, you are still only worth 25 cents a day cause there is some other person who is desperate enough (Or in some cases just stupid enough) to do it for that.