1) Long-term members continually ratify contracts that allow them to maintain their benefits and higher wage tier, while permitting new hires to be brought in at minimum wage (in my state, that's $4.25 an hour).

3) The grocery chain that I used to work for has recently mandated that all new hires must work 6 days to get their 40 hours. No one who needs two days off a week will be able to work full-time. All with the blessing of the UFCW.

4) I don't know about where you live, but here it's nearly impossible to find a grocery chain that has baggers anymore. Those positions have been eliminated, and they've been replaced with baggage carousels, so that the cashiers' duties have been expanded to include bagging groceries while their rate of pay has remained the same.

2) The union requires that those new hires, while making minimum wage, are last in line for any overtime available; those hours go first to employees who make $15-$20 per overtime hour.

And, btw, since when is permitting members of management to vote at union meetings considered "levelling the playing field"??

The theory works like this: In order for a retailer to offer the lowest prices they generally buy from the lowest priced manufacturer/wholesaler. If (as a manufacturer) I have to charge more, because of wages/benefits/taxes/employment standards/etc, for goods I make entirely in the U.S. the retailer won't buy from me because the imported goods are less expensive. In order to stay in business I have to move my manufacturing to a country that has lower wages/benefits/taxes/employment standards/etc. That means I have to fire all my American workers or convince them to relocate to the other country with the lower standard of living (not many would want to do this for obvious reasons). This creates higher unemployment, lowers the domestic standard of living and all else that goes with not having enough jobs for the size of the available workforce. Hence the domestic jobs have been effectively 'exported'.

This practice is only possible because consumers, in general, buy the lower cost merchandise from manufacturers in China and other cheap labor countries. I don't see how Wal-Mart is directly responsible for this -- rather, I think the consumers are. When there's a Wal-Mart available, consumers buy their cheap crap at Wal-Mart. In areas where no Wal-Mart or other large retailer exists, people still buy the same cheap crap made in China, they just get it from a different retailer. The fact that Wal-Mart makes it easier for consumers to buy the crap doesn't make them responsible for consumers buying it, it's the collective will of consumers who are willing to buy merchandise from China that causes the jobs to be lost domestically.

Here is a better alternative to Walmart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco

Dont tell me they dont need a union.

I don't understand this; what jobs are being exported?

rks58: The theory works like this: In order for a retailer to offer the lowest prices they generally buy from the lowest priced manufacturer/wholesaler...

2000-08-06
Wooster, OH. Wal-Mart Bounces Rubbermaid

The Akron Beacon Journal (www.ohio.com) carried a 4 part series on megastores in mid July, including an insight to Wal-Mart's power over its manufacturing vendors. A full page story profiles what Wal-Mart did to Rubbermaid, one of the country's most ubiquitous makers of kitchenware. In 1994, Rubbermaid was one of the best-known plastic companies, says the story, but by 1999 Rubbermaid was bought out by a lesser-known company called Newell Company. A former Rubbermaid manager calls the takeover "a sad story", the gist of which is that Wal-Mart did Rubbermaid in. In the mid 1990s, Rubbermaid was dealing with skyrockeeting prices for resin, a key ingredient in its plastic products. In fact, the company lost $250 million in 1995 due to resin prce hikes. When Rubbermaid tried to pass a higher price for its products on to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart warned that if prices rose, Rubbermaid products would be dropped. At the time, Wal-Mart was as much as 20% of Rubbermaid's business. Rubbermaid executives told the Akron Beacon Journal that Wal-Mart's selling of products as loss leaders also hurt Rubbermaid, because other stores wanted Rubbermaid to lower its prices for them also. "They backed us into a corner," one Rubbermaid manager admitted. "We couldn't recoup our product-development costs before they'd slash prices. That led to less innovation." When Rubbermaid raised the prices of some of its toys to Wal-Mart, the retailer dropped Rubbermaid toys, and dropped the kitchen products also, going with another company "adept at making Rubbermaid look-likes at a lower cost." In 1995, Rubbermaid earnings plunged by 30%. Wal-Mart also insisted that Rubbermaid get its products to Wal-Mart within 2 days of being ordered, and if it didn't, it was fined for each dollar Wal-Mart said it lost, and was required to buy back unsold wares. Finally, Wal-Mart dictated to Rubbermaid what types of products it should make, and how it should make them. The former Rubbermaid manager said Wal-Mart "squeezed too hard." In 1998, the Newell Company bought out the troubled Rubbermaid company, and their products started to reappear on Wal-Mart shelves--ostensibly because Newell Company agrees to do things 'the Wal-Mart way.'

The Akron Beacon Journal article suggests that Rubbermaid suffered by standing up to Wal-Mart demands, and the Wooster firm's "fall" was due, in part, to Wal-Mart's decision to pull Rubbermaid products from its shelves. Even a plastics company proved to be unable to bounce back from such an impact. So Wal-Mart's power over its manufacturers and its own employees are a testament to the consequences of "everday low prices". Wal-Mart pushes down the cost of labor and production--but they are prices to pay all along the way, from sweatshops to manufacturing bankruptcies. Most consumers have no idea where cheap prices come from--a world-wide chain of exploitation...

Sorry, not going to go buy something more expensive just because they offend people or whatever. I have no clue what they have supposedly done. Only thing I know is that they are cheaper than every other store which means I can actually afford to buy things I wouldn't be able to otherwise.

Show me a store that offers the same merchandise at the same price or lower and I will never shop at Walmart again.

France, the country that just loves us, owns Target, Bic Pens, and thousands of othe companies... Loreal, Six pages worth... of companies that work hard to look American. Remember 911? France would not stand with the USA, so people started researching all of the companies that are french owned.

Have you seen the price of gas today? If you took that and the higher prices at the Big K-mart 30 minutes from this town people would be losing a lot of money shopping out of Wal-Mart. (this is a reflection on my hometown not where i live today).