If You Aren't Sure Walmart Needs to Pay Higher Wages, This Photo Will Erase All Doubt

[kpete]

Is Walmart's request of associates to help provide Thanksgiving dinner for co-workers proof of low wages?



CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The storage containers are attractively displayed at the Walmart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton. The bins are lined up in alternating colors of purple and orange. Some sit on tables covered with golden yellow tablecloths. Others peer out from under the tables.

This isn't a merchandise display. It's a food drive - not for the community, but for needy workers.

"Please Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner," read signs affixed to the tablecloths.

The food drive tables are tucked away in an employees-only area. They are another element in the backdrop of the public debate about salaries for cashiers, stock clerks and other low-wage positions at Walmart, as workers in Cincinnati and Dayton are scheduled to go on strike Monday.

MORE:
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/11/is_walmarts_request_of_associa.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/18/1256468/-If-You-Aren-t-Sure-Walmart-Needs-to-Pay-Higher-Wages-This-Photo-Will-Erase-All-Doubt#

[WhoIsNumberNone]

1. WalMart = Scum

I'm tired of subsidizing their sweatshoppery with my tax dollars. Fuck Wal Mart- RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE!!!

[gopiscrap]

22. +1,000

[Initech]

2. I cringe every time I see those "friendlier" Wal-Mart commercials.

[bluestate10]

39. Walmart should spend the money that it spends trying to make itself look better on

higher pay for low paid workers. Why don't the bigwig assholes that are approving spending tens, if not hundreds of millions on "good" Walmart commercials see that? The insistence on paying for commercials when the money could be better used raising pay is Case 1 for why Walmart is one fucked up company.

[Egnever]

3. Sorry but you can find one of these in many businesses

Walmart is by and large a douchebag company but this is indicative of nothing other than the ease of getting people riled at walmart.

[Earth_First]

4. Oh yeah?

Show me.

[Egnever]

35. well every year my wifes school takes collection s for teachers for xmas that are having trouble

Making ends meet, every single year so I guess they are the only ones on the planet other than walmart doing such a dispicable thing....

[arcane1]

41. Is this a private, for-profit school?

[Egnever]

52. No

[arcane1]

54. In that case, a public school isn't really a business.

And public schools are constantly having their funds cut

[louslobbs]

5. You can find bins asking for food donations for "associates" in "many businesses"? I'm 50 yrs old

and I've never seen it once. Which companies are asking for food donations for fellow workers?
Lou

[hibbing]

59. me either

I too would like examples of businesses that do this. I have never seen it in my life.

Peace

[bluesbassman]

61. I'm sure Oracle, HP, and Apple have them conveniently located on their campuses.

Well, maybe in China.

[MattBaggins]

6. I have never seen such a thing in my life

[bluestate10]

40. Neither have I. nt

[Gormy Cuss]

7. Really? Bins to collect food for co-workers?

In a company that SELLS all of the food for a nice T-day dinner?

[myrna minx]

8. I have seen donation drives for those in need in the community - like coats for kids-

at grocery stores, but not at a booming multi-billion dollar big business asking for other employees to donate to other "needy" employees for Thanksgiving. That's just brazen and crass, especially in light of their splashy new PR campaign about how lucrative it is to work at wallmart. Yeah, so lucrative that your fellow employees need to donate to your family for the necessities for Thanksgiving. It's sick.

[Marr]

9. I've never seen such a thing. /nt

[gollygee]

10. Bins at a business to collect food for employees of that business

because the people working at that business aren't making enough money to eat Thanksgiving dinner?

I've seen bins at businesses for local food pantries but not for the employes of that business.

[Vashta Nerada]

36. I want to see YOU make it on $7.75/hour.

Because that's how much your pay will be if you work there as a sales associate.

[Scootaloo]

50. A business that solicits its employees to feed its other employees is a shitty business

Walmart or ANY OTHER.

[DefenseLawyer]

11. It's dumb to blame Wal-Mart for paying low wages.

As long as the law and the economy allow them to, they will pay low wages. It's just dumb to expect one company to "do the right thing" when no one else does. We need to raise the minimum wage and we need to drastically change the trade policy that allows higher paying manufacturing and tech jobs to be sent to the third world with little to no penalty. If Wal-Mart had to compete with a shoe factory or a textile mill that paid good wages in order to find employees, they would pay more. They'll never do the right thing. We have to make that happen.

[JHB]

15. It's not dumb to use them as a punching bag.

They (all of them) spend multiple millions on PR to get people to think nice things about them. The ad budget for making the case in the opposite direction would fit in a parking meter.

Like McDonald's and their "get a second job" advice for masking ends meet, you make the most of the opportunities they hand you to remind everyone that what they're doing is not a force like the tides, it's a deliberate decision they make. And that something can be done.

[bluestate10]

43. The interesting thing is that Walmart is spending money on commercials to make itself look better

when putting that money toward salaries for low paid employees would bring far more goodwill, enduring goodwill that will help the company economically for a long time. I find it amazing how dense top level executives are in that company.

[TBF]

16. This is a great post -

Walmart is a particularly bad actor, but the problem is really capitalism itself. If companies are rewarded only for profit that is what they are going to seek.

[DeSwiss]

17. It's equally ''dumb'' to believe.....

...that the system that provided the means to allow this to happen in the first place, can be changed in any meaningful way given the fact that the government we live under is totally corrupted at all levels. Plus the fact that we are on the verge of the police state being imposed upon us, in an attempt to maintain the status quo. We are utterly bankrupt as a nation and have been for quite a while. However, no one wants to demand payment from apes with nukes.

- But the longer this situation remains this way, the higher the cost will be for our freedom......

[Hassin Bin Sober]

27. Correct!

Place all the blame on corporations and wealthy families who lobby to keep said policies in place.

Oh wait.....

[snort]

28. I'm dumb.

I expect Costco to pay a living wage and they do. A big reason I shop there.

[DefenseLawyer]

38. Costco has about 600 stores

and per wikipedia employs about 174,000 people. Wal-Mart has over 8,500 stores and employs over 2 million people. I'm glad you shop at Costco. I can tell you that Wal-Mart doesn't care if you shop at Costco. If you and all your friends and all their friends all shop at Costco it won't make Wal-Mart pay higher wages. We have to make them. When I say it's "dumb" to blame Wal-Mart I don't mean they don't deserve scorn, I just mean that they are a symptom of our problems not a cause. I would rather focus on the cause.

[bluestate10]

44. So. How do "we" make them? You keep using that term and haven't explained for

one second what it means. Without an explanation your claim is just a vapor claim.

[DefenseLawyer]

46. We, as a nation, have to change our laws and our economic and trade policy

I didn't realize I needed to explain what that meant. That's not an easy task by any means. It may be an impossible task. But as long as we keep playing by these economic rules, yelling at Wal-Mart won't change anything.

[arcane1]

42. I agree with your post, but it's entities like Wal-Mart that lobby for these lax rules.

It's quite likely that they are favoring politicians opposed to wage increases and sensible trade policy.

[Deep13]

51. Ah, no, I will not accept corporate greed as normal.

It's not about what is legal, but what is right. The Walmart management made a choice to screw their employees, screw the taxpayers, and to undermine domestic production with Chinese slave labor. Their whole unsustainable business model is based on these choices. What they are doing is immoral, unethical and entirely their choice. If a company cannot do business while complying with basic human decency, then it should not be in business.

[DefenseLawyer]

53. Be as righteous as you like, it won't change anything.

My point is not that Wal-Mart is "good", but they are certainly "normal", given what we allow to take place in our economy. But that's fine, you stand up and tell Wal-Mart to act in a moral and ethical way. Tell them every day for the next hundred years. Let's see what happens. All the righteous indignation in the world won't raise wages in the country.

[Deep13]

55. They already know.

Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2013, 03:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm telling everyone else.

And a large part of my point is simply the decision to be honest with myself and not buy into a lie.

[irisblue]

58. "All the righteous indignation in the world won't raise wages in the country."

You might be correct, Walmart can ignore individual stores, and for sure ignores paying living wages; righteous indignation leads to publicity, then bad publicity; first locally, then as more righteous people hear the story, they speak out, soon, national news has heard this story. The Waltons, likely don't give a hoot, their lawyers who wrote their legal papers and contracts don't care, it's just more (bad)publicity telling the majority of non Walmart employees what sleaze that company is. Nothing about that seeping pustule of a company will change form this one episode; righteous indication today, next week or by winter holidays of 2013 will not end their corporate sleaze behavior. Yet...rocks wear away one drop at a time, this seems to be a law of nature....one drop one drop one drop...and the rock does wear away.

[JHB]

12. Because the Walton family holds the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th spots for "richest Americans"...

...with over 33 billion each, and 138 billion between them. How are they ever going to break into the top 5 if they blow their money on greeters, stock clerks, and cashiers? C'mon, they have priorities!

[arcane1]

45. It's a mental illnes. It really is.

I find it amazing to see people who only have a few hundred million, who still get up in the morning and put on a tie and spend the entire day trying to make more.

[TBF]

13. My dad was a factory worker years ago and the company

actually GAVE everyone a turkey at the holiday. That was standard back in the 60s/70s - definitely for Thanksgiving & sometimes Christmas as well. And in those days factories, especially with piece work, were paying well above minimum wage. It just keeps going downhill in this country.

[JHB]

18. I used to work for a company that did that, until 1998...

...when it was bought up by a competitor gone on a consolidation spree.

Not a coincidence that I say I used to work there.

[Heather MC]

14. Keep it Class Walmart Low Wages Everyday!!

[Garion_55]

19. wall mart should pay their people enough

that they dont need food stamps.


or is that socialism?

so confused.

[WillyT]

20. Another Pic...

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/walmart-food-drive_n_4296618.html?ref=topbar

[malaise]

21. Coming up on Chris Hayes n/t

[Celebration]

23. With all this publicity I am afraid

the manager will get into trouble. The manager doesn't have anything to do with corporate wage policies.

[AzDar]

24. OMG.

[bayareaboy]

25. Last year I started volunteering at the food bank ...

of Placer County Ca. I enjoy doing this but most of the store foodstuffs given to us from Wallmart were usually mangled or over date or otherwise prime B/S. And in this county there are 4 Wallmarts now and a big lode of Wallmart food stores. So they provide more food than all the other stores combined.

Now here is the thing, all the trucks that the Food Bank uses have nice big signs on the side about Wallmart and their commitment to feeding folks. I know that these signs and the foods are write offs so perhaps Wallmart should just keep there food in the house and not decorate the trucks as well.

After a couple of months, I felt like a scab, so I quit.

[arcane1]

47. Hell, not just write-offs. The truck ads are advertizing, and probably tax-deductable too.

Wally-world is probably making money off this arrangement.


A toast to you for being out there, doing good in the world!

[ErikJ]

26. Basically, Charity for the world's richest family worth $120 billion.

Shameless a-holes.

[Jefferson23]

29. Holy shit. K&R

[Lobo27]

30. Why ask for donations..... when you're a multi billion dollar Co...

This Thanksgiving our little company of 32 employees is going to give everyone a 20lb turkey and the stuff for a meal. And also a 100 dollar gift card incase they may need a little more. Have been doing the gift card for the last five years and the turkey for since the company was started by my dad and his friend in the 80s.

[mopinko]

31. how do you hold your head up? how do you look in the mirror?

if you have anything to do with this and do not have a terminal case of , check your pulse.

[arcane1]

48. I imagine being an "associate" who benefits from this, working alongside others who contributed.

What must that feel like? What's it like to work somewhere where your supervisor donates food to you?

I imagine it feels terrible.

Adding insult to injury. There is no better example of that phrase.

[ReRe]

32. K&R

I do declare! Are we living in an alternate universe? Let's go back to kindergarten... what's wrong with this picture????? Salt in the wound? Since they are bigger than God Himself, they can get away with what they are doing?

Isn't it just exceptional that they think so much of their associates?

[csziggy]

33. So in the Walmart ads about their "happy associates"

When the woman says Walmart matches her charitable contributions, does that mean that Walmart doubles the employee donations to help out needful associates?

Or, as I suspect, does Walmart only match contributions to recognized charities that Walmart can use for deductions on their their taxes?

If the Walton family would lead the way in paying living wages, their employees would not need to aid fellow workers in having a good holiday meal. Their employees could afford to buy more at Walmart, be less of a drag on the local economy so more people in the communities where they are located could also afford to buy more at Walmart.

The Walton family should consider doing more for the country and their workers and concentrate less on accumulating more wealth than any one family can spend in generations.

[csziggy]

34. "What do they want their employees to donate with - their food stamps?"

Vanessa Ferreira just now on Rachel Maddow, so no link.

Best comment about this!

[Lancero]

37. Posted this on another topic

Traditionally, for food drives held at a food store, people go in a buy things and then donate what they've just bought.

So, not only are they holding a food drive for employee's that they force to depend on such things... They are also making money from the food drive.

So one could say that this isn't done to benefit the employee's... But rather, to make more money. To exploit their workers twice over for even more gain.

[arcane1]

49. Exactly. It's sick, using their low wages to actually increase sales.

[Quantess]

56. Absolutely.

Well, that's typical, isn't it? They are exploitative by their very nature.

[Ilsa]

57. I think we should all go to WalMart, grab a cart,

fill it and dump the contents in those food drive containers. Just skip the checkout lines.

[silvershadow]

60. So then they are expecting people living in poverty to fill the food pantry for themselves?

Or is the company and management going to fill those boxes? If they had any sense at all they would have placed boxes full of food in that room with a sign that says "Help yourself, have a nice holiday season" or something. What a joke. I truly hope this ignites some more movement with their union drives.

[Blue_Tires]

62. From the archives, 9 years ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x13442

[Aaron8418]

63. My thoughts

This has to be the most pathetic, lamest shit i have ever seen! How are the able to get away with making people feel like they have no hope and get paid poor wages. I think somebody needs to step up and make some changes before something bad happens.