NYT: Wal-Mart to Add More Part-Timers and Wage Caps

[DeepModem Mom]

Wal-Mart to Add More Part-Timers and Wage Caps
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: October 2, 2006

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights and weekends.

Wal-Mart executives say they have embraced new policies for a large number of their 1.3 million workers to better serve their customers, especially at busy shopping times — and point out that competitors like Sears and Target have made some of these moves, too.

But some Wal-Mart workers say the changes are further reducing their already modest incomes and putting a serious strain on their child-rearing and personal lives. Current and former Wal-Mart workers say some managers have insisted that they make themselves available around the clock, and assert that the company is making changes with an eye to forcing out longtime higher-wage workers to make way for lower-wage part-time employees.

Investment analysts and store managers say Wal-Mart executives have told them the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent. Wal-Mart denies it has a goal of 40 percent part-time workers, although company officials say that part-timers now make up 25 percent to 30 percent of workers, up from 20 percent last October....

***

In the confidential memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board last year, M. Susan Chambers, who was recently promoted to be Wal-Mart’s executive vice president in charge of human resources, questioned whether it was cost-efficient to employ longtime workers. “Given the impact of tenure on wages and benefits,” she wrote, “the cost of an associate with 7 years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with 1 year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity.”... At several stores in Florida, employees said, managers have suddenly barred older employees with back or leg problems from sitting on stools after using them for years while working as cashiers, store greeters or fitting-room attendants. Wal-Mart said it had no companywide policy on stool use and did not have enough information to comment....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/business/02walmart.html?hp&ex=1159761600&en=ff931b5bdf8cc0b8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Catshrink]

1. Wal-Mart management is such scum

[nealmhughes]

2. If they could outsource them to Asia they would.

This is the "wave of the future," don't you see the brilliance of the move: the cornering of the market and then subverting wage laws by just not hiring as many people at full time or a just wage.

Capitalism at its finest, enabled by the US Government all the way.

[spag68]

3. W-Mart

Let me see, 7 years = 55% more. that would give them what 9$ an hour, that's just too much in this day and age of such small corporate profits.

[Triana]

4. Mal-Wort Sux

I wish we could just put it out of its nasty business. I have convinced almost my entire family (and a friend or two) not to shop there anymore.

:evilgrin:

[w4rma]

5. The law should be changed to prevent them (or anyone else) from doing this

type of greedy BS.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Page one in print edition today. nt

[Whatsamatteryouhey]

7. What do we expect ?

From this company.I do as I have always done.Buy elsewhere whenever I can.And if Wally world is the only place to buy it.I always ask myself do I really need it.

[toadzilla]

9. wal-mart is never the only place to buy anything.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Hi, toadzilla -- welcome to DU!

[DeepModem Mom]

10. I avoid Wal-Mart, too. Welcome to DU, Whatsamatteryouhey!

[xchrom]

8. wal-mart is a CANCER on the american economy.

it needs to be sujected to surgery and chemotherapy.

[ima_sinnic]

12. I'm sure these "caps" are being applied to executive wages, too

:eyes:

[Megahurtz]

13. The really sick thing about this is

how many other businesses are going to copy Wal-Mart?
Pretty soon the only people with jobs are going to be the Almighty CEO's!:sarcasm:

But the FundieReThugs don't care, they think that they will be Raptured away from it all.:rofl:

[bikesein]

14. Its about time

they did something to curtail thier runaway wages and benefits at Wal-Mart! :sarcasm:

Like to work part-time with no benefits? Vote Republican.

[sarcasmo]

15. Nom #2 for the worst of the worst. Corporate WHORES.