Should americans stop buying at Wal-Mart because they do not pay their employees fair wages?
540385
Wouldn't it make more sense for the employees to quit and get another job if they feel they are not being paid fairly?  Why should it be the responsibility of the the shopper to protest the employees problems?
182562
Absolutely not. We the American people are the ones that voted them in and we are the ones that should say how much they make and when or if they should ever have a pay raise. They are employed by us and in every other business the boss decides who gets a raise and who doesn't. Put the vote to the people and see how much money we could save on the incredible, ridiculous salaries and benefits these politicians get. I am a registered voter and I do exercise my right to vote each and every time an election comes around.
484175
I think logic would tell that what they just did was wrong, unethical and more than likely ILLEGAL.\nYou can't promise a person this wage, and then change it. That'd be like me hiring you, promising you 10 bucks an hour and then you find out that you are only making 8.50..\n\nThey can't rip you off like that. It's an injustice! Fight the power!\n\nSeriously. Go get your money that you worked hard for, and deserve.
443215
CURLIES_10-You Need To Learn The Underlying Issues Before You Become A Taxpayer(Im Assuming Youre A Student Living With Your Parents)\n\nFREEDOMHAMMER Makes The Point Best-It Is GREEDY Unscrupulous EMPLOYERS That ENABLE This Problem And Have Compounded It To This Point\n\nThere are jobs Americans simply won't do, so that the importation of foreigners is essential. Whether these foreign workers are ILLEGAL ALIENS,  guestworkers, or permanent Legal Immigrants is a detail to be worked out by us, the argument goes, but our need for them is unchanged.Even many opponents of the proposed Bush Amnesty assume this to be true, leading them to propose new and improved guestworker programs, with provisions for stricter controls against Permanent Settlement, greater incentives to return, tighter enforcement against Unscrupulous Employers, etc. As well-meaning as such efforts may be, the basic assumption is false — \n\nThere is simply no economic reason to import FOREIGN Workers.If the supply of FOREIGN Workers were to dry up (say, through actually ENFORCING the immigration law, for starters), employers would respond to this new, tighter, labor market in two ways. \n\n1: One, they would offer HIGHER Wages, INCREASED Benefits, and Improved Working Conditions, so as to recruit and retain people from the remaining pool of workers.\n\n2:At the same time, the same employers would look for ways to eliminate some of the jobs they now are having trouble filling. The result would be a NEW Equilibrium, with Blue-Collar Workers making somewhat Better Money, but each one of those workers being more productive.\n\nMany people fear the first part of such a response, claiming that prices for fruits and vegetables would skyrocket, fueling inflation..NOT TRUE..Labor accounts for only about ten percent of the retail price of a head of lettuce,  so even doubling the wages of pickers would have little noticeable effect on consumers.\n\nSeveral people told me they used to do the "jobs Americans won't do" until local employers figured out they could get ILLEGAL Aliens to work for less than half the same amount. As an example, a young landscaper who used to make $15 an hour 10 years ago, can't get a similar job now for more than $8 an hour. Same heat. Same difficult working conditions.  But with the Depressed Wage, AMERICANS – who live in a country where the cost of living is miles above that of Mexico's – can't afford to take such jobs.It's not that he and other Americans don't want to do landscaping anymore; it's just that in heavily trafficked ILLEGAL Alien environments, IT DOESNT PAY WELL ENOUGH ANYMORE.\n\n Younger U.S.-born high school graduates are squeezed at both ends. Jobs that would have gone to them in the past are now being grabbed by college graduates. The lowest-wage jobs are unappealing, and employers will not raise wages as long as ILLEGAL Immigrants will take them.\n\nIf this is what the open borders crowd means by ILLEGAL ALIENS doing jobs Americans don't want, they're right. American workers want jobs that can Earn them a DECENT LIVING in this country. Minimum wage is a fortune south of the border, but it doesn't go far here. \n\n\nthis is to illustrate the absurdity of a "comprehensive" approach to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS , and the more radical of the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT  advocates who are proponents of an "open borders" policy. We don't take a comprehensive, humane approach with drug dealers because they are breaking our laws and causing great damage to this country by poisoning our children. Similarly, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS  violate our laws and Poison our system of Economics by TAKING JOBS  from American Workers, Keeping WAGES ARTIFICIALLY LOW, and Sucking MILLIONS of Dollars of TAXPAYERS MONEY out of our Welfare and Medical Systems. \nNot To Mention The Fact That A Majority Of ILLEGAL ALIENS Live And Work In This Country And Then Send Their Money Back Home To Their
983110
Minimum wage does not meet the basic standard of living for Americans.
587000
when it started out it was, but nowadays your average full time employee can't make ends meet--their "work week" is 28 hours and if someone does happen to go into overtime their managers are trained and told to bump those hours into the next week and to cut hours to accomodate them.  They also abuse their suppliers by buying at a price and then lowering their buying price steadily each year forcing their suppliers to go under--I believe it was Gedney who almost went under when Wal Mart slashed their buying price.  They're also notorious for leaving hugantic piles of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc. for home gardens out in the open, exposed to the elements, including allowing them to drain into city water supplies and runoffs into waterways, contaminating them hideously.  They've also locked illegal immigrant workers in the store to clean & restock and left them locked there till the manager got there the next morning.  Another favorite stunt of theirs to pull is to make workers clock out to unload trucks.  \nWalmart is also one of the most anti union corporations in America--most of those security cameras that you see is to watch and see if there is union activity going on on the premises.  Their workers have a fund that they can donate to freely for other retired workers pension fund the Waldens (or whatever their last name is) combined donated about $5,000 in the last few years (and this is a family that I believe is richer than Bill Gates).  All in all Wal Mart is just the place I shop at because I'm a poor broke ass college student, their ethical practices are non existent to the point that unless you can afford to go no place else you really shouldnt' be going there, like I said I only shop there because I poor and broke.
916342
I work in a shop and parents should keep their children on a leash or out of the store if they will not control them. I am sick of hearing "don't do that or the lady will smack you", meaning me. Smack your own damn kids, don't make me out to be the monster here. And yes, if my kids needed a slap when they were in a shop when they were little, they got one. If I can do it, so can they.\nPeople have NO idea how to behave when they are shopping, they open boxes (usually tearing it) then buy the box behind because the one they opened is damaged, they pick stuff up then put it back in the wrong place ( so the next customer demands that £10 item for the £3 label on the shelf where they found it), and they treat the staff appallingly.\nParents and inconsiderate shoppers should pay for all breakages and damages, you are absolutely right. Also, bring back national service, but forget the army, 2 months in a shop on shop salary every couple of years would be enough to show people what it is really like for those of us who do this work rather than be on unemployment. The salary is rubbish, the hours are antisocial (who wants to work weekends?) and we don't deserve the abuse we take.
119242
Because they use Slave Labor..Very Low Wages overseas..NO UNIONS..No High Over Head.. but it all makes Wal-Mart Happy!!  Buy American when you can!! But even then the American Companies send out products to Mexico to be built s ya never know!!
865431
Well, for one thing, Wal-Mart has one of the worst ratings in terms of how they treat their employees.  I know people who boycott them and have encouraged me to do likewise.\nThey are not like Costco at all.\nWhy would Californians want to encourage a store to treat its peopel poorly?\nWhy would they want to pay when the full-timers get cut back to part-time, lose their bennies, and go on Medicaid and use state-supported supplemental insurance plans (I'm assuming; I'm from NY)?\nWhy would they want the related stress that comes with the anger and worthless feelings of being in such an environment so many hours a week?\nWhy would they want them around at all?
65467
It depends on how you mean to solve that problem.  Do you mean that (more) money should be taken away from the working people, and given to those that do not work (welfare)?  Or do you mean employers should have to pay a livable wage?  \n\nI feel that employers should have to pay a livable wage.  I know that executives sitting in their suits will say "anybody can do the work that I pay my lowest-level employees to do).  Well, I would like to see Mr./Mrs. Suit actually DOING some of that manual labor - they would be crying like babies by the end of the day.  I would like to see all "low level" employees walk off their jobs for one week - and see the "high level" suits scrambling to try to keep their businesses running without them.
526528
This should not be an unfair affair in the working place and rules should basically be the same for all paid employees.  I see this happening today more and more.  Corporations are in for the maximum profit and take advantage of the workers anyway they can.  Unions were supposed to be the buffers between abusive corporations and helpless workers.  If you have a union then tell your union representative otherwise I don't think you have a chance.  You can easily be replaced, if many complain, then they take the jobs abroad where they can buy the government and we can intimidate them with our power, remember, we pay taxes to do that.
1007408
People need to understand the government is not really on your side, both Republicans and Democrats. They take you money no matter what you think of the job they are doing. Businesses on the other hand must please you, the customer, or they will go out of existance. Thats why the government needs to stay out of business affairs, the companys will pay workers whatever the job they are doing is really worth. This keeps the cost to us consumers down. If we force businesses to pay people more for the same amount of work, it will force them to fire the low wage employees as well as make their products cost more. So instead of increasing the minimum wage, I believe we should get rid of it completely.
771923
I guess Walmart has the same problem as concerned consumers who try to buy American made whenever possible.\n\nthere is a dwindling list of available products!  American companies are using cheap foreign labor to cut costs of production.  Even they won't make it in America!\n\nExample:  One brand I would buy at Walmart was Jerzees.  Made in America.  I bought a sweat shirt last week.  The label "Made in Mexico"  Walmart is not the only corporation selling out America. \n\nThe consumer doesn't have much choice anymore. American made is just too scarce.  Congress will figure out this is not good about 10 years from now and start trying to patch it up......but it will be too late.\n\nUntil then, Americans will support child labor, poor working conditions and substandard wages for everyone in the world EXCEPT us.....we want everyone to be middle class at the very least no matter what their work habits are, no matter what education level they achieve.
59914
people like george bu$h who don't care about poverty stricken families and won't raise the minimum wage to help these people out. instead they give tax breaks to large companies like wal-mart to out source their products in turn taking jobs away from american workers, but the all of these poor people have to buy from these giant companies because they undersell the small american family owned businesses, giving them "a better deal", but really just forcing these people to support a broken system where rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
127938
I don't shop at Walmart. They pay low wages, treat their employees poorly in America and in their factories in China. Also most of their products are made overseas which means outsourcing of American jobs. Walmart is bad news for the American Economy. Yeah you get low prices because employees get low wages, poor or no health care, Chinese labors get a scant wage. The phrase "Walmartization of America" or "Walmartizing America" is being used to tell of the negative effects Walmart is having on our economy. Check out the internet. This is one bad company.
26525
From the same article linked to by JayNick, \n\nWal-Mart's average wage is around $10 an hour.\n\nAs Tom Geoghegan, a labor lawyer in Washington (and author of Which Side Are You On?: Trying To Be For Labor When It's Flat On Its Back) points out, the relevant number isn't the average, which would be skewed upward by the large salaries of relatively few highly-paid company executives—Scott, for example, receives, by one reckoning, 897 times the pay of the average Wal-Mart worker—but the median. In the Dec. 16 New York Review of Books, Simon Head, director of the Project on Technology and the Workplace at the Century Foundation, stated, "the average pay of a sales clerk [italics mine] at Wal-Mart was $8.50 an hour, or about $14,000 a year, $1,000 below the government's definition of the poverty level for a family of three." That the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour leaves families even farther below the poverty line is a depressing topic for another day.
1135286
Yes it is perfectly ok.  People who don't ask and people who don't demand to be paid what they are worth are always the ones at the bottom of the pay scale.  You know the people, they are the ones that are shocked when they found out what everyone else is making.