We’ve Pitted WalMart employees here before; they suckle at the teats of the Job-Creating Waltons, then turn around and suckle at the taxpayers’ teat, but read about the latest outrage – now they want their employer to pay for their uniforms. WalMart management has carefully reviewed their request (“We always want to hear from our associates, it makes us a better company”) and rejected it.
They complain that management keeps changing the dress-code, and it costs $50 to buy a new uniform. For heaven’s sake! First of all, WalMart does provide the WalMart-logo smock free of charge! … and gives the employee a standard discount for all Walmart goods. If the employee still doesn’t make enough to buy a simple uniform why doesn’t he have the gumption to get a better job?
Certainly we can’t blame WalMart for changing the dress-code frequently: with similar tired and frenzied looks, customers often have trouble distinguishing employees from other customers.
The idea that WalMart’s hardworking stockholders should pay for uniforms is absurd. WalMart’s annual profit is only $16.4 billion. If they bought each of 2.2 million employees just two $50 suits per year, and were unable to recoup this loss with higher prices or higher productivity, profits would plummet to $16.2 billion per year. Would that be fair to the hardworking stockholders?
Shame on WalMart employees. Go back to North Korea if you prefer communism.
Am I being whooshed?
If Wal-Mart requires a uniform, then Wal-Mart can pay for the uniform. I will not join in and Pit the employees of Wal-Mart. Let’s Pit the owners.
You have to look on the upside. All the employees buying new clothes at WalMart will boost their lagging sales figures.
Didn’t Henry Ford famously pay his workers a high enough wage to afford one of his cars? This is the same thing, WalMart pays their workers enough to buy shitty Chinese clothing, then forces them to buy it.
That’s what the employee is trying to do - at WalMart. If the employee is able to organize thousands of coworkers to bring an issue to management’s attention I suspect his “gumption” is not lacking.
Right-wing rhetoric is so over-the-top, even here at SDMB, that I try to make my sarcasm unmistakable. But I guess right-wing rhetoric in post-rational America is no longer distinguishable from its own caricature. Sorry; my intent was not to Whooosh. (But right-wingers are so lonely at intelligent message-boards, it did seem generous to offer them some help. )
I think I’ve been reprimanded before for facetious Pittings. No one’s used any cuss words yet, so Mods: Feel free to move this to IMHO if that’s a more appropriate forum.