Everyone and everything that has ever been connected with WalMart is full of dickfaced-ness.
I wish they’d fucking move out of my town.
Fuck them, fuck their mothers, fuck their whole goddamned families, they’re fuckass jerks.
I am 100% in support of the rights of corporations to be dickfaces to their employees and customers, I don’t want the government being involved because the gov’t just fucks everything up that they meddle with. But I have used my personal power and voted with my wallet by having a personal boycott of WalMart for the last 2 years.
BTW, only problem for the “fair competition” argument regarding WalMart…what WalMart does is move into a small market and lower their prices (knowing their big operation can eat a loss) to drive everyone out of town and then they raise their prices back up. My father worked with IGA and other small grocery stores in rural Missouri, he saw it firsthand.
They’re assholes, and personally I think we should all exercise our purely free-market libertarian privileges to not fucking shop there.
My personal problems with Walmart have nothing to do with the views that the Walton family has, but, rather, with one thing:
IT’S DESTROYING SMALL BUSINESSES ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!!
While the small businesses of my home town (Sacramento) are fairly secure (due, in large part, to our size), those in smaller communities (including some in our metropolitan area) can’t survive the competition.
Um…isn’t Wal Mart one of the largest suppliers of guns and bullets in North America?
When’s the last time Maxim or Cosmo killed a clerk during a liquor store robbery?
Guns
Bullets
Hunting Knives
Lingere (Including Thongs, and revealing Bras, etc)
Low-riding jeans (in sizes perfect for your 7 year old daughter!)
KY Jelly
Condoms
Fireworks
CD & DVD duplication software.
Bootlegged (fake) Tommy Hilfiger clothes.
A “Slaves on Dope” CD.
Things I cannot buy at Walmart:
Maxim Magazine
A biography on Timothy McVeigh
“The Happy Family” Dolls (The one where it came with gasp a PREGNANT WOMAN!)
A Wrestling action figure that came with a mannequin’s head as an accessory (The character was border-line insane and believed the head spoke to him).
Sheryl Crow’s latest CD.
This store is seriously fucked up!
OK, something is very wrong here. I am about to (sort-of) Defend WalMart and I hate the fucking place. But, some of this stuff in this thread is getting thick.
Jeff Olsen, Binarydrone, etc
You say you are sick of having christian morality shoved down your throat.
I’d say that you are willfully opening your mouth and and saying “Hey guys, in there!” while pointing down your throat the second you walk through the front door at WalMart. Nothing is being forced on you at all. I think their reasoning is really stupid, too. But, if it bothers you that much, stay out of WM.
And IrishGirl, I must have missed the laws that WalMart was able to have passed that restricted free speech. Can you point me to them?
I don’t go for WM’s “family friendly” philosophy, but that’s their business. Why I hate them:
Competition is the American way - but deliberately lowballing prices to eliminate competition is another.
Forcing low-wage workers to put in unpaid overtime.
Illegal anti-union tactics.
They take FOREVER to pay their bills - small companies who can ill afford large accounts receivable are forced to wait for their money until WM feels like parting with it.
Bullying tactics with thier suppliers - WM way or the highway.
Atheist morality rarely features lobbying the government seeking to impose it on others.
When was the last time athiests came to your door insisting you read their literature, go to their meetings, or risk eternal torture?
When was the last war fought on the basis of no belief in god?
No, not at all. I’m afraid I can’t find a cite for this, but as I recall Wal-Mart is even more dependent on female shoppers than most retailers - and given Wal-Mart’s strength in small towns, the South, and the Midwest, its female shoppers are more likely to be socially conservative. For all kinds of reasons, women in general are more likely to find explicit expressions of male sexuality threatening, and these women are less likely to be willing to tolerate it. So Wal-Mart is simply reading its numbers correctly.
I don’t have that much sympathy for arguments about how horribly monolithic Wal-Mart is. In small towns in the Midwest and the South, that’s entirely correct - but then the smaller retailers would probably have the same biases, so what difference does it make? Plus, everything you can’t buy at Wal-Mart is readily available on-line or by subscription, so it’s not like the burden is even that substantial anymore.
They can be seen by those who want to see them, which presumably includes anyone who wants to purchase them. They cannot be seen by those who don’t want to see them. Everyone gets what they want. No inconsistency here.
In this case, no one is being restricted at all. The only one trying to shove anything down someone else’s throat is you, by insisting that the magazines remain uncovered for all to see.
So I guess you’re right about the hypocritical part - just wrong about the subject.
How do they manage this? I thought the wage and hour division regulations were pretty clear on OT and discrimination. Aren’t there fines and possible criminal charges if they disobey these laws?
Particularly the OT part. Part of my job has been in the payroll department in various companies in which I’ve worked, the wage and hour division is pretty clear, how does WM manage to get away with blatantly breaking the law?
<<Would those not be all the ones where Communism was forced upon a country?>>
The Soviet Union did not conquer territory to enforce atheism. Their aggression sprang from long-standing concerns about border security (justified as far as Gernmany was concerned).
<<how does WM manage to get away with blatantly breaking the law?>>
Money talks. They have a massive litigation department, much larger than that of many states. W-Mart has a very bad reputation among the court system visa-vis obstruction, delaying tactics, hiding of evidence, etc. Will get cites this evening - although I think there is another W-Mart thread active that has several good links.
Walmarts traditional fist step when encountering lawsuits, by the way, is to try to get them transfered to a court in Benton County, Arkansas (corporate home office) The year before last, a judge heard a claim filed against them despite the fact he owned about $100,000 in W-Mart stock. He would not recuse.
<<how does WM manage to get away with blatantly breaking the law?>>
Also, they threaten to fire employees who complain, and the employees know that Walmart will indeed fire them. Getting a lawyer to take you employment case against Walmart can be difficult. Most work on a contingent basis and with Walmart’s legal resources it could take years to come to trial. Same goes for any discussion of forming/joining a union–just mentioning it could get you fired.
Isn’t Wage and Hour first federal, then with state divisions? I’m very interested in the links thanks! I’ve heard of other companies doing this to employees and always wondered how they could get away with it.
I think part of it may be the age and inexperience of their workers, they may simply be too naive to know their rights.
They don’t necessarily need a lawyer, don’t they (the employees), realize that the EOE/wage and hour division will uphold their complaints? If the employee has been an exemplary employee, and then makes a complaint of nonpayment for work to the Wage and Hour division, and then mysteriously gets fired? I don’t care if you are Walmart, I can’t imagine the federal gov’t not upholding it’s regulations.
I once had a boss try to lower my pay without notice (at the time, it was actually legal for him to do so, provided he gave two weeks notice), the wage and hour division upheld my complaint and he was forced to pay me the difference. No lawyer necessary, I just filed the complaint with W&H. I immediately quit, and had another job within the day.
