Skip to main content

Home/ APEngLangper711-12/ Group items tagged Wal-Mart

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Ellen L

No Union Please, We're Wal-Mart - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...b3971115.htm

shared by Ellen L on 03 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • As I'm checking out, the elderly man in front of me says to the young woman running the register: "It's so sad to see your favorite store like this." She just shrugs.
  • A media capital Jonquière is not. And yet Wal-Mart's abandonment of this north Quebec outpost in the spring of 2005 made news from Tokyo to São Paulo as an object lesson in the lengths to which America's largest company will go to throttle the threat of unionization. Wal-Mart closed its store here a few months after it was certified by the Quebec government as the only unionized Wal-Mart in North America.
  • Discretion was essential, for they knew that there were workers who either truly liked their jobs without benefit of a union or were so fearful of losing them that they would oppose unionization.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The store soon was riven into bitterly opposed camps. Management began holding mandatory anti-union meetings and issuing dire warnings about the future of the store. Complaints of intimidation and harassment cut both ways, as pro-company employees told of organizers pestering them at home at all hours.
  • Two months later, just as the UFCW and Wal-Mart representatives were preparing to begin mandatory contract negotiations, Wal-Mart Canada issued an ominous press release from its headquarters near Toronto. "The Jonquière store is not meeting its business plan," it declared, "and the company is concerned about the economic viability of the store."
  • Not long ago, Lavoie's 10-year-old daughter came home crying from school after she had been harangued by the child of a former Wal-Mart manager. A hero to some and a villain to others, Lavoie insists that she had no choice but to fight. "Je ne regrette rien," she says. "I regret nothing."
  • Ellen L on 03 Oct 11
     
    This article reports on the thwarting of a unionized Wal-Mart in Quebec. As the first unionized North American Wal-Mart, the leaders went out on a limb to gain support for their cause (although the percent of unionized workers in Canada is greater than that of the US,) and were inevitably shut down for reasons relating to poor value, although few believed this to be true.
Ellen L

US: Wal-Mart Denies Workers Basic Rights | Human Rights Watch - 0 views

www.hrw.org/...rt-denies-workers-basic-rights

Nickel and Dimed Wal-Mart treatment workers

shared by Ellen L on 03 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Human Rights Watch found that while many American companies use weak US laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus.
  • Wal-Mart workers have virtually no chance to organize because they’re up against unfair US labor laws and a giant company that will do just about anything to keep unions out,” said Carol Pier, senior researcher on labor rights and trade for Human Rights Watch. “That one-two punch devastates workers’ right to form and join unions.”
  • Wal-Mart’s relentless anti-union drumbeat creates a climate of fear at its US stores. Many workers are convinced that they will suffer dire consequences if they form a union, in part because they do not hear pro-union views. Many are also afraid that if they defy their powerful employer by organizing, they could face retaliation, even firing.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Managers receive explicit instructions on keeping out unions, many of which are found in the company’s “Manager’s Toolbox,” a self-described guide to managers on “how to remain union free in the event union organizers choose your facility as their next target.”
  • Penalties under US labor law are so minimal that they have little deterrent effect, and Wal-Mart only receives a slap on the wrist when found guilty of illegal conduct.
  • “Wal-Mart should change its anti-union behavior,” said Pier. “When companies like Wal-Mart can regularly violate US workers’ right to organize, they threaten a fundamental right and one that the government is duty-bound to uphold.”
  • Ellen L on 03 Oct 11
     
    Human Rights Watch attacks Wal-Mart for their unfair treatment of their workers. While supressing unions, illegaly firing employees, and evesdropping on conversations, causing employees to be at a severe disadvantage, the corporation faces few legal consequences.
Zach Ramsfelder

Study: Wal-Mart Stores Add to Poverty, Not Prosperity - 1 views

blog.aflcio.org/...-add-to-poverty-not-prosperity

poor treatment of the worker nickel and dimed

shared by Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11
     
    Despite the fact that Wal-Mart is a "Fortune 1" company (it's at the top of the Fortune 500 list), regions with high concentrations of Wal-Marts also have higher poverty rates than average. Note: Posted on a Union Website
  • David D on 04 Oct 11
     
    After reading Nickel and Dimed and looking at outside sources, I have realized that Walmart is probably the worst corporation that we could possibly have in our economy today. One of the most successful companies in America and around the world does not give health benefits, pays minimum wage, and regions that have Walmarts have higher poverty rates! Wal- Mart may boast that they have "always low prices", but at what price? I applaud this source Zach, and recommend it for anyone talking about Wal-Mart in their essays.
Zach Ramsfelder

Attention Wal-Mart workers: Please do not report injuries. - 0 views

www.seattleweekly.com/...-please-do-not-report-injuries

nickel and dimed treatment of the worker

shared by Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11
     
    Much like the slaughterhouses in "Fast Food Nation", Wal-Mart tries its hardest to deny and obstruct workers from filing or receiving workers comp.
Zach Ramsfelder

Wal-Mart recalls animal toy sets for lead - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/...t-recalls-animal-toy-sets-lead

nickel and dimed treatment of the worker

shared by Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11
     
    Like the slaughterhouse companies in "Fast Food Nation", Wal-Mart sells harmful products--in this case tainted with toxic lead rather than crap. Both these lead-painted toys and E. coli-filled burgers pose threats to the most vulnerable members of our society, children.
Zaji Z

Wal-Mart Workers Speak Out - 0 views

www.aflcio.org/...walmart_2_profiles.cfm

Wal-Mart nickel and dimed workers

shared by Zaji Z on 04 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • I work so my husband and I can support our three children. I was really excited when I started working at the Wal-Mart in Kingsville, Texas, in 1996. During orientation, they made it sound so wonderful, like you’re going to get this and that, and they’re really family-oriented. They painted a pretty picture—but it’s not.
  • The managers were always telling us we’d better not go into overtime. But if you actually clocked out when your shift was supposed to be over, it would be like asking to lose your job. I knew the hours I worked, and the overtime would not be in my check.
  • Zaji Z on 04 Oct 11
     
    Though Ehrenreich includes some bias in her social experiment, the situation in which she puts herself in is very real and many people in the lower-class workforce deal with it. The corporation lures one into the trap, and when they're there, the poor workers are put under the mercy of the monster-- a beast of injustice. 
David D

Worked Over and Overworked-New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...20workexcerpt.html

treatment of the worker ethics nickel and dimed fast food nation

shared by David D on 04 Oct 11 - Cached
  • David D on 04 Oct 11
     
    "...slamming the car into Michell and sending him to the hospital with a broken kneecap, a badly torn shoulder, and two herniated disks. Michell was so devoted to Wal-Mart that he somehow returned to work the next day, but a few weeks later... He was fired soon afterward,...to dismiss workers whose injuries run up Wal-Mart's workers' comp bills." This article shows a direct comparison to Fast Food Nation. Kenny Dobbins was also a loyal worker, and when injured on the job he was fired due to a request of compensation. Mike Mitchell caught 180 shoplifters in a two- year period, but when injured on the job, Wal-Mart did not have his back. The article shows the theme of profit over treatment of the worker. The article also has interesting facts/statistics about the middle and low class laborer of the modern day.
Zach Ramsfelder

Walmart sex discrimination case goes before supreme court - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...crimination-case-supreme-court

fast food nation nickel and dimed the jungle treatment of the worker

shared by Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Zach Ramsfelder on 04 Oct 11
     
    Dukes vs. Wal-Mart was a massive Supreme Court case in which 1.6 million female Wal-Mart employees sued the company for discriminating against women when it came to promotions and raises. While the Supreme Court rejected the case's status as a class action (in which many victims file together as one lawsuit), they did not rule on the veracity of the 1.6 million plaintiffs' claims individually, which may represent a huge example of systematic discrimination against women. The especial mistreatment of women employees is also visible in "the Jungle" and "Fast Food Nation".
Ellen L

Barbara Ehrenreich on life on six bucks an hour | Books | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...society

Nickel and Dimed politics

shared by Ellen L on 03 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • 'That was the biggest - and nastiest - surprise,' she says. 'Discovering how big an atmosphere of suspicion there was, how much surveillance we were under. First, there were the drug and personality tests, then the endless rules. At Wal-Mart, we were not even allowed to say "damn".' She touches the discreet gold hoops in her ears. 'These would have been way too big for Wal-Mart. All that was a shock and it got to me
  • As she soon discovered, turnover in the low-wage world is so fast that companies simply use people up - literally working them until their backs give up the ghost or their knees buckle beneath them - and then spit them out. The poor are unlikely to have health insurance or pensions, so there is no prospect of retirement.
  • I thought he was going to say he was paying out so much in labour it was killing him. In fact, he admitted that everything I'd said was true. He was embarrassed and apologised. So I said: "Why don't you raise the wages?" But he shrugged that off.' Their lattes drunk, the only concession she won from him was that he would clean the employee rest room
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The poor don't vote, because they don't see the parties addressing issues that matter to them; and the politicians don't address those issues, because they don't think those people vote.'
  • Ellen L on 03 Oct 11
     
    The author was contacted by an old boss and able to make a concession or two for the employers, talks about the cycle of the poor not being politically represented, and other commentary by the author
1 - 9 of 9
Showing 20▼ items per page