And they wanted more money and benefits because sliding packages over a scanner or stocking shelves requires extremely complicated levels of training and skill? No wonder Walmart is taking over the grocery and drug business. I can see Walmart branded vehicles sitting in their showrooms.

 

$15/hours cashiers is a left over from the days when the cashiers actually had to have skill to punch keys all day long.

No reason for it any more.

 

I can't see running a register being worth $15/hr.

 

I live in a small town that has few smaller retail stores. There are Super Walmarts within 20 miles any direction that you go. I would gladly shop the smaller retail stores but they do not seem to carry the brands of the products that I use. I usually end up stopping there, and still driving to Walmart because I could not get all of the items that I needed. We have two local big name grocery stores that are about 1/2 mile from my home but the prices are outrageous!! Plus, everytime that I go there, I end up getting overcharged on many of my items. I know that I save $30 to $40 every time that I buy my groceries at Walmart. I hate the fact that Walmart hurts these smaller stores but these stores have to give us an incentive to shop there. Their prices are simply too high!!

 

Wow, I let it ride for a while and look at the responses. Some very mis-informed individials out there. I guess all the news reports concerning retailers nationwide has gone un read around here. So it looks like, the attitude here is buy cheap oversea's junk from the guy that is driving your local economy. Remember people if you remove the competition, then you do not need to operate with a low price gaurentee, you get to set the prices. Even toy manufacturers are refusing to sell first round toys to walmart. Why, to make more profit, and to help save retailers such as Toys R Us, and Kaybee Toys, both reporting losses for the year, even downsizing, so keep buying it all from the walmart, some day you will be working thier wishing you made 15 bucks an hour, and had your old benefits, and by then you can mortagage your home thier too, Walmart Home Mortgage. Seems socialistic to me.

 

Wal-Mart socialistic?! Sam Walton has made more people millionaires than any other person that I can think of, with the possible exception of Bill Gates. Wal-Mart was one of the first companies to give stock options, profit-sharing and lots of other benefits to his employees back in the 70's when doing so wasn't common. So, I guess that making his employees shareholders is socialism now?

 

Maybe wrong wording, more of a limiting choice of services for the general public.

 

How would you define capitalism? By supporting inefficent, wage/benefit heavy entities? That'd be quite a business plan to lay on the board and stockholders:

"The consumer market will continue to buy our products even though our quality is low, our prices high and we provide poor customer service'. Sounds to me like a Dilbert plan.

 

I personally would have no problem giving the smaller stores my business if the selection was better. I am not going to spend my money on items that I do not like just to keep them in business. I admit, it is much quicker to shop the smaller stores. I have always hated the long lines at Walmart. My mother was a manager at a small retail store for over 20 years and I saw them begin to struggle with the competitors. But too, they began to offer very little variety which gave shoppers the desire to shop elsewhere. Out of curiosity, how many people read the labels of items to see where they were made, and make a choice based on this?

 

you know i was going to quit shopping at walmart a few years back when i got hurt in their SUPERcenter and they refused to pay a medical bill. In fact their insurance company dragged it out for a year so i couldnt sue. But i still shop there cuz it is just to convient.

 

How did you get hurt at Wal-mart?

 

k mart is better

 

i was in ther shopping one night ,going down a main i in front of electronics. i stopped to look at something and a guy was pulling a pallet of freight down the aisle . instead of him saying exuse me or letting me know he was there he was puuling it and tried to go around me. now you know how narrow them aisle are and here i am 6'8 and 450 lbs, he thought he could get a 4' pallet with 6' of freight by me. well i was wearing sandels and he drug it over my left foot. i never knew he was there till it happened. well it rip a few of my nails off and broke 2 toes. the management was a pain cuz they wouldnt give me their names or anything i guess it maybe policy. i had to call home office and find out they're ins. company and everything. you know it really ****es me off that people can spill hot coffee on them or anything else stupid , get a million dollars and i get hurt in wally world and they wont even take care of $800 of medical bills. i made it plain to the ins. lady i DIDNT want money out of it . ijust wanted help with the bill . what sux is my wifes ins.@ work didnt kick in for bout 3 weeks. sorry for being so winded on it but its been 2 years and i still get irratated when i think of it.

 

I hope everything worked out in the long run for you. I guess the moral of the story is that even good companies can behave poorly on the local level. It only takes one bad manager to give a bad rep to an 875,000 employee company.

 

I recently read that Walmart gets 8 cents of every retail dollar spent in the US, which makes them a major target for in-store injury claims based on actual and not-so-actual occurences (not including 100dolla68 in the latter).

Most large companies are self-insured for such occurences up to where their blanket liability starts, usually well over $1 million. All such expenses are charged to the individual store where the occurances take place, not a fun bottom line experience if a serious claim.

My experience with those claims is limited to policies and procedures of a retail division operating under a corporate umbrella. Those policies were no recognition of the injury if sustained relating to store fixtures or conditions and a nuisance settlement of $1500 if pertaining to a product, charged back to the product manufacturer. That was some time ago, when a greater percentage of people were covered by health care insurance, but our general counsel reported the policies reduced claims to a manageable percentage due to ambulance chasers understanding we would fight them all the away through a jury trial and most, in that era, didn't have the resources to carry a long legal action on a contingency basis for awards common during that period.

I'd think there hasn't been much change, including Walmart's policies, other than budgeting for larger awards and, thanks to improved software, the ability to track known scam artists.