Damn you Walmart!!!

Walmart does things that are often illegal and more often immoral. It is taken to court more than any other company in the US.
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Do you remember Jonquière, the small town in Quebec, Canada, some 500 kilometres from Montreal? Here, the Wal-Mart workers wanted their union UFCW to represent them and to negotiate a collective agreement. The Bentonville-based company was of another opinion, so they just closed the store and sent their workers out on the street. Rather than accepting a collective agreement, they took away the jobs from their workers and the means of living from their families.

Norwegian sideline

No wonder that the Norwegian government - and a growing number of other socially conscious investors - choose to get rid of their Wal-Mart stock. As the Norwegians say, they don't want to be accomplices in Wal-Mart's human rights violations.

In a sideline which many in Norway, and outside as well, saw as rather ridiculous, the US Ambassador intervened and threatened that there would be a reaction against the Norwegian government. So the close ties between the Bush administration and Wal-Mart seem to stretch also far beyond the Washington-Bentonville axis.

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will walmart start to sell GUCCI Laughing

?
it seems that walmart wants us ordinary shoppers to become style conscious .
i can just see all the hollywood types shopping at walmart - i bought a pair of "pool slippers" for $7.96 (canadian !) at walmart yesterday :wink: .
hbg
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Wal-Mart is trying to go chic, by George
MARINA STRAUSS

From Friday's Globe and Mail

It's a destination for cheap underwear, pyjamas and children's overalls, but now the country's largest discounter wants to be known for cheap chic too.

After all, shoppers are already heading to Wal-Mart Canada Corp. for a wide range of their everyday needs, said Chris Johnston, vice-president of apparel. Why not entice them to spend more by offering more stylish clothing at low prices?

So Wal-Mart is quickly expanding its edgy George line to more of its stores, and moving into more categories. But it's not just pitching the fashions in its usual way, by showing its own staff wearing the styles in its flyers.

Instead, Wal-Mart for the first time has hired svelte models to showcase the styles. They're appearing in separate catalogues within its flyers, and in a wide-ranging advertising campaign. The George tagline: "It's about style."

...WALMART - THE NEW FASHION RETAILER ?

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I'm a Wal-Mart sinner. I've been twice, once on a trip from northern California to southern CA, finding I couldn't stand one more minute having no cd's when the radio stations' content was killing me. Layering offense, I went to Starbucks on that stop too. Starbucks might be a good company, I just don't like the intense promotion of burned coffee beans. On the other hand, through them, more people learned the glories of lattes than knew about them before. As it was, I drove off from there much happier.

More recently I succumbed again, when I still hadn't found my cd players when unpacking my scads of boxes. After months of no music, I had to have one 'this minute', and went to Radio Shack. The cd players there were uncompromisingly ugly, every single one; I just couldn't fork over the money. It was late in the day (I don't drive from twilight on), and Wal-Mart was across the street. The cd player I got at Wal-Mart soothed my nerves that day. It won't increase my shopping stops.

I was a small part of a fight to keep Wal-Mart out of my then home town, primarily because I didn't want to see that particular property to be used for that. Secondarily, the town is still in recovery from the mall building.
I might not have participated in the fight if the Wal-Mart went to a town slightly south, one about two miles south, or another about fifteen miles. It would probably have helped that town a couple of miles south and would have been fairly central to the people who would have shopped there most.
Anyway, we won that one.

The person who led the fight then became our assemblywoman; she's someone I admire a lot.

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detano inipo wrote:

Walmart does things that are often illegal and more often immoral. It is taken to court more than any other company in the US.
..............................
Do you remember Jonquière, the small town in Quebec, Canada, some 500 kilometres from Montreal? Here, the Wal-Mart workers wanted their union UFCW to represent them and to negotiate a collective agreement. The Bentonville-based company was of another opinion, so they just closed the store and sent their workers out on the street. Rather than accepting a collective agreement, they took away the jobs from their workers and the means of living from their families. . .

So, this should be wonderful news for many posters on this thread. They closed a store in Jonquière, took jobs from their workers, and the means of living from their families. Those workers are now free to seek out jobs at much higher wages and greatly enhanced benefits. The mom and pop stores are now free to swing into action and do what they do best. Does their decision not meet every objection to Wal-Mart expressed on thread?

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jpinMilwaukee wrote:

You also probably wouldn't find a $3 paint brush at a mom and pop.

Oh... and stealng was a decision you made on your own. Walmart had nothing to do with it.

Egads! Now I am supposed to feel remorse! Now I am going to spend eternity in damnation! It wasn't stealing. I simply missed it when checking out. There were also a dozen things I DID pay for! I think the Walmart people would have laughed if I came back holding my head in shame.

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They would hardly laugh, Nick. You would have made more work for them than the cost of the brush, and exposed the checker as incompetent, probably costing some poor person a job.

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Far be it from me to defend Walmart but I do think it is ironic that they started as this little mom and pop store that is now hated by everyone who wants to see mom and pop succeed.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

If such happened here in Germany, government and health insurance comapnies would be happy. The pharmacy companies, pharmacies and consumers (most people don't like generic drugs, thinking, the original are better - besides, it really doesn't matter since paid by health insurance, they think) not really.

Hmm.. in Holland, the government has been driving a push for prescriptions to be made out for generic rather than brand drugs whenever possible.

Consumers, who have to pay an "own contribution" to the cost of their drugs, with health insurance only kicking in over a set level of costs, seem to be fine with that; I've never heard or read anything about consumers complaining that they want "the original".

Some doctors and many pharmacists however have been obstructing - doctors because they tend to be feted by the drug companies (though there are also many scrupulous doctors who will spontaneously recommend you the cheaper generic alternative); and pharmacists for the same reason and because they make more money on selling brand drugs.

You can buy some of the very basic stuff, like paracetamol/aspirin and the like, freely in chemists' shops in Holland. Not here in Hungary - you have to go to the pharmacy for everything.

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I think, the situation in the Netherlands and here is very similar .... including the resons given for it.

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detano inipo wrote:

Walmart does things that are often illegal and more often immoral. It is taken to court more than any other company in the US.

That doesn't surprice me since t's the largest company in the US, so has more opportunity to do illegal things. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to have this claim quantified and sourced. Also, a suit is not a conviction -- and if the do-gooders of a nation declare you The Enemy, they sue you a lot. <shrug>

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nimh wrote:

Hmm.. in Holland, the government has been driving a push for prescriptions to be made out for generic rather than brand drugs whenever possible.

Consumers, who have to pay an "own contribution" to the cost of their drugs, with health insurance only kicking in over a set level of costs, seem to be fine with that; I've never heard or read anything about consumers complaining that they want "the original".

Also, there's no reason why they shouldn't, since the active ingredient in the generic drug is identical to that the original. The reason the generic drug can be cheap isn't that some bootlegger deep in the forest does something illegal or immoral. It's that the active ingredient's patent has expired, the producer of the original no longer has a monopoly on it, and competing producers can now drive the prices down.

Meanwhile Target has follows suit. Nobody has demonized it for that yet.

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detano inipo wrote:

Do you remember Jonquière, the small town in Quebec, Canada, some 500 kilometres from Montreal? Here, the Wal-Mart workers wanted their union UFCW to represent them and to negotiate a collective agreement. The Bentonville-based company was of another opinion, so they just closed the store and sent their workers out on the street. Rather than accepting a collective agreement, they took away the jobs from their workers and the means of living from their families.

They TOOK AWAY THE JOBS???? A job is an implicit contract between an employer and and employee. The employer makes an offer, and the employee is free to accept the offer or not.

If an employee is dissatisfied with the parameters of the job, he is free to quit. If a company is dissatisfied with the parameters of the jobs that they are offering their workers, they too are free to close their business.

I think that Wal-Mart was making a wise business decision to keep the unions out of their store. As someone said, now the mom and pops in the area can take up the slack left by the demise of Wal-Mart in Quebec.

I really wonder whether the shoppers of Jonquiere are better off or not without Wal-Mart.

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Quote:

Rather than accepting a collective agreement, they took away the jobs from their workers and the means of living from their families.

What were the workers doing, before Wal-mart came to town?

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I also like the term "accepting a collective agreement". It reminds me of the sound of one hand clapping. Just as the clap requires two hands to make it, an agreement takes at least two parties who agree. If WalMart doesn't agree to bargain with a collective, there is no agreement for it to accept. Yet Detano Inipo makes it sound as if WalMart did a terrible, terrible thing by not accepting what the union had agreed to (presumably among its workers).

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roger wrote:

They would hardly laugh, Nick. You would have made more work for them than the cost of the brush, and exposed the checker as incompetent, probably costing some poor person a job.

It was the self-check machine! You know, the one where you scan and check the items yourself! No checker lost his/her job. The world did not end. Perhaps the $3.00 paint brush will be used as a tax write off at the end of the year! This actualy stimulates growth! Productivity increases! Walmart wil be forced to buy another paint brush from China! Mutual understanding and cooperation ensues! The world is saved!

You don't need to thank me.

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Thomas wrote:

I also like the term "accepting a collective agreement". It reminds me of the sound of one hand clapping. Just as the clap requires two hands to make it, an agreement takes at least two parties who agree. If WalMart doesn't agree to bargain with a collective, there is no agreement for it to accept. Yet Detano Inipo makes it sound as if WalMart did a terrible, terrible thing by not accepting what the union had agreed to (presumably among its workers).

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I have no inside information on Walmart. I don't shop there and do not know anyone who works there. So I have to rely on the media for information.
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Walmart has been taken to court more than any other company in the US. It has received the 'Sweatshop Award' regularly. It squeezes and mistreats its workers in order to sell goods at lower prices. It is an all-round sweetheart.
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It has an army of lawyers and does not need nice guys like Thomas to defend it. It had to 'cut and run' (to use a Bush expression) in Germany. I wonder why.
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I compare it to factories that make landmines or cluster bombs. They may be within the law, but they are immoral.
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http://www.laborrights.org/press/Wal-Mart/wmlawsuit_reuters_091305.htm

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detano inipo wrote:

Walmart has been taken to court more than any other company in the US.

Yes.

Now suppose I said Blacks have been taken to court more than any other race in the US, relative do their numbers. I don't know if this is true or not, but suppose for a moment that it is. Would that prove blacks are evil, or does it prove how many racist bigots are still out there? Without any further information it's impossible to say.

The same applies when WalMart gets sued more often than other companies, in proporton to their size. Again, you have provided no evidence fort his, but let's suppose it's true. Does that reflect the zeal of the do-gooders who sue, or does it reflect how evil WalMart is? And again, it's impossible to say without further information. At the very least, you'd have to look whether they get convicted more often than other companies.

detano inipo wrote:

It has an army of lawyers and does not need nice guys like Thomas to defend it. It had to 'cut and run' (to use a Bush expression) in Germany. I wonder why.

Two points. One, as someone who believes sweatshops are generally a good thing, I am probably not your idea of a nice guy. Two, there were a number of reasons WalMart didn't make it in Germany, but legal trouble wasn't among them. The two chief reasons were inept adaptation to the German customers they were selling to, and the fact that when WalMart arrived in Germany, local retailers had already beaten WalMart at their own cost-cutting game when WalMart arrived in Germany.

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Thomas wrote:

Two, there were a number of reasons WalMart didn't make it in Germany, but legal trouble wasn't among them.

You certainly can say so.

However, WalMart had - ruling of the North Rhine Westphalian State Labour Court accepted by them - violated the Basic Law.
And they lost a couple (dozens) labour law trials at lower labour courts.

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Thomas wrote:

One, as someone who believes sweatshops are generally a good thing, I am probably not your idea of a nice guy.

Ok, I'll bite... why are sweatshops a good thing? And, how do you define do-gooders?

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Comparing a giant multinational to black people is an apple to orange idea.
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I am surprised how many in this discussion are defending Walmart and even painting mom and pop stores as evil. I guess some of us are judging everything in life by PROFIT and nothing else.
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Even the biggest arms manufacturers that make billions per year, can't stop shady practices. Greed is perhaps the root of all evil.
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http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/020903_sweatshop.cfm
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http://www.nfsi.org/walmart/Lawsuits%20a%20volume%20business%20at%20Wal-Mart.htm
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http://www.space.com/news/051021_spacex_lawsuit.html

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Damn you Walmart!!!

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