I need a VERY simple explanation on why WAL-MART is bad

[romantico]

My sister LOVES WAL-MART. Thats the only place she spends her paycheck at EVERY weekend. My sister & her boyfriend don't read. They don't follow the news. They both think Bush is pretty cool but can't tell you why. My sister has 2 college degrees but barely makes enough each week to get by. Anyway, I told her NOT to shop at WAL-MART & she asked why. Now, I could answer her question but I know I'd loose her early on.

I'm looking for something to put into her CHristmas card/package we send her. Is there ANYTHING simple that explains why Wal-Mart is bad? I'm not looking for links to articles or long stories. Something thats simple enought for her to follow. She has a rather limited attention span these days (I think its mostly her boyfriend. My mom actually thinks she's become dumber since they have been dating) Thansk all!

[muchacho]

1. It's un-American

Wal-Mart compells it's vendors to ship jobs overseas to allow Wal-mart to have low prices. they even will tell vendors how to do this and hook them up with people in China.

[TahitiNut]

2. The wealthiest family on the planet exploiting labor in the US and China.

Union-busting, sexist, illegal immigrants, and forcing employees to work 'off-the-clock' ... deliberately underemploying their workers to avoid giving them a health-care benefit. On top of which, they overwhelmingly finance the most corrupt right-winger politicians. It's a criminal enterprise ... and the largest company in the U.S.

[4morewars]

3. Stupidity is contagious ?

Well, that would explain the mess we are in !

Seriously though, there is no simple one liner to explain wallymart's destructiveness. But here's my attempt:

They suck all the money out of a local economy and send it to billionaires in Arkansas ?

[benburch]

4. A few reasons...

1. They treat their employees like dirt.

2. They force american companies to sell them goods so cheaply they are forced to outsource.

3. They STOLE a lot of toys from Toys For Tots... Just took them out of the bin and put them back on the shelf and sold them again!!! And their excuse was (paraphrase) "The bin was not where the security camera could see it, so we have no idea if people shoplifted the toys and put them in the bin without paying."

The last one was enough for me. I will not even go to a Wal-Mart for emergency plumbing supplies at 3 AM. I'd rather have a flooded basement!!!

[4morewars]

20. I'd forgotten about #3

How fuckin evil is that ? Their greed knows NO bounds!!!
Thanks Ben !!!!!!!! :yourock:

PS: I heard you on Peter Werbe's show 2 weeks ago ! I saw Peter at a "Women In Black" anti-war march yesterday. I'm sure he will mention it tonight.
Peace, Joe

[blondeatlast]

24. OMG. Got a link to number 3? I've got to e-mail that to everyone!

That's just fucking sick.

[benburch]

33. Here is your link. CERTIFIED true by snopes.com!

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/walmart.asp

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. And the story never said

if they replaced the toys taken from the box.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. On the "treat their employees like dirt"...

Besides pay and benefits, which are universally horrid in all Wal-Marts (which is the case for a lot of retailers), how employees are treated is almost entirely dependent on if your manager is nice or a complete douche bag. The problem is that Wal-Mart doesn't fire the managers who are complete douche bags because they don't care.

[Tansy_Gold]

45. Ex-Wal-Martyr checking in

The manager of the store where I spent 13 months was one of the worst.

I was several times locked in the store after I had clocked out and was not allowed to leave -- nor be paid -- because they feared other employees would sneak out without completing their work. Although I was not allowed to work while punched out, neither was I allowed to leave the premises. I finally threatened to call the police and pointed out the safety violation of having ALL exits locked.

Safety violations were routine. Lower-level employees were summarily fired -- "We have to set an example" -- for the slightest infractions, while managerial types were allowed to do as they pleased.

When accidents did occur, employees were urged not to report them. Management routinely sponsored "safety prize" contests, in which a week or month without "reported" accidents would qualify all associates for a prize drawing, usually something very desirable -- television, computer, a jeep if there were no reported injuries for a year -- but of course only one employee would "win." Just the chance for this was enough to get employees to turn on each other and pressure each other not to report even serious injuries. This lets Wal-mart off the hook for any liability.

Gender discrimination was rampant. I'd need at least one long chapter in one long book to describe just the incidents I experienced or saw first hand. Racial and ethnic discrimination was even worse; the manager admitted he had been born and raised in a small Texas town where he didn't have much socialized with African Americans or Hispanics; he had little use for them in our store.

Managers were rewarded annually for store bottom-line performance. One way to boost the bottom line was to keep the payroll as low as possible. Although we were constantly told the store needed new employees to bring us up to full staffing, we never approached much more than 75% of our full complement. This meant very short staffing on week-ends (when full-timers already had their 39.5 hours in and weren't allowed to work for fear of incurring over-time charges) for part-timers. ALL overtime was scrutinized with a fucking microscope, and some employees who managed to actually get overtime were fired as being "not team members." In other words, they cut into the manager's bonus.

One way of boosting Wal-Mart's overall profit is to report excess "loss." It works this way:

The Loss Prevention department is in charge of making sure than any non-sellable merchandise is returned to the supplier for full credit and that losses by theft are 1.) kept to an absolute minimum and 2.) accounted for to obtain "credit" on the manager's balance. Sometimes this meant that slow-moving merchandise was intentionally damaged and returned for credit rather than be sold at a loss. I saw this, and my dad, who was a department manager in another store for seven years, also saw it. Managers also improved their theft accounting by retrieving packages from the parking lot -- usually small toys or electronic -- after customers had paid for the merchandise and opened it, but then the managers reported this as "stolen." At times this could amount to several hundred dollars a day. Again, I saw this and my dad saw it. In fact, he was told to do it.

The manager of the store where I worked got into a fight with one of the security guards shortly before the store opened for business. There was a shoving match and the manager slammed the guard against the outside wall of the building. The guard called the cops, the manager was arrested. This is not hearsay -- it was reported in the local newspaper. Any other employee would have been terminated on the spot, but this manager stayed on. As far as I know, he's still there, seven years later. I haven't set foot in the place in five years.

Wal-Mart often brags about its donations to the local community in the form of charity. My daughter was a recipient of a $1000 scholarship from another store in the Phoenix area. She and I went to the store to pick up the check and thank the store, in the belief that Wal-Mart had funded this. We found out later that not a single penny came from the company; every bit of the $1000 had been raised by the employees, but Wal-Mart took credit. The same thing happened frequently at the store where I worked.

Wal-mart pushed Vlasic -- makers of pickles -- into bankruptcy by forcing them to lower their prices below survivability level. The humongous buying power of Wal-Mart makes them the 300-pound bullies -- "You sell to us at our price, or you won't sell to nobody." Few manufacturers of anything can stand up to that.

Wal-Mart is destroying union jobs in grocery stores around the country.

Wal-Mart's central purchasing office is in China, where they buy from slave-labor factories all the cheap plastic crap too many Americans are salivating to buy.

Wal-Mart has no concern for culture, history, or humanity. If you think you have to have whatever it is you have to have, think twice or even three times before you get it at Wal-Mart. Do you really need it, really really? Can you get it somewhere else for almost the same price, like Target or Costco? Can you do without something else in order to afford the higher price at a competitor?

There's more, lots more. Wal-Mart is as disgusting as factory hog farm, an unsanitary chicken processing plant, or an overflowing sewage treatment facility.

[benddem]

5. They mistreat their employees besides other things.

do not pay them a living wage, provide terrible health care benefits that most employees cannot afford. They create havoc for small business owners. Walmart forces manufacturers to move their production overseas so they can give the product at the price walmart wants. They've forced manufacturers to move from the states to mexico and then to china.
In one town I lived in Walmart put all the small businesses out of business. Then we had no where else to shop. The store was filthy the employees surly . It was a 20+ mile drive to go to other stores.
My brother and I owned a sports equipment store in a small town which was frequented by people from 50-100 miles to the east, south and north...there are mountains west of us. We did really well..then Walmart moved a store on the north end of town and one at the south. The traffic from the other towns was cut off. This was not an accident this is their plan.
I will not shop in a Walmart EVER...and neither should your sister-sister-in law?

[Pirate Smile]

6. Here is a link to an article titled The Evil that is Walmart

http://www.intellectualpoison.com/WalMartisPureEvil.html

[PurityOfEssence]

7. They're union-busters, they abuse their employees and suck public monies

because their workers avail themselves of emergency medical services for which they can't pay. All this is done by running out all other retailers (which is fair game, to a certain degree) and selling extremely cheap goods made by slave labor abroad.

They coerce their employees to work overtime off the clock, pay very low wages and operate like thugs. All this is done while the heirs to the fortune are literally some of the richest people on the face of the planet.

For the abuse of emergency medical services alone, they deserve to be pilloried as leeches of the first order; I don't mean the employees, I mean the management that allows this system to exist.

On edit: they also contract for janitorial services from companies that use illegal immigrants and sometimes pay as little as $1/hr; they know full well what they're doing when they engage in this, but their god is money, and it must be appeased in any way possible.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. 3 MAIN reasons

10 The manner in which Wal Mart negotiates to create lower prices whether the vendor is domestic or not hurts more than just Wal Mart employees. Vlasick pickles almost went broke trying to supply Wal Mart with gallon jar of pickles at 2.99 a gallon. IT ended up killing their image as an upscale deli pickle so it HURT a small company.

2) Wal Mart does their best to keep as many part time employees as possible so as to not provide health benefits. This HARMS communities as people working in those communities don't have healthcare and end up using public services thereby pushing the costs of care onto the community because of wal marts labor policies.

3) Wal Marts labor policies are and especially their super stores take business away from unionized grocery stores thereby eliminating good paying jobs

[jmowreader]

42. They didn't "almost" go broke selling those pickles

Vlasic was forced into Chapter 11 over those pickles.

[idiosyncratic]

9. Yes, they are very un-American

In a lawsuit where an American-based TV manufacturing company claimed Chinese companies were "dumping" cheap TVs here for less than the cost of manufacture, Walmart took the side of the Chinese manufacturers.

Fortunately, the court saw the case for what it was and ruled in favor of the American manufacturing company so they are still in business, in this country . . . for now.

[glitch]

10. Their cheap prices are based on slave labor. If she's OK with that

then she should shop at Walmart.
It really isn't any more difficult than that.

[JanMichael]

11. Because it's a wage depressing, benefit erasing, union busting...

...sprawl inducing, public health use encouraging, public school sapping, Vlasic pickle killing, cheap labor supporting rich imbecilic assholes, company.

Is that simple enough?

[OneTwentyoNine]

38. But Walmart announced they will pay Union wages....in CHINA

They'll pay workers in China union wages(if it comes down to that)just to get their foot in the door in that region of the World.

Union wages for American workers?? Nah,go fuck yourselves!!

[mcscajun]

12. Just a few paragraphs...

...cobbled from various sources:

The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of the 10 richest people in the world, five are Waltons--the ruling family of the Wal-Mart empire.

Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way--by roughing people up. The corporate ethos emanating from the Bentonville headquarters dictates two guiding principles for all managers: Extract the very last penny possible from human toil, and squeeze the last dime from every supplier.

The average employee makes only $15,000 a year for full-time work. Most are denied even this poverty income, for they're held to part-time work. While the company brags that 70 percent of its workers are full-time, at Wal-Mart "full time" is 28 hours a week, meaning they gross less than $11,000 a year.

Health-care benefits? Only if you've been there two years; then the plan hits you with such huge premiums that few can afford it--only 38 percent of Wal-Marters are covered.

Workers' compensation laws, child-labor laws (1,400 violations in Maine alone), surveillance of employees--you name it, this corporation is a repeat offender.

China. For years, Wal-Mart saturated the airwaves with a "We Buy American" advertising campaign, but it was nothing more than a red-white-and-blue sham. All along, the vast majority of the products it sold were from cheap-labor hell-holes, especially China.

Wal-Mart does not want the U.S. buying public to know that its famous low prices are the product of human misery, so while it loudly proclaims that its global suppliers must comply with a corporate "code of conduct" to treat workers decently, it strictly prohibits the disclosure of any factory names and addresses, hoping to keep independent sources from witnessing the "code" in operation.

They force employees to work after ordering them to punch out. In Texas alone this practice of "wage theft" is estimated to have cost employees $30 million per year. Wage theft or "off-the-clock" lawsuits are pending in 25 states. In New Mexico they paid $400,000.00 in one suit and in Colorado they had to pay $50 MILLION to settle one class-action case brought against them. In Oregon a jury found them guilty of locking employees in the building and of forcing unpaid overtime.

[Tsiyu]

13. Break it down into a list of five

1. Wal Mart is the biggest importer of Chinese goods. China forces women to have abortions.

2. Walmart undercuts prices, destroying sales for mom and pop places, then jacks up prices once they're the only game in town. They further hurt the communities in which they do business by paying such low wages, WalMart workers must go on welfare or procure food stamps in order to feed their families.

3. It's been proven that WalMart forces workers to work for free to avoid overtime pay and fulltime status for workers. They also discriminate by not fairly promoting women. They also hire undocumented workers so they can exploit them.

4. WalMart builds stores without regard to what's best for a community or its environment, often taking people's land away through the abuse of Eminent Domain - land that has been in families for generations.

5. WalMart forces American goods producers to sell for zero profit in order to keep their contracts. They are NOT good for the American community, the American worker, the American consumer or the American producer.

[Osamasux]

46. On your #4

Wal-Mart does not really give a damn what the local government thinks, either. In my town they didn't even apply for permits. They just came in and cleared about a half acre of old growth "for testing". We fined them $10,000 per tree. They fought it and lost, but they really did not care.

They are even more arrogant than Bush.

[Armstead]

14. Frankly it sounds like she has been so dumned-down that....

the only way to get her to realize the simple truth is if she dumps the boyfriend.

But seriously, 2 college degrees and not wanting to look past her nose means it is probably an uphill battle.

The truth about it is simple, but it doesn't hit home to people unless they are willing to look a slightly bigger picture than how much they might save on a shopping trip there.

My suggestion is just sit her down and explain it as clearly and passionatly as you can, and hit the points that she might relate to personally.

If that doesn't work, you might as well accept her apathy and move on about it.

[fortyfeetunder]

15. You are paying Wally's employee health coverage

http://www.ufcw.org/issues_and_actions/walmart_workers_campaign_info/facts_and_figures/walmartonbenefits.cfm

"Nearly 700,000 Wal-Mart workers are forced to get health insurance coverage from the government or through spouses’ plans. Wal-Mart shifts the cost of health insurance to taxpayers and other employers, driving up the health costs for all of us."

[Radical Activist]

16. Everytime you shop at Wal-Mart you send more American jobs to China

They have done a lot to drive more manufacturers to China, and they are the nations #1 importer of Chinese goods. You also support illegal immigrant labor, child labor, union busting, and the destruction of family owned businesses.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

30. your title should be a bumper sticker

simple, to the point, and plays off the patriotism angle

[Robin Hood]

17. On top of all the anti-American issues that they bring up.

I would have to say that a base reason on why not to shop at Wally world is that all of their merchandise is crap!!!! But it does appear that people enjoy filling their houses with crap made in China at the expense of the American worker and economy. After they get their shopping high on at Wally World, they go out to their imported cars and drive off into the Sunset on imported gas and oil, while sporting a "Support our troops" bumper sticker and listening to Limbaugh or O'Reilly tell them what great Americans they are because they support a slaughter for imports and hate gays.

However, I was forced to buy some surround sound speaker stands from them because no one else had any. Honest, I checked. Sigh...

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. On the imported cars

I know ironic, but if I buy a toyota, it was assembled and manufactured in Tenessee... if I buy a Ford... it was assembled in Mexico and the parts made in Canada... some of it was assembled in the US.

That is why it is CRITICAL to check where the car was made

Our Honda (HYBRID) was assembled in the United States, and only the power plant was made in Japan... that I can buy, we ain't got the technology. (Oh and the Ford Escape, that is the First Gen power plant Ford bought the rights from the Japanese, the civil has a THIRD gen power plant)

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Frame the debate

Ask your sister if her employers have put life insurance policies on her, hoping to cash out if she dies. Walmart does.

Also ask your sister is the crap she buys at Walmart LASTS... and ask her why is she not getting by? explain to her that the people at Walmart are Cheap Labor Conservatives who woudl love it if she earned minuimum wage

[Bronco69]

21. The only thing I can add to the other posts is that Wal Mart takes

out life insurance policies on it's employees here in Texas and makes itself the beneficiary. It's called dead peasant insurance or something like that. When the employee dies, Wal Mart gets several thousand dollars and the employee's family gets nothing.

[Digit]

29. That IS disgusting!

I refuse to shop there anyway, but that is SICK!

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. How can that be legal?

Do the employees in question know this?

[jmowreader]

44. Actually, it is legal. Disgusting, but legal.

The "dead peasant" policies are an offshoot of the dead-executive policies that any good company has. If your leadership dies, you're going to take a hit in the pocketbook until you can get a new person in there--and if someone with unique skills dies, you're going to take a hit no matter what. (The easiest one to remember: Randy Dorton, who ran Hendrick Motorsports' engine department and was killed in a plane crash coming into Martinsville Airport.)

The same basic policy, in lower dollar amounts of course, is what they're using as the dead-peasant policy. No one really thinks that a Wal-Mart associate is irreplaceable; this is pure greed.

Last week I was spying on Wal-Mart--they sell some building materials like roofing tar and ladders, so I check on their prices and whatnot. I noticed that someone was using a forklift in a customer-accessible area--there were no spotters, they didn't block off the working area...I counted at least 10 OSHA violations on that operation, not counting the trail of hydraulic fluid streaming out from a broken fitting on the machine. Hydraulic fluid on a forklift tire has the potential to cause the machine to overturn, which is a major cause of fatalities. Are they TRYING to collect on these policies? Those stores are full of safety violations.

So to the OP, here's one you can use that she might actually listen to: You can get killed in one of those places.

[proud patriot]

22. They destroy America

period .

1) wall-mart lies to the consumer by leading them to believe
that wall-mart products are made in America .

2)mislead w/ commercials saying wall-mart has great
Health benefits for their employees , when in fact
the average employees get taught by wall-mart to
game the welfare system .

3)force vendors to buy and manufacture products
overseas to do business with wall-mart , after
contracts have been signed for a higher price .
Thuggery IMO

4)When a wall-mart super center opens ,family
owned businesses go bankrupt .

[China_cat]

23. Main reason that she should understand

WalMart employees can't afford to shop there. They don't make enough.

[Ms_Mary]

25. Walmart is one of the driving forces in outsourcing

They push their suppliers into debt to fulfill contracts so the suppliers go oversears and employ slave labor to they can get a cheaper product. They are also the bane of small retailers like ME.

[Padraig18]

26. Anti-union, destroy small,locally-owned business, exploit cheap labor...

There are all SORTS of reasons why Wal-Mart is bad.

[tanyev]

27. And an argument for the fundies in your life:

Since WalMart is the biggest player in using Chinese companies (or forcing American companies to move manufacturing to China) for goods and contributing to our huge trade deficit

and China is the only country that FORCES married women to abort healthy and desired children

ipso facto--- WalMart supports FORCED ABORTION!!

AZDemDist6's thread from last week:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1409806

[AngryOldDem]

28. Buy her a copy of "Nickel and Dimed in America"

Barbara Ehrenreich has a whole chapter about her time at Wal-mart.

In the meantime, what others have said here:

Wal-mart treats its people like shit.
They use exploited foreign labor.
They undercut local (and other) businesses to the point where they cannot compete, and thus go OUT of business.

[OutsourceBush]

31. because (is that simple enuf?)

[MissMarple]

32. Cheap jewelry from WalMart made with lead causes loss of IQ points.

If your sister is seemingly having some loss of reasoning skills perhaps she should check her Walmart trinkets. The report was in the Denver Post today, it was especially in reference to children, but hey, I wouldn't take any chances. Several retailers were mentioned but Target and Nordstrom were the only ones cited for doing something about it.

I'll try to find a link.

Here's one but it doesn't mention WalMart:

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1204/192497.html

http://www.toyjewelryrecall.com/recall/consumer_frameset.htm

I'm not finding today's article.

[Hippo_Tron]

35. Question, are Wal-Mart employees unionized?

If not, they definately should be.

[bvar22]

36. Because:

Money Spent at Wal-Mart is used
to Kill God's Unborn Children

Wal-Mart Supports
Forced Abortions !!!

I'm trying to keep it simple so the bush supporters can understand and remember.
Basically, the above statement are true. As a method of population control, the Chinese government (Communist Authoritarian) Forces pegnant women to have abortions after (IIRC)two children.

If abortion is not their issue, then salve labor, or Communisn if they are Regaenites.

[benburch]

37. Great idea for a bumpersticker! nt

[NuttyFluffers]

40. response: the reason she *has* to shop wal-mart...

is because of wal-mart. with 2 degrees she should have more upward mobility, but she doesn't. ask her to answer the question, "why?" then reply, "in the land of the free why aren't you free enough to earn more so you don't have to buy at wal-mart?"

either her head explodes (and thus she is liberated from her suffering) or she 'gets it,' or she's befuddled into obeying. either way she does the right thing.

[readmoreoften]

41. SIMPLE REASON

Walmart goes into small communities. Local businesses cannot compete with 'one-stop-shopping'. Their businesses fail. Soon, the former owners of lucrative businesses have no choice but to work for walmart at minimum wage. Small town economies are decimated.

[Hippo_Tron]

48. Not to mention that people don't have the option of shopping elsewhere

I don't there that there exists a sporting goods store or a section of a store with sporting goods around here anymore that isn't a huge corporation. I end up shopping at Wal-Mart on occasion because it's cheaper than the other big corporate stores.

[Ilsa]

43. Their employees end up on Medicaid because

WM doesn't pay them enough and provide health insurance because they keep so many as part-timers. WalMart is a drain on the local economy.

[kohodog]

49. Just say "BUY AMERICAN"

I bet that most Wallmart shoppers would agree with that sentiment. Ask them to find something manufactured in America at Wallmart and they won't be able to, other than magazines, a few books and Rubbermaid gloves.

It's a persuasive argument that has gotten me to stop them in their tracks. It kind of short circuits their brains. After all, how could something so American (Wallmart) be so unamerican?

[buycottJoe]

50. Wal-mart gives to repugs

Tell your sister they gave 80% to the repugs. http://www.choosetheblue.com

Why should any of us support them, when they oppose us? I think it's weird that the poor shop there, yet the rich turn around and screw them.