Educate me: How is Wal-Mart Worse Than K-Mart or Meijer?

[DemsUnite]

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Let me count the ways

[mtnester]

2. First of all, Meijer is proud to have a fully unionized workforce..

second, I do not shop at Kmart simply because their stores are ratholes anymore.

I have not shopped at WalMart in more than 20 years, and won't either. I will stick to Meijer, thank you.

[DemsUnite]

6. Very true about the union

Good point.

[GracieM]

16. I worked at Meijer during school and was part of said union...

I never saw any benefits of being in that union. The employees at walmart down the street made just as much and didnt' have to pay union dues.

Meijer is just as bad. Probably worse. It is still family owned. So when it strives to increase bottom line at the expense of others, only one family benefits...

[mtnester]

17. Did you ever get punched out by someone and continue to work?

Would you have had recourse through the union if you had? Did you have seniority to bid on shifts? Did you have union protection if a worker with less seniority took your full time spot? Did you have protection of a full time position if you averaged more than x-amount of hours over x-amount of weeks? Could they take it away from you once you had it for no reason? If you were 3 minutes late the first time ever, could they just fire you or did you have some disciplinary steps provided by union protections? There are many more I could list, and having once been part of the United Food And Commercial Workers Union, there are plenty.

Even if you were never personally affected by your union protections, they were there should you had needed them.

WalMart employees have no such protections...none. Zero.

[GracieM]

19. Problem is I would have traded

all those protections for my union dues back. I was never offered a choice. I didn't even know Meijer was unionized when I applied for the job. Then one day at work I was approached to sign papers. I said "no thank you" knowing that I'd be leaving the job in a few months when school was out anyway. Unfortunately, I coudlnt' keep my job without signing the papers.

Not that the fees were huge, but a lot for a temporary part time job.

[SharonAnn]

10. I loved shopping at Meijer. I'm sorry they're not in Tennessee.

But we do have "The Wal-Mart", as in "I'm going to the Wal-Mart."

I guess it's a southern phrase? Not sure.

anyway, I love Meijer when I lived in Ohio and wish I had one somewhere within reasonable driving distance of Knoxville.

And I started shopping at them because they have a union work force and pay their people decent wages.

[pbartch]

15. do most of my shopping at COSTCO

now...they pay a GOOD wage and benefits!

[mtnester]

18. If we had a COSTCO here, I would shop them too, unfortunately, we do not

in central Ohio have one. Meijer is also a great place as they do NOT require a damn card to get the sale items, unlike Kroger and Giant Eagle, who put you through a credit check before you can even write a check. I quit shopping them too.

[navvet]

12. Wish I had a Meijer near me.

I always love to shop at the one in Troy Ohio when I visit my Wifes family.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

3. Google is your friend

Here's a link to a DU archived post that has some links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4162993#4163218

[onehandle]

4. Have you tried the Internet?

It's around here somewhere.

[Kipling]

5. For one thing

Here in the UK Wal-Mart, under the name ASDA, is well known for being creepy. It gives it's employees a three-day indoctrination into the glorious principles of Wal-Mart and the wonderful spirit of it's founders, and how priveliged they are to work for such great people. Really wierd stuff. They have to practice smiling and giving "Big Bonus Welcomes" to shoppers, and the staff room is papered with pictures of Mr Walton, US flags and quotes from him about how to be good employees. They even have awards for "extra smiley" workers.

This, at any rate, is according to my friend and the book "Shopped".

[formerrepuke]

11. What are Wal-Mart's chief competitors in the UK? (besides every shop

in the country).

[Kipling]

20. Tesco's and Sainsbury's.

Both have been around for quite a while. Tesco is winning the Supermarket Wars so far. I doubt they're much better than Wal-Mart.

[formerrepuke]

7. Meijer is a regional retailer: mostly Great Lakes region, and has

no stores outside North America. Furthermore, they tend to establish themselves in "already-commercialed" areas near larger towns. They are still guilty of sucking business away from local merchants.. but they rarely move to small towns, monopolizing the local retail market- in the way that Wal-Mart does. KMart, is less agressive than WM - but as a former Meijer employee I'm only offering an opinion on one of the chains mentioned. Furthermore, Meijer's training and benefits are quite good.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Well for one thing, WM forces its 'vendors' to give them the lowest

cost for production possible. This may mean that items made by a company for WM will be smaller, lighter, or of inferior quality, than those the manufacturer makes for other 'customers'. Wal-Mart pays its execs pretty well, but short-changes its store employees. They are often scheduled so they cannot even qualify for health benefits and if they do, they must pay a large sum of their meager wages for them. Wal-Mart will run over any city council or planning group to get what they want.

Just in Arkansas, last month, WM lost a bid for liquor licenses in their Sam's stores. Of course, that didn't make them happy, so they appealed the ruling. Last week, they got their liquor license which now allows them to be the only retail outlet in the state that can sell liquor plus retail items. All other liquor stores only can sell liquor.

[navvet]

13. My son has a friend that works for WM and hates it

but for some reason he keeps working there.

I asked a checker at a WM a while back if all that I heard about WM being a shitty place to work for true, and she said yes that it sucked to work there.

Jobs are kind of tight here in Kenosha so I guess that is why they continue to work at WM.

Shame IMHO.

I hope WM gets unionized.

[Kilroy003]

9. I love Meijer! nt

[Contrary1]

14. Here ya go...

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

"The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?..."

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html


Wal-Mart, the Abuse of Eminent Domain and Corporate Welfare

"Most of Alameda Square's businesses are profitable. Together they generate about $125,000 a year in sales tax revenue. But if the city of Denver has its way, these small businesses will be evicted to make way for a Wal-Mart super-center. The city's Urban Renewal Authority has threatened condemnation if the property owners refuse to sell and has offered Wal-Mart $10 million in public subsidies. That's right: Tax dollars would go to one of the country's most profitable and powerful corporations..."
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/independent_business/walmart_eminent_domain.html


Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to town

"Wal-Mart employs more people than any other company in the United States outside of the Federal government, yet the majority of its employees with children live below the poverty line. "Buy American" banners are prominently placed throughout its stores; however, the majority of its goods are made outside the U.S. and often in sweatshops. Critics believe that Wal-Mart opens stores to saturate the marketplace and clear out the competition, then closes the stores and leaves them sitting empty. Freedom of speech issues also come into play. Musicians are at the mercy of Wal-Mart's stringent content rules, forcing many to create "sanitized" versions of their albums specifically for the discount chain..."

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html

More available upon request. ;-)

[1932]

21. Meijer and K-Mart are not the world's largest corporation and engage

in a more-or-less competitive environment with Target and Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is the world's largest corporation and they use thier size and buying power and political power to move into a community and drive out other businesses without passing on the money they make either to workers in the form of higher salaries or to consumers in the form of significantly lower prices (mathing their low aquisition costs). They just price low enough to drive out competition and then I'm sure they raise prices when the competition is gone.

Wal-Mart is in the business of making a great deal of money for a handful of people at the cost of a better economy for everyone. Unlike many other businesses, they pass so little of the wealth they generate on to anyone else. Like I said, they don't pass it on to society in the form of lower prices (compare that to Costco -- Costco limits itself to 10-15% profit margins on everything it sells). They don't pass it on to workers. Many of their employees or on welfare, and in that respect, the federal government and taxpayers are subsidizing their low labor costs.