Court: Wal-Mart to face massive class-action suit

Originally posted by Raist
reply to post by DaMod

 

When it comes to vehicles you should never cheap out. Either take it to a reputable mechanic to do the odd jobs or do it yourself.....

A company I once worked for lost three engines due to errors from oil changes / vehicle servicing: two to the manufacturer / dealer's service centers and one to a chain oil-change facility. Going cheap doesn't mean one is going to encounter mistakes. Paying premium doesn't make one immune from it either. In the case of fleet management, it is assumed, as that is the service they provide, that such services are of sufficient quality to prevent such errors, yet they do occur. And of relavance, if you do have a fleet of vehicles to maintain, self-servicing can save money but can also cost money when someone doesn't pay attention.


As for the pay discrepancy between men and women at WalMart... the women I have known, working at WallyWord, tend to do so for extra income supplementing their welfare checks or husband's income, whilst the men are there for a primary source of income. Differences in the focus of attention play strongly on how hard one works and consequentially on how much one earns.

Though there is no denying they pay their employees as little as possible, they do reward employees for working hard.

[edit on 4/27/2010 by abecedarian]

I used to work at Wal-Mart but I got fired awhile back. I really often wonder about these lawsuits and claims against the company. Yes, they do cost Americans their jobs by getting all their cheap garbage products from China. I worked in the electronics section for several years, and one slow day I decided to look at the "Made In..." labels on every single item in the department.

I'd say about 90% were made in China, with most of the rest being made in Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, India, or some other low-wage country. 3.5" floppy diskettes were the only product in the electronics department made in the U.S.A.

But the stuff about how badly they treat their workers... No, I don't buy it. When I worked at Wal-Mart:

1. I made more money than any other job in retail that I've looked at since leaving, and more money than anyone I knew who worked at competing retailers.

2. Nearly all of the supervisors were women. At least half the management team at any given time was always female, usually more than half (managers tended to come and go.) The store manager was a male, but the district manager for most of my time working there was a female.

3. Health insurance was available from day 1 in some form or another, with better insurance available after 90 days. Part time workers were offered insurance after 1 year. Anyone who tells you different is lying.

4. We also had 401k, dental, stock purchase, profit sharing... the works.

5. I was full time, and most of the people I worked with were full time. I was hired as part time. People say it's difficult to get full time at Wal-Mart... you know how I got it? I asked my supervisor if I could be full time, and from then on I got 40 hours a week unless business was doing horrible.

6. Professionalism was demanded of us. If you've been to a Wal-Mart where the employees didn't act professional and offer good customer service, you can bet your butt that it was due to piss-poor store level management. Representatives from home office absolutely never tolerated anything less when they were in the store.

Oh, and because I know how ridiculous ATS is and I know it's coming sooner or later: The first person to insinuate that I actually work for Wal-Mart and I'm just some kind of disinfo agent who's here to discredit Wal-Mart bashers is a retard.

reply to post by abecedarian


That is true. But in some cases a better trained person will be working for a place that will cost a bit more. Regardless if at all possible do as much as you can to your own vehicles. Then if anything goes wrong you can only blame yourself.

I agree mistakes happen but I don’t think buying the cheapest service is ever the best. Products are one thing you can see what you are buying for the most part. Service is another thing.

Raist

reply to post by mattifikation


Well really you were looking at the electronics section so I would imagine 90% + would be made outside of the U.S. I can do the same at any department store I go to. China is very well known for electronics.

I will vouch for you on the women in management though. As for the treatment of employees well that is as I said no different from any other place either. The pay sucked and the lacking benefits sucked. I did not wish to stick around until I was able to get the stuff I can get at other places.

I started full time.

Raist


[edit on 4/27/10 by Raist]

reply to post by zzombie


If that is the video I am thinking of, don't they mention that walmart has a super computer that rivals the pentagons?

They know what you have bought 15 minutes after you bought it?

creepy.

Originally posted by abecedarian

Though there is no denying they pay their employees as little as possible, they do reward employees for working hard.

This is really not true. I worked at a Wal-mart as a temp recently. I was promised that if I worked hard that they would keep me after the holidays. I worked really hard, because I needed and wanted that job. I even worked sick with the flu with a fever to make sure that I had a perfect attendance record.

They terminated me a week before Christmas anyway. They said they didn't have a need for me anymore and that Christmas eve would be my last day. And they lied to me (3 managers at the same time, ganging up on me to lie to me) and said that if something else came available before Christmas eve that they would offer it to me. They also said that if nothing came available before Christmas eve that they would have 30 days to call me back if something came available and that they would call me first before hiring someone from outside because they'd rather have someone there with experience. Here I was, all excited, believing them. I thanked them for the meeting, thinking that they wanted to keep me and would end up finding a spot for me! Liars! The first clue I had that I'd been had was on Christmas eve when I found out they'd just filled a cashier's position and had never mentioned it to me.

Well, whatever they said about me in the computer has caused Wal-mart to blackball me. And when this one employer called them to verify my employment history with them, whatever they told him about me caused him to not only not hire me, but he didn't want me in his restaurant again! Ha! After one Wal-mart manager liked me and was going to offer me a position until he pulled me up on the computer and read their comments about me and subsequently had me tossed from the store, I went back to the Wal-mart that terminated me to find out what they said about me. They refused to tell me! I have no idea what they've been telling people about me. But the manager that talked to me the day I went in to find out what had been said about me went back to the back and came back out and told me that they had NEVER had any intention of keeping me to begin with because they didn't think I'd stay with the company. So now I'm trapped in a year's lease still because I believed their lies and renewed my lease believing I'd have a job with them like they said I would so long as I did a good job.

So no, Wal-mart does NOT reward hard work. It never rewarded mine! Instead, I'm blackballed. And since they were the only company that didn't seem to mind that I had a college degree (everyone else would tell me I was "overqualified" and send me packing, unless it was in my field, in which case they'd say I didn't have enough experience) I'm really hosed now. All going to college did was educate me out of the available job market and land me in about $130k in student loan debt. I had taken the Wal-mart manager's tests and passed them and everything. I have a storage tote full of work clothes I cannot wear now. I try to buy as little as possible from them now (some stuff I need is cheaper there than other stores) and started shopping Kroger and other grocery stores.

And I guess it didn't help that my ex-boyfriend I broke up with months before found out I was working there and one of the assistant managers was a close relative. No, that sure didn't help matters. I even overheard them talking and he had gone there telling them I dunno what about me.

Wal-mart does NOT reward hard work. If it did then I would still have a job!