D.C. Council votes to Force Walmart to pay "living wage"--50% over minimum wage.

Originally posted by CardiffGiant
if people are so worried about their wages at mcdonalds and such, vote to have them classified as employees who would earn tips and tip them.
help them earn that living wage.
put up you know..... probably dont want to go that far though huh?

Look, just keep paying your taxes and topping-up the pay of the working poor, you have no choice anyway even if you don't want to (that's a privilige reserved only for Walmart and the likes of). You are all well aware that your taxes are subbing Walmart's poverty wages, but still you don't think Walmart should pay more. You deserve high taxes.

Why should Walmart and the rest increase pay to a living wage when they can enjoy more vast profits, but only because they have mugs like you lot to subsidise them. Yes, Walmart make you look like the mugs you so obviously are.

Good grief.

Just gotta love the government mentality. "You won't pay these poor people enough...so go away. It is better they have nothing than something...evil Walmart".

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
If Walmart's practices piss you off or represent something you cannot stomach, that's fair. Don't shop there. In our system, if enough people agree? Walmart will be forced to change their practices as their stores see empty isles and quiet registers. Unfortunately, the vast majority either don't agree or (more likely) just don't care enough to so much as voice an opinion in society .....and having a Government Body IMPOSE what those who do care would like is never an answer. It's tyranny-lite. It's the stepping stone to the full version, yet to come.

Consumer blowback doesn't work. 60% of people (totally made up statistic) don't pay attention to the issues, 80% of who do get lured in by low prices anyways, and that leaves very few people to vote with their wallets. Society is incapable of voting with their spending habits. I do agree that it's wrong to force Walmart specifically to raise their wage, especially when the government is paying it's employees less than the minimum, so on that issue I'm on Walmarts side. In a more general sense though I'm very much on the side that living wages need to be paid.

Originally posted by CardiffGiant
said he cant support his kids on under $8 per hour. said he asked the manager several times for more hours. then he said the manager called him in on saturday to work. next statement was that he was used by getting called in on his day off cause he could have been spending time with his kids.

If the entire point to working is so that you can buy your kids things and afford to spend time with them, working additional hours, particularly at the times your kids are free is well, pointless. Additional hours during the week when his kids are at school is great. More pay for the same work is also great and accomplishes the same thing. Having to work while your kid is free on the weekend (and likely have to pay a babysitter on top of that), defeats the entire purpose of wanting more hours in the first place.

as i said, there are jobs that will be happy to start you at $12 with plenty of room for advancement and 25 hours a week overtime. thats too much though. right?

I would be happy to work that, of course I would demand it's in my field as I have 12 years of education and experience in it. You seem to be referring to blue collar work though like construction or mining, which I physically can't do, and got an education specifically to avoid. It's just too bad the job market and economy decided my technology skills aren't worth anything.

it's called work for a reason. cause it sucks. nobody really wants to go bust ass but we have to.

Some people like their jobs believe it or not. Is it so bad to want to enjoy your work?

walmart or mcdonalds 'can' afford to pay them $15 an hour so they 'should'?
i dont see why.
bottom line is the work they do is NOT worth that much pay.

Yes, they should. They're the ones doing all the front end work to make McDonalds their billions in profits. Each one of those workers is making McDonalds a hundred dollars an hour, or more. Paying the worker back for 15% of what they earn rather than 12% seems quite fair to me, even 15% seems rather low. You might say it's a low skill job, but at the same time it also happens to be the jobs their entire business model relies on and where they make all their money.

reply to post by Aazadan


if youre broke and cant support them and are asking for more hours you probably shouldnt complain when you get called in.
i enjoy my work also. its hard but i really like it. still would be nice to not have to do it is what i am saying.

seems people want to have their cake and eat it to.

boo hoo. have to work when the kids are off. well, yes it sucks but its called being an adult and handling your responsibility.
sorry. no sympathy from me.

cant always get what you want.

ive had to miss a lot of things with the fam. i was working so we could have the things we do. its the way it is. guess some people cant comprehend that.
even if they made them 1,000's an hour. they are not required to dip into that for them. thats the bottom line.

I wonder how many people hating on Wal-Mart in this thread did it from an Apple or Windows device/operating system. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

OMG THE WALTON'S ARE RICH! I HATE THEM! WHERE'S MY IPHONE/ANDROID/WINDOWS 8 PHONE SO I CAN RANT AGAINST THESE RICH PEOPLE AND THEIR RICH COMPANIES!

Oh, the outrage. (In the best Daria voice possible)

Originally posted by Garkiniss

Even if it saved me 5 billion dollars a year, I wouldn't open a factory under those conditions. There's such a thing as ethics and morals.

Your right, Walmart should be more ethical and moral like Apple, right?

Originally posted by raymundoko
I wonder how many people hating on Wal-Mart in this thread did it from an Apple or Windows device/operating system. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

OMG THE WALTON'S ARE RICH! I HATE THEM! WHERE'S MY IPHONE/ANDROID/WINDOWS 8 PHONE SO I CAN RANT AGAINST THESE RICH PEOPLE AND THEIR RICH COMPANIES!

Oh, the outrage. (In the best Daria voice possible)

well just for sharts and gaggles ill respond
youre probably right most probably are so perhaps you would like to educate them on the subject
i would also like to point out that while i am no fan of microsoft they generally pay their employees more than a living wage and bill gates does donate a hell of a lot of money to reinvest in the public
and while i vehemently disagree with the pressure put on hardware manufacturers/retailers or entities purchasing the hardware and the legal force with which microsoft uses to pursue its interests its at best disingenuous to compare their business practices with wallmarts (and this is all ignoring the fact that microsoft actually produces something of at least some use to the world while companies like walmart function as nothing more than middlemen)

people arent ranting against rich people and rich companies theyre ranting against the exploitative behavior and greed of these entities

Originally posted by pavil

Originally posted by Garkiniss

Even if it saved me 5 billion dollars a year, I wouldn't open a factory under those conditions. There's such a thing as ethics and morals.

Your right, Walmart should be more ethical and moral like Apple, right?

i dont think he claimed that at all
i think youre injecting that into the conversation because you know it will be an easy argument to win knowing that apple also profits from what is essentially slave labor
why dont you attempt to argue the points he made and not the ones you wish he did

reply to post by doobydoll


Doobydoll, The business increase he is talking about is how an increase in minimum wage would affect his business, not other costs. Any extra cost to a business, whether it be labor, supplies, utilities, rent, taxes will eventually be reflected in pricing. I don't get how you don't comprehend that. People here seem to think that businesses don't really care what kind of profit margin they have, I've got news for you.

Originally posted by pavil
reply to post by doobydoll

 

Doobydoll, The business increase he is talking about is how an increase in minimum wage would affect his business, not other costs. Any extra cost to a business, whether it be labor, supplies, utilities, rent, taxes will eventually be reflected in pricing. I don't get how you don't comprehend that. People here seem to think that businesses don't really care what kind of profit margin they have, I've got news for you.

ive got news for you budy they can care all they want but they can suck it because in the end if the profit margins are high enough to be worth their time they will continue to do business and if they refuse and try to use their leverage to force labor to accept lower wages they can go under and be replaces by innumerable people hungry for their place
i cant decide what an acceptable profit is..... but the market can and the labour force should use their leverage to do so (though thats a little difficult for many jobs seeing as how under current law they can just relocate the position and pay someone ten cents an hour with no serious loss of benefits)

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


This is communism 101. Destroy the free market. Get everyone dependent on government for control. It's the same old playbook.

Originally posted by amfirst1
reply to post by MuzzleBreak

 

This is communism 101. Destroy the free market. Get everyone dependent on government for control. It's the same old playbook.

weeeell a democratic government is supposed to be run by the people so if in controlling wages the government is enacting the will of the majority of the populace it can be argued that this is simply the labour force leveraging for higher wages
do you disagree?

I read many of these posts here and cannot honestly tell myself that many of you have any realistic idea of how stuff works.

One side gripes about how low paid workers suck up social services, another rants about how easy it is to get by through simply applying one's self, another accuses another of another thing......

Put simply, these people want to be able to buy some of the crap they handle every day, and can't because their wages are so abysmally low, hours are random to keep them from being able to get another job, and then we throw in cuts in hours to avoid the coming Obamacare requirements by employers.

Capitalism is it's own worst enemy when unbridled, one cannot expect to do anything but remove entire segments of the population from the market by paying crappy wages, and if you're trying to sell something, that's pretty dumb.

Capitalism is fine until it gets to the point where those who produce the goods and services are paid so little they can't even play the game they are part of.

I am hoping this is a step in the right direction, I am 52 years old and have never broken $70,000 a year but one year in my life and have always been a hard worker, and gee, I have a degree or two too.

The world has changed, and not for the better. Don't turn to some imaginary guy in the sky, you gotta forgive yourselves in the end.

Gee whiz, forbid socialism for being some dreaded thing that treats members of a society like humans, Like what is the root of the term?. We are seeing classic response to Frustration / Aggression Conditioning society wide today, if you don't understand the term do your research.

It will not be pretty if a lot of us don't quit it.

reply to post by macman


I have read every post in this thread and my conclusion is thus. These people who are against a company with only a 3.5% profit margin are those who are collectivists. They appear to have a jealousy of people who make money. They appear to think working to get ahead is evil and they want rich people to distribute everything to those not as well off. Basically, they have a socialist mindset.

Because of this, nothing we can say will help them understand. They have an agenda which is against the very model this country was built on....

reply to post by OpinionatedB


we also eat babies hate freedom and worship satan

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
reply to post by macman

 

I have read every post in this thread and my conclusion is thus. These people who are against a company with only a 3.5% profit margin are those who are collectivists. They appear to have a jealousy of people who make money. They appear to think working to get ahead is evil and they want rich people to distribute everything to those not as well off. Basically, they have a socialist mindset.

Because of this, nothing we can say will help them understand. They have an agenda which is against the very model this country was built on....

reply to post by OpinionatedB


That is the dichotomy of this debate.

You say "3.5% profit margin."

We say $16,000,000,000.00 in net profits.

You say we have a "jealousy of those who make money."

We say we don't understand how working for 50% of what workers made 50 years ago is fair; that we don't understand why a corporate head needs to make 500x more than his employees, when 50 years ago 40x was enough.

You say we "believe working to get ahead is evil."

We say people can't even work to break even, let alone get ahead; that studies have revealed that workers today work, on average, 26% more, while earning 23% less in wages than their grandparents did.

You say we "want the rich to distribute their wealth to those not as well off", as if it were some sort of charity or thievery.

All we're asking is that workers earn enough money to support themselves, so that they can get off of Government assist programs. What's being saved if workers are forced to accept government programs that add to taxes?

The latter is a point I'd really like to see addressed. Why skip on paying fair wages and then turn around and not only complain about taxpayer money being spent on the poor, but spend millions in lobbyist dollars to try and bribe the government into slashing these programs' budgets? What's the agenda? What is the end game?

There is no argument here unless you are for greed. Walmart can pay workers more without increasing prices because their profits are so high. Simple as that. Maybe the workers don't do much work but the company is successful and makes huge profit. So have some empathy for your workers. There is no reason prices would go up other than greed. COMMON SENSE not so common. GREED There was a time in this country when owners, ceo's and workers made the around the same pay. Those were the best time in America. Someone please tell me where my argument is wrong because I don't see it.

reply to post by sirhumperdink


Poor people in Asia and South America disagree with you. Apple is possibly the biggest sweat shop company on the planet.

reply to post by jaynx


When was it the CEO made the same as an employee???? That's ridiculous.

reply to post by Garkiniss


CEO's and executives get paid large amounts of money for the same reason athletes do. They are elite at their job and know how to make money for large corporations. Bill gates is the richest man in the world because he is insanely good at his job.