Black Friday Strike

[The Black Forrest]

Well I hope they have luck with this. Thanksgiving is supposed to be about family and getting together. For all talk about family values, it's interesting to hear who is upset by the talk of strikes.....

[Inyourfaceistan]

I hope it happens but I don't have big hopes for it. I have bigger hopes for more Wal-Mart workers seeking to unionize. If any place of employment needs a union, it's Wal-Mart.

I'm not the most pro-union guy around, but this is true.

[New West Guiana]

What a bunch of union thugs.....OH that's right Wal-Mart fires any one who tries to form a union so they can keep paying them low wages and making slaves out of them. Hopefully at the shipping warehouses they can make a impact even a small one is a victory.

[Moving Forward Inc]

Walmart is planning a Black Friday strike just because the opening at 8pm Thanksgiving but all the other stores that on Thanksgiving workers are not complaining one bit even Target just found out

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/18/news/wa ... ck-friday/

If I was the owner of Wal-mart I would fire anyone who protests on sight.
I don't even know why they aren't doing that, I mean their employees sure would love their wages when they are bums out on the street.

[Ptarsu]

The strike won't happen, most will back out even if it was remotely taken seriously. Wal-Mart employees always talk about striking, yet we never see it happen on any large scale.

[Qazox]

unfortunately it won't happen. 6 years ago, when I last worked at Wal-Mart, rumors said the exact same thing... and NO ONE struck. Sorry, but Wal-Mart employees are too poor to lose even a crappy Wal-Mart job.

[Moving Forward Inc]

unfortunately it won't happen. 6 years ago, when I last worked at Wal-Mart, rumors said the exact same thing... and NO ONE struck. Sorry, but Wal-Mart employees are too poor to lose even a crappy Wal-Mart job.

So they are firing these people?
Good on you wal-mart

[Qazox]

unfortunately it won't happen. 6 years ago, when I last worked at Wal-Mart, rumors said the exact same thing... and NO ONE struck. Sorry, but Wal-Mart employees are too poor to lose even a crappy Wal-Mart job.

So they are firing these people?
Good on you wal-mart

They would.

[Moving Forward Inc]

So they are firing these people?
Good on you wal-mart

They would.

Finally, a corporation that has a brain.
Where I live, for some reason the idiots just wait for the strikers to stop striking while they are paying the strikers and having no one do the actual work, losing them good money.

[Grave_n_idle]

They arent technically scabs until the Union is in place, and it is the employers right to fire the employees /before/ a contract has been agreed to that says otherwise. So wal-Mart already has that option, what they are afraid of is collective bargaining power.


As to the poster who took it upon himself to insult those who shop at wal-mart, well, it must be nice to not need to budget for yourself and your family -- however given the pricing at wal mart with regards to grocery items its hardly uncompetative.
Properly researched purchasing demonstrates that the products(groceries) sold in wla mart are equal in nutritional content to any products found at high end retailers like Wholefoods -- who merely target a different demographic with Mythology marketing about the process of food production and nutritional quality in the US.

So very well, Walmart customers may indeed by the Slackjawwed masses, but they are the Slacked Jawwed masses getting a better price for the exact same quality product as the Dead Eyed Dilitants of Dumbfuckery who look down upon them--and in that equation that makes them the second slowest in a two man race to idiot land.


As to the poster who suggests those employed at Walmart are sub-human, you are a sad and pathetic individual. The large numbers of retired people who find work to supplement their disgustingly social security(in a land of abundance) yes these people who build the nation you plod your pittiful self around in now so smugly, they are certainly far more human, deserving of respect and defference than you and those of your wretched ilk. Or the young people who get their first jobs there, yes productive youth looking to better themselves by their own efforts rather than daddies dime...I doubt you are worthy of cleaning their shoes.

And sub-human, Wal-Mart takes the tax break for hiring the mentally handicapped, perhaps in this group you may find some kindred spirits...but then theirs is a crippling of the mind by fate, yours is a crippling of the heart by your own pathetic design...so even among them the title of pariah would be a kingly gift in your case.


I dont care if its flaming - Basic lack of compassion for the weakest among us is disgusting.

I concur. We talk trash about Wal-Mart but let's be honest: Wal-Mart offers employment and cheap goods to people who need/want jobs and can't afford to go to other places.

They 'offer employment' to people that would have been working in all the other jobs their model displaced. Wal-Mart actually hires less people that would have been employed without their super-store structure. Similarly, they offer goods to people who can't afford to go to other places - because the Wal-Mart model drove all the little businesses out.

You're looking at Wal-Mart like they are a solution to a problem, but the only problem they are a solution to, is Wal-Mart. It's not good business - it's snake oil.

[Grave_n_idle]

unfortunately it won't happen. 6 years ago, when I last worked at Wal-Mart, rumors said the exact same thing... and NO ONE struck. Sorry, but Wal-Mart employees are too poor to lose even a crappy Wal-Mart job.

So they are firing these people?
Good on you wal-mart

How is that 'good'?

Putting people out of work depresses the collective economy, as does constantly reducing or impeding any kind of worker progress. This is pretty basic math - how is it so confusing to people?

[Moving Forward Inc]

So they are firing these people?
Good on you wal-mart

How is that 'good'?

Putting people out of work depresses the collective economy, as does constantly reducing or impeding any kind of worker progress. This is pretty basic math - how is it so confusing to people?

Employers shouldn't have to put up with employee shit.
Getting rid of dissenters is good for corporations as far as I can tell.
Anyway striking while getting paid and not working can't be good for the economy either.
I would just love to see you advocate a governmental ban on quitting your job or going on strike, after all, it is what the fascists did.

[Wisconsin9]

How is that 'good'?

Putting people out of work depresses the collective economy, as does constantly reducing or impeding any kind of worker progress. This is pretty basic math - how is it so confusing to people?

Employers shouldn't have to put up with employee shit.
Getting rid of dissenters is good for corporations as far as I can tell.
Anyway striking while getting paid and not working can't be good for the economy either.
I would just love to see you advocate a governmental ban on quitting your job or going on strike, after all, it is what the fascists did.

Why exactly is it that the handful of executives deserve more rights than the thousands of employees?

[Grave_n_idle]

How is that 'good'?

Putting people out of work depresses the collective economy, as does constantly reducing or impeding any kind of worker progress. This is pretty basic math - how is it so confusing to people?

Employers shouldn't have to put up with employee shit.
Getting rid of dissenters is good for corporations as far as I can tell.
Anyway striking while getting paid and not working can't be good for the economy either.
I would just love to see you advocate a governmental ban on quitting your job or going on strike, after all, it is what the fascists did.

Not sure what your point is supposed to be with regard to the first - even if it's less troublesome to just fire dissenters, it does mean re-investing in new staff, new training, and ramping up to prior service quality levels. So it might NOT be cheaper - indeed, you have to take quite a dent from industrial action before it becomes economically 'better' to just fire workers than to indulge industrial action.

Not all business owners and managers are smart enough to realise that, unfortunately.

But that's not even the point - even if it WAS cheaper to just fire everybody - the whole area around your Wal-Mart store will take an economically depressing hit in the wake of it. Sure, the central office in some remote city might be insulated against that - but your store is going to suffer, as is the community around it.

And, as Wal-Mart has been finding out - once those markets get depressed in enough remote locations - it does start making a difference to the overall bottom line. As a policy it sucks.


I realise you're portraying some kind of 'pro-corporation' persona - but the idea that employees are your enemy is not helpful, even to corporations. Rather than saying that corporations shouldn't have to 'put up with employee shit' - maybe it's more sensible to think of it as a transaction in an employment market. It's not good business to continuously rip-off your customers and treat them like crap.

Wal-Mart's problem is that they have a strategy that works - they bankrupt all the alternate labour and trade opportunities, and set up an outpost in the wasteland - but it's not flexible, and it only works by depressing local economies.

In other words - the Wal-Mart model is ultimately self-defeating, eventually. And they lack the capacity to change it. Eventually, the beast will starve itself - and Wal-Mart has known this for a long time, which is why they've used 'inventing in the community' programs to try to incrementally offset the problem while they extract maximum short-term value.

tl/dr version - as I suspect you didn't read the whole thing... no, getting rid of dissenters is not necessarily good, and no, it's not true that employers shouldn't have to put up with employee shit.

[Hallistar]

Bring in the troops and arrest the hooligans!

No, in all seriousness, if workers want to unionize they should have that right. If management wants to fire them all and hire scabs, that's their right too. Let the two figure it out on their own.

They arent technically scabs until the Union is in place, and it is the employers right to fire the employees /before/ a contract has been agreed to that says otherwise. So wal-Mart already has that option, what they are afraid of is collective bargaining power.


As to the poster who took it upon himself to insult those who shop at wal-mart, well, it must be nice to not need to budget for yourself and your family -- however given the pricing at wal mart with regards to grocery items its hardly uncompetative.
Properly researched purchasing demonstrates that the products(groceries) sold in wla mart are equal in nutritional content to any products found at high end retailers like Wholefoods -- who merely target a different demographic with Mythology marketing about the process of food production and nutritional quality in the US.

So very well, Walmart customers may indeed by the Slackjawwed masses, but they are the Slacked Jawwed masses getting a better price for the exact same quality product as the Dead Eyed Dilitants of Dumbfuckery who look down upon them--and in that equation that makes them the second slowest in a two man race to idiot land.


As to the poster who suggests those employed at Walmart are sub-human, you are a sad and pathetic individual. The large numbers of retired people who find work to supplement their disgustingly social security(in a land of abundance) yes these people who build the nation you plod your pittiful self around in now so smugly, they are certainly far more human, deserving of respect and defference than you and those of your wretched ilk. Or the young people who get their first jobs there, yes productive youth looking to better themselves by their own efforts rather than daddies dime...I doubt you are worthy of cleaning their shoes.

And sub-human, Wal-Mart takes the tax break for hiring the mentally handicapped, perhaps in this group you may find some kindred spirits...but then theirs is a crippling of the mind by fate, yours is a crippling of the heart by your own pathetic design...so even among them the title of pariah would be a kingly gift in your case.


I dont care if its flaming - Basic lack of compassion for the weakest among us is disgusting.

Umm, the only post I saw mentioning walmart workers being subhuman was not actually calling them sub-human, but was saying they'd probably be treated as such by walmart.

My grandparents shop at Walmart and they are millionaries ,but I do not support this because it won't work well for any one who tries it ie fired. Also if you work at Walmart you should just give up on being recongized as a human.

[Camicon]

How is that 'good'?

Putting people out of work depresses the collective economy, as does constantly reducing or impeding any kind of worker progress. This is pretty basic math - how is it so confusing to people?

Employers shouldn't have to put up with employee shit.
Getting rid of dissenters is good for corporations as far as I can tell.
Anyway striking while getting paid and not working can't be good for the economy either.
I would just love to see you advocate a governmental ban on quitting your job or going on strike, after all, it is what the fascists did.

You ever worked retail? Employee's don't deserve to be jerked around by their employers, and they don't deserve the piles of shit that get heaped on to them for things that aren't their fault, by idiot customers, as happens daily. They're already working the ground floor, in the trenches, making sure that shit gets done. It's more than any fat-ass exec can say.

Employees are there by choice. Employers need to remember that, and treat them like human beings.

There are plenty of low-end retail jobs available for people. And those with previous experience are going to be picked up first. Wal-Mart employees do not, by any means, need to stay with Wal-Mart. There is nothing offered at the store that you cannot find elsewhere. Indeed, there is a great deal less.

[Libertarian California]

Good for Target.

[Moving Forward Inc]

Employers shouldn't have to put up with employee shit.
Getting rid of dissenters is good for corporations as far as I can tell.
Anyway striking while getting paid and not working can't be good for the economy either.
I would just love to see you advocate a governmental ban on quitting your job or going on strike, after all, it is what the fascists did.

Why exactly is it that the handful of executives deserve more rights than the thousands of employees?

What the fuck, are you suggesting that employees should get to fire their bosses?
Bosses own the business, not the employees.
As far as I can tell, it's equal rights if when bosses own businesses, they can do whatever the fuck they want with their business, and if an employee quits and decides to employ themselves, they get to do whatever the fuck they like with their business.

[Wisconsin9]

Why exactly is it that the handful of executives deserve more rights than the thousands of employees?

What the fuck, are you suggesting that employees should get to fire their bosses?
Bosses own the business, not the employees.
As far as I can tell, it's equal rights if when bosses own businesses, they can do whatever the fuck they want with their business, and if an employee quits and decides to employ themselves, they get to do whatever the fuck they like with their business.

I suppose I didn't use the best choice of words. I was referring to the fact that when the employees organize so they can feed their families it's evil and they deserve to lose their jobs, but when a multi-millionaire does it so he can buy his fourth house and twentieth luxury car, it's called business.

Anyways, I've gotta sleep so I can pass a test tomorrow. We can't all coast through life on our great-grandfather's successes.

[Grave_n_idle]

Why exactly is it that the handful of executives deserve more rights than the thousands of employees?

What the fuck, are you suggesting that employees should get to fire their bosses?
Bosses own the business, not the employees.

Actually, yes - if the focus of the equation is the business, then employees SHOULD be able to 'fire their bosses' under the right circumstances.

The problem seems to be that you are confusing what a business theoretically is - a mechanism for facilitating trade of goods or services - with the model Wal-Mart, Wall Street and Ponzi preferred - a machine for extracting wealth.

[Moving Forward Inc]

What the fuck, are you suggesting that employees should get to fire their bosses?
Bosses own the business, not the employees.
As far as I can tell, it's equal rights if when bosses own businesses, they can do whatever the fuck they want with their business, and if an employee quits and decides to employ themselves, they get to do whatever the fuck they like with their business.

I suppose I didn't use the best choice of words. I was referring to the fact that when the employees organize so they can feed their families it's evil and they deserve to lose their jobs, but when a multi-millionaire does it so he can buy his fourth house and twentieth luxury car, it's called business.

Anyways, I've gotta sleep so I can pass a test tomorrow. We can't all coast through life on our great-grandfather's successes.

I find it humorous that when workers whine about employment contracts they agreed to, they are called good people, but when bosses tell them to stand by their word they are called evil exploiters.

Oh well.
I have exams tomorrow as well, so good luck.

[Moving Forward Inc]

What the fuck, are you suggesting that employees should get to fire their bosses?
Bosses own the business, not the employees.

Actually, yes - if the focus of the equation is the business, then employees SHOULD be able to 'fire their bosses' under the right circumstances.

The problem seems to be that you are confusing what a business theoretically is - a mechanism for facilitating trade of goods or services - with the model Wal-Mart, Wall Street and Ponzi preferred - a machine for extracting wealth.

If the workers founded the business and kept ownership of it than I don't see the problem with them employing the boss - because really, it's role reversal, the boss is working for them.

Hell, I'm both a socialist and a capitalist.
If a bunch of people decide to share their private property and build a democratic workplace, it's their life, not my fault if their business fails.

[Grave_n_idle]

Actually, yes - if the focus of the equation is the business, then employees SHOULD be able to 'fire their bosses' under the right circumstances.

The problem seems to be that you are confusing what a business theoretically is - a mechanism for facilitating trade of goods or services - with the model Wal-Mart, Wall Street and Ponzi preferred - a machine for extracting wealth.

If the workers founded the business and kept ownership of it than I don't see the problem with them employing the boss - because really, it's role reversal, the boss is working for them.

Hell, I'm both a socialist and a capitalist.
If a bunch of people decide to share their private property and build a democratic workplace, it's their life, not my fault if their business fails.

Looks like you totally missed the point.

[Saiwania]

I'd wish for the strike to be successful but I don't think it will. They will all be fired and business will continue as usual. Walmart paying it's workers at least $12 an hour would barely hurt their profits and would only add around 40 cents to the cost of an item. The fact that some of their employees want a union, means that they are unhappy with the working conditions at Walmart and the company ought to redress those grievances so that there isn't a demand for one. But unfortunately, Walmart is generally content to not give a shit about it's employees and will have a high turnover rate and lawsuits as a result.

[Nazi Flower Power]

What's chiefly needed here, is for people to NOT support this shit, by NOT going out and shopping on the goram holiday, nor supporting ridiculous hours that some of these stores put their workers through just to make a few more bucks.

If there weren't a demand for it, it wouldn't be an issue.

This.

There is really no need to be getting up at 4AM to go shopping. There will still be plenty of stuff if you wait till a more reasonable hour.

I think some people are more excited by the scramble to get in the store than they are actually interested in saving money.