At Confined Space, Jordan Barab notes that WM has settled a charge of child labor violations and taunts Bush's labor department, writing that it is doling out unique priviliges to WM--it now gets a heads up when being under investigation by the DOL Wage and Hour Division:
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. As part of the agreement, revealed yesterday after it was secretly signed in January, the Labor Department agreed "to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before the Labor Department investigates any other 'wage and hour' accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime."Jordan goes on to quote highly partisan George Miller, who we already know, hates WM's guts. But more importantly, in a different post, Jordan discusses WM's policy of locking in night-shift employees in high-crime areas.
WM should be punished where it violates the law, and this lock-in behavior sounds awful, but I have a problem with making individual cases look like a company-wide pattern of abuse. I'm simply not convinced that, on a per-store basis, WM is any more or less a labor violator than any other retailer.
Posted by Kevin on February, 13 2005 at 01:50 PM
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Brandon Berg wrote:What if the lock-ins were a company-wide policy? Clearly the employees think it's worth the risk, or they would quit. Apparently this fellow liked his job so much that he was willing to sit around with a broken ankle for an hour rather than risk termination for leaving through the fire exit.
-- February 13, 2005 03:46 PM ∞
Brandon Weber wrote:Sure, he liked his job that much. It wasn't because he couldn't afford to lose the job and was intimidated on a daily basis by management...nah, that NEVER happens at Wal-Mart...
Brandon Weber
www.exportingourjobs.com
-- February 13, 2005 08:40 PM ∞
Kevin Brancato wrote:that NEVER happens at Wal-Mart
1) Not even WM corporate has stated that intimidation has not occured at the store level. Did it occur to you that posters here are not worse than corporate sycophants?
2) The real question for social concern is how frequently intimidation happens, and what the alternative opportunities are. First, I have not seen any evidence that WM "intimidates" more frequently per-store or per-employee than, say, Toys R Us. Second, would an acceptable alternative for locked-in employees be to NOT lock-in and have their wages lowered to compensate for the theft? Probably not; if wages were lowered, I think employees would go elsewhere for their old pay--which they should be able to get, no, since WM's wages are allegedly so low? So I think most locked-in employees probably would prefer to not be locked-in, rather than to have their wages lowered, or to have to change jobs.
-- February 13, 2005 09:03 PM ∞
Chris Lindgren wrote:Brandon,
Why I would respond to someone that has url that implies he or a group somehow owns a job I will never know. How do you do own a job? Can you sell me your job? I would like to buy it.
Like this gentleman that did not have enough common sense to leave through the fire exit during an emergency you Brandon are a slave to the belief that someone else should take your hand and guide you through life. Then when the person that is holding your hand guides you to places you did not want to go you blame him. Unfortunately you are powerless and all you can do is blame and complain, a vicitim of your own choices but not man enough to admit it. That is a sad life to lead.
Brandon try to go through the fire exit. It feels good to know you are alive and in control.
-- February 14, 2005 12:35 PM ∞
Brandon Weber wrote:>Brandon try to go through the fire exit. It
feels good to know you are alive and in controlActually, I own my own company, so I went through that very fire exit a long time ago.
But in a real sense, those who work for U.S. corporations SHOULD feel entitled to their jobs to a certain extent. They created the wealth for the corporation they work for.
Those who work for those corporations for 20 or 30 years DO have some ownership in those jobs. They created wealth for their employer for that long, probably a lot of wealth or they wouldn't have lasted that long.
The old lefty phrase "Workers create all wealth" does indeed have validity. Without those doing the actual labor, all the owners have is a shell of a factory (or office, etc.)
>How do you do own a job? Can you sell me your job? I would like to buy it.
We do own them, in a sense. We sell our labor hours to the emloyer for an agreed upon amount of money. Or sometimes the price is not agreed upon, it's just dictated by the employer, but we are indeed selling our time and labor to that employer.
-- February 17, 2005 05:29 PM ∞
Kevin Brancato wrote:You have given no evidence that anybody has property in or ownership of a job. Nor have you given a reason why one should believe he has an entitlement to a job. You have given no reason why assisting in the creation of wealth entitles one to anything other than what has been explicitly and previously agreed to. A contract to perform work for a specified rate of pay -- a job -- that does not specify a share of ownership in the final product nullifies any entitlement to that product.
If you say labor creates all wealth, I will say that capital creates all wealth, and we will both be wrong.
So far in my brief career, I have held two major jobs, neither of which I owned. My research created wealth for my employer and the organizations my employer contracted me out to. I am owed nothing else by any of these companies or organizations. They paid me according to what we agreed, and after some time, I went my way, they went theirs. I had no pretese of owning my jobs, nor did I want to feel that I did.
-- February 17, 2005 09:11 PM ∞
Brandon Weber wrote:One of the saddest commentaries about our "modern" society is that corporations have tossed out the idea of a social conscience...and that workers, citizens, and leaders tolerate that.
There USED to be a social compact that companies would return to the communities, workforce, and citizenry something of value. Pensions. Good jobs for life. Health care. Improvement to the surrounding neighborhoods.
These in exchange for a work ethic and dedication to helping the company succeed.
That's all gone away with companies like Wal-Mart. They strive for profits alone, at the EXPENSE of the community, the citizens, the workers. Even the nation itself.
The disagreement between you and me on this issue is philisophical, rather than anything that can be proven through "evidence."
I suppose we shoud leave it at that.
-- February 17, 2005 10:02 PM ∞
Kevin Brancato wrote:I agree that there is a huge disagreement in philosophy between us; I deny that reasoning and evidence cannot help contribute to resolving this disagreement. However, I don't think we will have a meeting of the minds.
Much of what you have written is, in fact, a purely empirical-historical argument, and has nothing to do with one's ideal political economy:
There USED to be a social compact that companies would return to the communities, workforce, and citizenry something of value. Pensions. Good jobs for life. Health care. Improvement to the surrounding neighborhoods.I'm sorry, but in this history I've studied, this compact never existed. It's a myth--a potent one at that. Sure, some companies--automobile, airlines, insurance--did and still do provide all such amenities. But most of the country was not affected by such a compact.
First of all, there is no long-term history of comprehensive health insurance in this country, for the incredibly complex and expensive care available today. Employers started offering health insurance en masse in the 1940's in response to government wage controls and tax laws that made company contributions to plans exempt from income taxes. It is historical accident and codified law that health insurance is now funnelled through workplaces.
Second, pensions are deferred compensation. I don't see why employees should not be given the money upfront to invest as they choose. Why should corporate hooligans control pension funds and not the workers themselves? This might be a philosophical disagreement between us, but I don't think you're the type of person who thinks that employees are irresponsible and must be stopped from making their own decisions.
Third, good jobs for life. How many and what share of companies actually ever promised this?
Fourth, how do coal mines or garment factories or insurance companies, or unionized supermarkets improve neighborhoods in a way that a WM supercenter doesn't?
These in exchange for a work ethic and dedication to helping the company succeed.I fail to see why hard work must be dedicated to only one employer. Lots and lots and lots of companies go belly-up, regardless of their employees' dedication. Workers might just want to go to the most successful companies as well.
That's all gone away with companies like Wal-Mart. They strive for profits alone, at the EXPENSE of the community, the citizens, the workers. Even the nation itself.Are shoppers at Wal-Mart, the citizens in surrounding areas, and the actual people who work there made worse off by Wal-Mart's existence? This is an empirical question, again, to which you provide no answer. If you say WM has done all these bad things, tell me how much is the expense. How can I figure this out for myself?I would submit that this is not "all gone away with" since it mostly did not all exist in the first place.
Companies strive for profits at the expense of the community; well, that's true, but only in the same exact way that community members strive to profit at the expense of companies. So what?
-----If you are serious about real ownership of jobs, then you want government to define and defend property rights in jobs. This will grant the owner -- the job incumbent -- the right to work as long as he wants, to sell or rent his job, and to bequeath it, subject to other contstraints.
I gather that this is not really what you want. You don't really want OWNERSHIP or property rights; you want the right not to be fired, or the right to profits from a corporation.
But the right not to be fired is, to put it mildly, very expensive. (If it were cheap to implement, then all companies would offer it as competition for the best workers). However, only select workers have ever had this provision, and companies and their consumers pay for it. To require that every worker have a right to their job is to require all workers to impose extra burdens on their employers. Why should I, who wants to be competitive in the labor market, and does not want to impose these potential costs on my employer, be forced to? I'm willing to take risks.
The right to profits comes from ownership of the business, and such a right comes at the cost of lending legal tender or assets to a company. Workers who do not invest financial assets in a company are not owed a return. Companies that use stock or profit compensation do so in lieu of cash compensation.
Perhaps we can leave it at that, or we can have another go.
-- February 17, 2005 10:58 PM ∞
