40% of US Walmart Workers to Get Raises: CEO

[ThatRobGuy]

Wow, how charitable of Walmart; giving 40% of their workers a whopping pay raise anywhere from .15 to .52 per hour!!! What about the other 60%?? What are they? Chopped liver?

Why is all of the hatred always specifically directed at Walmart?

Walmart employs 1.4 million
Mom & Pop stores (collectively) employ 20 million

Walmart (on average) pays better than the mom & pop stores

Why are there no protests "Jim's deli needs to treat its workers with dignity"

Why are there no complaints of "Local grocery stores are increasing the number of people on government benefits by not paying a living wage!"

When a $9/hour Walmart comes to town, people complain that they're going to crush all of the ($7.75/hour local) mom & pop stores...


Study by Stanford
Pay is, on average, 15% higher in the largest retail firms than small firms, Stanford researchers conclude. Perhaps even more important, workers have more chance to move up at big retail chains than in smaller shops. Average managers at national chains earn more than $65,000 a year, and some positions pay more than $100,000 a year.

“The data suggests that the larger firms attract the better quality workers, both by offering higher wages and, perhaps even more importantly, opportunities to advance,” says Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Kathryn Shaw. “The small-scale stores are under a lot of competitive pressure, and they really don’t pay or offer chances for advancement.”


So a store moves to town that can pay $1/hour more...and offer lower prices to the consumers...yet people complain about it and criticize it in the name of "competition"...apparently people want the kind of competition where nobody wins...

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

walmart sells for less

It is a clever cycle, they pay you enough to force you to shop at their own store because you can't afford anywhere else with your 10% discount.[they still do that I think?]

 

[dgiharris]

...
Did that Forbes article give any insight as to an estimate of how many companies are in that solid of a financial situation where they would be able to safely pay that out throughout the year? If it's a case where only 10-15% of companies are that secure that they could safely increase operating costs by that much, then it's probably not a workable model as far as a widespread solution...just a nice perk for the people who are lucky enough to work there.

No, unfortunately it did not. You do raise a fair question, what percentage of companies have financials solid enough where they can just opt to make less money (i.e. increase their operating expenses via raises/profit sharing) and not really mind or carry any significant risk?

It would vary by industry however to simplify the argument lets just talk retail and fast food since they probably employ the most laborers without higher degrees or training.

I would have to believe that most fast food and retailers have fairly stable sales that follow predictable patterns and projections based on preceding years. I think retailers are more susceptible to outside forces like competition (i.e. walmart moves into town). But barring that, if all things are more or less stable in their location business wise, i'd have to think that retailers would have fairly stable and predictable sales.

Hmmmm..... that is just conjecture. I will do some google fu over the next couple of days and put something together.

 

[cow451]

probably depends since such programs are based on TOTAL family income.

LOL. I thought it could be safely assumed that "all other things being equal.."

 

[gamewell45]

Why is all of the hatred always specifically directed at Walmart?.

Your mistaking hate for sarcasm. When you have executives making millions and rank and file making peanuts compared to the big picture it's deserving of sarcasm in my book.

I'll bet you didn't know that Walmart takes out a life insurance policy on each of its employees; if one should die, you know who the beneficiary is? Not the family of the deceased but Walmart! You wonder why they encourage seniors to work there? Maybe that gives you an idea.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

When you have executives making millions and rank and file making peanuts compared to the big picture it's deserving of sarcasm in my book.

...so is the real issue that the employees make so much less than the executive, or that they're not paid a living wage?

Mom & Pop stores pay less than Walmart, and collectively, employ 20x the number of people that Walmart does...so is it fair to assume you share the same feelings toward mom & pop stores?

If you issue is the Executive:Employee pay ratio, then you should be going after bigger offenders than Walmart (Tim Cook of Apple is a far bigger offender in this regard)

 

[iluvatar5150]

...so is the real issue that the employees make so much less than the executive, or that they're not paid a living wage?

Mom & Pop stores pay less than Walmart, and collectively, employ 20x the number of people that Walmart does...so is it fair to assume you share the same feelings toward mom & pop stores?

If you issue is the Executive:Employee pay ratio, then you should be going after bigger offenders than Walmart (Tim Cook of Apple is a far bigger offender in this regard)

It's both, but it's a lot easier to overlook the exec:employee disparity when the employees are mostly doing well for themselves. That said, Steve Jobs was involved in some shady anti-employee activities and Apple is (rightfully) getting hammered over it.

High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[stray bullet]

.

 

[ulu]

walmart sells for less

just sayin
they have almost everything you need- and it's cheap-and they have an easy refund policy-and they employ many-and many are open all night
and

walmart sells for less

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It's both, but it's a lot easier to overlook the exec:employee disparity when the employees are mostly doing well for themselves. That said, Steve Jobs was involved in some shady anti-employee activities and Apple is (rightfully) getting hammered over it.

High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That covers one aspect (sorta...are you taking into account the people who work retail jobs at the Apple Store?)...however, that didn't address my other question about why the same disgust isn't displayed when discussing mom & pop stores.

Collectively, they employee way more people than Walmart and pay their people significantly less than Walmart.

 

[iluvatar5150]

That covers one aspect (sorta...are you taking into account the people who work retail jobs at the Apple Store?)...

I am taking that into account; I'm also taking into account the people who work at the Apple factories in China.

To be clear - I think there's plenty of ire to be pointed at Apple, but from the little bit of info I've found about their personnel roster, it doesn't appear that the overwhelming majority of their workers in the US are paid poverty wages. Some probably are, but a significant percentage are well-compensated. I'm not saying that they necessarily should be let off the hook; I'm proposing this as an explanation for why they often are.

however, that didn't address my other question about why the same disgust isn't displayed when discussing mom & pop stores.

There are plenty of small business owners who are money-grubbing leeches trying to suck every last penny out of their employees, and for them, I spare no amount of hate and anger, but it's rare that any of them make thousands or even hundreds of times what their employees do. That sort of disparity can really only happen in a large business.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

There are plenty of small business owners who are money-grubbing leeches trying to suck every last penny out of their employees, and for them, I spare no amount of hate and anger, but it's rare that any of them make thousands or even hundreds of times what their employees do. That sort of disparity can really only happen in a large business.

Let me preface this next post by saying, it's in no way intended to be an attack of any sort against you personally...

...but it sounds to me like this sweeping Walmart hatred that exists is based more on emotionally driven bullet points than it is on consistency and reason.

If the concept of a worker being paid peanuts & poverty wages is something that enrages them, then they should be enraged at all business owners even handedly...whether it be a 8-figure owner of a fortune 500 company, or whether it be a local grocery store owner that only makes $90k/year.

If the real issue is that everyone needs a living wage and it's wrong for an employer not to pay at least that, then the employer's wage is irrelevant to the discussion. If there's a perceived injustice, then than should be the focal point of the platform, not "CEO makes X times the amount of the employees".

 

[iluvatar5150]

Let me preface this next post by saying, it's in no way intended to be an attack of any sort against you personally...

...but it sounds to me like this sweeping Walmart hatred that exists is based more on emotionally driven bullet points than it is on consistency and reason.

It's both. It's also that WM is a convenient scapegoat because they're far and away the biggest of these retailers and they also have made a lot of moves to push down wages of not just their own employees, but the wages of their suppliers' employees, too. You could argue that many other companies are just as greedy and would have taken the same steps as WM if they'd had the same level of market dominance and leverage - and you'd probably be right. But they didn't have that leverage, so they couldn't take those steps.

If the concept of a worker being paid peanuts & poverty wages is something that enrages them, then they should be enraged at all business owners even handedly...whether it be a 8-figure owner of a fortune 500 company, or whether it be a local grocery store owner that only makes $90k/year.

If the real issue is that everyone needs a living wage and it's wrong for an employer not to pay at least that, then the employer's wage is irrelevant to the discussion. If there's a perceived injustice, then than should be the focal point of the platform, not "CEO makes X times the amount of the employees".

I think you're missing the more obvious case of people being enraged at an owner/ceo making tons of money while his workers live in poverty. For the most part, it's not just one of these facts or the other that gets people so mad; it's the combination of them. Yes, Tim Cook makes a gajillion times more than his workers, but a lot of his workers still make very good wages. Yes, many mom & pop places pay low wages, but most of those owners aren't making a ton of money themselves, so they're not milking their employees just so they can afford a new S-Class. At WM (and similar companies), however, you've got execs making huge money while their workers are collecting food stamps.

 

[Tina W]

walmart sells for less

just sayin
they have almost everything you need- and it's cheap-and they have an easy refund policy-and they employ many-and many are open all night
and

walmart sells for less

And they ad match.

 

[Paulos23]

I think you're missing the more obvious case of people being enraged at an owner/ceo making tons of money while his workers live in poverty. For the most part, it's not just one of these facts or the other that gets people so mad; it's the combination of them. Yes, Tim Cook makes a gajillion times more than his workers, but a lot of his workers still make very good wages. Yes, many mom & pop places pay low wages, but most of those owners aren't making a ton of money themselves, so they're not milking their employees just so they can afford a new S-Class. At WM (and similar companies), however, you've got execs making huge money while their workers are collecting food stamps.

This, so much this.

 

[keith99]

40% of workers getting a raise implies 60% are not.

40% is less than half the percentage where I work. The percentage for the last 10 years, each and every year.

But then where I work the employees are skilled and as they acquire more company specific knowledge they become more valuable to the company.