Walmart?

[Sunnydaydreams]

What are your opinions about walmart? personally i dont agree w/ its low pay, corporate ruthlessness, & mistreatment of employees. i have seen it take over small towns, putting small shops out of business. ive even heard that walmarts trying to start their own bank & even an oil refinery!

heres a link to a story about walmart: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0214-28.htm

what can we do to stop the spread of walmart besides boycotting them?

peace & love

[nappydread]

...i apologize since i haven't read the link yet

But one way to stop some of the things you speak of above is to unionize the workers. Walmart management would HATE this b/c it gives some power back to the employees. To my knowledge they have closed down 2 stores in Quebec in recent months due to this.
Either that...or we as hippies could organize a huge love in where we all camp in walmart parking lots...say for like a year. While we do this we can barter/trade our own goods and harrass/scare off wal mart buyers...i dunno...now im just dreaming i guess

peace

[BandAide]

My husband has a ban on all Wall Mart purchases. I think he'd divorce me if I dared to cross this decision he's made. There are very few things my husband hates, and WallMart is one of them. He hates them more than he does Dubya.

Did you see the piece John Stewart did on the Daily Show about it?

[Sunnydaydreams]

i dont think i saw it, but i've heard about it. did you hear that jon's book is banned at walmart? heres the article:

By AVA THOMAS BENSON, Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart canceled an order for a best-selling book by Jon Stewart and the writers of "The Daily Show" after executives learned that it contained a photo of nine naked, aged bodies, each with the superimposed head of a Supreme Court justice.

"America (The Book)," a mock school text that lampoons the American government in much the same way the Comedy Central show spoofs the news, includes cutouts of the justices' robes and a caption asking readers to "restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe."

Executives for the Bentonville-based retail giant deemed the book inappropriate for its shelves this week.

"We were not aware of the image that was in the book (when Wal-Mart ordered it) and we felt the majority of our customers would not be comfortable with it," said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Karen Burk. "We offer what we think our customers want to buy. That just makes good business sense."

Jamie Raab, a publisher for Warner Books, which produced "America," said the naked justice joke fits perfectly with the book's theme.

"It's not gratuitous and it's very much in tune with the rest of the book," Raab said. "It's funny, yet to the point. When you undress the Supreme Court justices, they're just men and women and you have to judge them on who they are and what they do. It makes you look and think and laugh."

Raab said she doesn't fault Wal-Mart for its decision, but added that she didn't see the point in banning something that isn't intentionally sexually explicit.

Wal-Mart has a well-known policy of refusing to carry magazines with racy covers or CDs with explicit lyrics.

The chain is offering the book on its Web site. Burk said the store's online customers are a "different audience" and that the company wanted to give an option to people looking to buy the book from Wal-Mart.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[BandAide]

Duh, right!?

I mean, people who shop in wallmart never get naked, right?

Their "audience" is perma-clothed!

ha!

[LIBRA]

they are building a SUPER WALMART in my town which will replace the regular walmart. since walmarts moved in small stores all over have closed its really sad, they cant compete with the prices and thats what consumers are all about I know money is a huge issue with me especially when you are trying to eat naturally and buy naturally its expensive and on one income its real hard so I see why people shop at walmart I dont agree with and I dont but its gonna be a hard chain to break cause its getting bigger and bigger by the minute!!! I wish someone would do something about the cost of trying to live green, its very expensive maybe they could make a green walmart! ha I am soooo just kidding!!!!!! good luck with your boycott/campout nappy!!!
I actually had a freind that worked there breifly but she had health insurance and the pay wasnt to bad for her she liked it, she quite to follow phish, go figure!!!

[Pedata]

Sadly, I don't think anything is going to stop walmart. They are affordable. One day there will be nothing but walmarts

Things you will be able to do at walmart one day~

Hire a lawyer
Get a pap smear
Purchase a mobile home

Walmart came to our town about 8 years ago. They are building a new building that is twice as big as the old building and only a few hundred feet from the old building.

Nappy- I saw on the news about a walmart in Canada that closed down because they were about to go union. How sad. Walmart can afford a union. They're "family owned" and really don't pay much taxes. It's all about money.

Peace,
Cassandra

[nappydread]

hey cassandra...

Originally Posted by Pedata

...Nappy- I saw on the news about a walmart in Canada that closed down because they were about to go union. How sad. Walmart can afford a union. They're "family owned" and really don't pay much taxes. It's all about money...

you got half of it...money and POWER...

Originally Posted by source

Wal-Mart’s calculated ruthlessness was not about profit. It was about power – the absolute power that Wal-Mart wants over its workers, and suppliers and towns it does business in.

http://www.walmartworkerscanada.com/...rticleID=00097
(...hehehe...sorry for all the canadian shit...but its big news up here )

peace

[tooter_mcgee]

i watched a tv show the other night about wal-mart and how it operates. the one thing about wal-mart that bothers me most (the obvious set aside) is the way they conduct business with their suppliers. they strongly urge them, basicly force some of them to move their manufacturing operations off-shore to keep costs low. namely, china and other countries where they have tons of kids and mothers working in horrible conditions for low pay. this couple had designed this kind of wall hanging with little pockets and such to keep your car keys in and other small things. wal-mart signed a deal with them to buy from them for a year. after the year was over, the couple was told that they needed to have their product manufactured off-shore to lower costs, or they would face losing their deal, and selling this product was this couples primary source of income. sad huh? not to mention sick, immoral, manipulative....

[delta9]

While I was living in Germany, WalMart acquired a chain store called Werkauf... One got burned down by the angry consumers

From this forbes article

What a contrast to Wal-Mart's $2.7 billion German operation. Six years into it, it still loses money, say analysts; same-store sales are stubbornly negative. Things went badly from the outset, when Wal-Mart purchased Wertkauf and Interspar, two small German chains, in 1997 and 1998. (Interspar, a dog, had already been sold five or six times before.)

To make matters worse, "We moved the head office, rebranded, repriced--all within 12 months," says DeNunzio, chief financial officer of European operations 2000-01. "In hindsight, it was much too fast."

Germans were caught off-guard by cashiers bagging their stuff. "People said, ‘What are they doing with my merchandise?'" says a company spokeswoman. Nevertheless, Wal-Mart still offers to help pack customers' groceries. One big hit: singles day. At designated spots throughout stores--"flirt stations," if you will--unattached shoppers can pick up free samples of products and foods--and romantic prospects.

For decades German law forced stores to close at 4 p.m. on Saturdays and all day Sundays, Wal-Mart's busiest days. Some restrictions have been relaxed. Now stores can open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week. (Sunday is still verboten.)

Wal-Mart predicts positive cash flow by year-end, but that may be a stretch. The retail colossus almost seems in retreat. There are no openings planned for 2004. In an almost unprecedented move, it closed a store in the Esslingen mall near Stuttgart, then chose not to rebuild a Cologne store that burned down. It stepped back from a projected store in Berlin. Thomas Lindau, a marketing consultant with Research International, holds out scant hope for a turnaround: "For years they've tried and tried and didn't succeed. It's going to be tough."

Stick it to the bastards with no thought on other people's culture or way of life... Just money money money, and that causes strife.