Friday, July 12, 2013

Wal-Mart?! What Are Your Thoughts?

First of all I'm not here to tell you what to think, nor am I here to judge. I just want to know your opinion. I'm going to put forth two views on one situation, and see what you think.

Wal-Mart is under the spot light once again. I read this article this morning. Reading online is like reading the newspaper to me these days.

To sum it up, if you don't want to read the article, Wal-Mart is in the hot seat because Washington wants larger retail stores to pay their workers more than minimum wage. Minimum wage is $8.25 and Wal-Mart would have to pay their workers $12.50. Wal-Mart of course doesn't like this, and threatened to shrink their blueprints in Washington, DC. Of course there is more to the article. Read it if you want to understand it more.

Wal-Mart is known to be kind of crappy to their workers. In some smaller places, they open up jobs and are sometime the only place to go to shop. What's a person to do?

Two different sides of the coin: 
I strongly believe there there are always two sides to one coin. I'm a middle child, what else can I say?

Side One For Wal-Mart: They are many people's only option of shopping. If you take away stores and production, that would make it hard for many to shop. Food is known to be less money at Wal-Mart. They are cheaper to shop at in some regards. From my limited retail experience I know that things are marked up, and other items are dropped down in cost everywhere you go. Since they are a strong retail store, they do employee a lot of people. So what they are big; should they be penalized for being large? The big guys did work up to that status. Why should they be required to pay their workers more than anywhere else?

Side Two Against Wal-Mart: If it's only the DC area that they would stop building plans, I'm pretty sure people there would be ok with shopping at other places. Wal-Mart needs to be taught a lesson. There are many stores that do great money wise, and treat their workers well. Take Costco as an example; they treat their workers really well, and their business is doing really well. Cashiers start out at $10 an hour. After 4 years the average cashier makes $44,000 plus bonuses. They are treated more like a union. Their workers seem happy, and work fast. Maybe Wal-Mart should change their ways. 

With all that said, I rarely shop at Wal-Mart. I shop at Costco way more. I have options to shop where I live. In fact I got a gift card for Wal-Mart at Christmas from my boss man, and I just recently used it up. I am highly annoyed with the fact that two of my favorite stores have been taken over by Wal-Mart grocery stores! Borders went down a long time ago. One is a Wal-Mart now. Hobby Lobby right by my work was bulldozed to the ground. A Wal-Mart went up in its place. I'm sad about that. 

Here's a documentary that talks about Wal-Mart and view points about them.


So what are your thoughts. Again I'm not here to tell you how to think, or judge you. I'm just curious on others views. 


6 comments:

Theresa Mahoney said...

I guess I'm neither here nor there on Walmart. I shop at Meijer, but will head out to Walmart a few times a year for certain things. I have a lot of options shopping wise where I live, so I am not forced to go there. I feel sorry for the folks who don't have an option.

Lisa @ Two Bears Farm said...

WE don't have a Cosco. I do shop at Walmart, because with our budget it is friendly for that. However, if I wasn't on such a tight budget, I wouldn't shop there. I don't like a variety to things about the way they have treated employees and such.

~ Noelle said...

we love Walmart... because it is VERY friendly cost wise to us... a friend of mine (who was into couponing) told us to try couponing... and we compared her things with coupons to mine at walmart... and i was always the one spending less...
the people at our walmart are great (we go at certain times, as the other times have a weird vibe)

do i agree how they treat people?
No... but, supposedly they build such large parking lots (that are always lit up) so it is a welcome invitation to truckers to know they can always park there to sleep if needed...

Masshole Mommy said...

I have a love hate relationship with Walmart. On one hand, I save tons of money when I shop there, but I know they treat their employees very badly in most cases, so I hate supporting a company that treats people like that - but I also like saving money. I don't shop there much, but I do on occasion.

Eat To Live said...

If for some reason Walmart goes under.... there will be lots more people out of work.

I don't just shop Walmart but do shop there.

Terra Heck said...

I'll shop Walmart two or three times a year. They do have decent prices on most things but I don't think they treat employees fairly, customer service usually stinks, and I don't like fighting through the large crowds and long checkout lines.

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