I like to break things

There is so much that I want to say about this
article in the NYT that, but I don’t know where to start.

Walmart’s Chief executive of low wages and no benefits, H. Lee Scott Jr., sent a scathing memo to one of his managers after being asked by said manager why “the largest company on the planet cannot offer some type of medical retirement benefits?” This, to me, is obvious. Mr.Scott makes a cool $17 mil and lives in a gated community. And according to this article he hops around the world in a fleet of company owned jets (good thing those poor clerks have to option of buying stock via payroll deduction or Mr.Scott may have to use a commercial airline-Ouch!). But he is angry that that one of his minions dared suggest that the company lose profits by giving decent benefits, even to it’s management team.

“Quite honestly, this environment isn’t for everyone. There are people who would say, ‘I’m sorry, but you should take the risk and take billions of dollars out of earnings and put this in retiree health benefits and let’s see what happens to the company.’ If you feel that way, then you as a manager should look for a company where you can do those kinds of things.“

So if you don’t like getting shitty benefits then you should go to a company that offers the opposite. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. If the company isn’t going to make any sacrifices for you then you shouldn’t make any sacrifices for it. Period. But Wal-Mart counts on the same thing the Bush administration counts on- blind loyalty. Keep your mouth shut and go with the flow and maybe someday you’ll get a decent wage.

According to the article Mr.Scott hails Wal-Mart’s response to Katrina. What they don’t tell you is that after responding so valiantly to that disaster Wal-Mart cut employee hours across the board in an effort to make up those losses._[1] While they want the general public to see them doing great things for the community they still want ot keep their profit margin and so the average employee loses. And by losing hours these same employees lose their eligibility to Wal-Mart’s shitty health insurance (if they’re lucky enough to be able afford it). Wow, that’s certainly commendable.

None of this surprising to me. When I first started there they stressed anti-union sentiments because a union couldn’t possibly offer more than Wal-Mart offers in the way of wages and benefits. It was common knowledge that if you mentioned “union” then they would find a reason to terminate you. They also strongly suggested that the employees didn’t need higher education because they could make a career out of working for the company. This particular Wal-Mart didn’t like to work with college students with regards to scheduling. If you were too educated then you didn’t go far with Wal-Mart (mostly because you’d quit but they don’t want their employees to be too smart). And if that sounds like bigotry to you, that’s too bad, Wal-Mart doesn’t want it’s employees to know that they’re getting screwed.

I have another interesting story. When I first started there they would give raises once a year based on performance and a percentage of your current hourly wage- up to 5%. This was good if you were there for a long time and made $10 or $11 an hour. This system seemed to reward performance as well as loyalty. Not long before I quit, though, they changed that system. And would only give raises up to 25¢ an hour (based on performance). So, if someone was there for a long time and made that $10 an hour they could potentially get 25¢ instead of 50¢ an hour. They tried to make this sound beneficial to the employees, and most of them bought into it. I remember sitting in the break room and arguing with old timers about how they were getting screwed. “Someone comes in an makes starts at $6 and pretty soon gets these quarter raises, but you only get 5¢(ranging from 0-25¢)then soon enough this new guy makes more money than you and you’ve been here for 10 years.” But they’d take that to the managers and the managers would make them feel better. That was that. See what I mean by them liking the not-so-educated? I left soon after that. I couldn’t stomach that place anymore.

So, here are the PDF links to the confidential emails. I’m going to try to copy them all and put them here, but my PC is gods-awful slow and it could take me five years. If you’re curious you’d be better off looking them up yourself.

1. 2004
2. 2005
3. 2006

_{[1] I learned this from a friend that still works there, but I won’t say who. I don’t want her to suffer any retribution from the higher-ups.}