Guest Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 i just got jobs with the gap and pac sun. our mall opens at midnight, so theres pretty much a 90% chance i'll be working at 12 at one of them. fucking ridiculous. and the worst part is that sales pretty much plummet by 3 pm. so what's the point of all these extra hours? just start everything at 8 am. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dashhax Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 i just got jobs with the gap and pac sun. our mall opens at midnight, so theres pretty much a 90% chance i'll be working at 12 at one of them. fucking ridiculous. and the worst part is that sales pretty much plummet by 3 pm. so what's the point of all these extra hours? just start everything at 8 am. I love the Pacsun in swansea mall, so many hot girls shop there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steventangent Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I wish I could afford rent in the ivory towers that some of y'all live in... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I love the Pacsun in swansea mall, so many hot girls shop there. just had orientation the other day with about 9 girls. one of them is named Deja. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I wish I could afford rent in the ivory towers that some of y'all live in... Not sure exactly what you mean by "ivory tower". Googled it and I guess it means "A state of sheltered and unworldly intellectual isolation". Definitely not true. I come from a lower middle class union family. I worked my ass off in high school and got a full ride to college. I earned it myself and got no financial support from my parents. I spent almost a year in a union environment at a GM engine plant and saw first hand how that world works. Yeah, I'm doing great for myself. Nothing about my views are sheltered. If you want to claim that I lack sympathy / empathy for these people (I will admit I never worked retail, except one holiday season as a merchandiser for Coca-Cola), fine. I definitely don't live in an ivory tower. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcm1610 Posted November 24, 2012 Share Posted November 24, 2012 I refuse to work in retail ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almightyseancore Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 so did anyone get fired? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cymbalism15 Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 Yeah is there any info on the result of all this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 how are seasonal employees treated with respect to a union? are they part of the union? are they able to be let go after the holiday season, no questions asked? for the most part, I'm with lebowski on this, especially the "Unions are for careers" comment. I unloaded trucks at walmart during the summer between undergrad and grad school, and it totally sucked ass (especially for a wuss like me). if you work that job for ~$10/hr and aren't motivated to get a better job... eek! and for the record, I'm generally anti-union, if only because my sister's boyfriend works for the postal service and he's always talking about how their union makes it nearly impossible to fire all of the slackers he works with, and because of that, he has to work super duper hard to move up the ladder to avoid being laid off simply because they've been around longer than he has. it depends. if a CBA allows for "seasonal" employees, than they are protected under the union, and could be required to join the union after 30 days, or be terminated. but then that also would depend on what state that seasonal job is in, if its a right-to-work state or not. there are a lot of different factors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 Yeah is there any info on the result of all this? didnt slow down black friday sales in walmart no one got fired from my understanding also, US Walmarts are the only stores in the world that are non-unionized. so its not like this isnt something Walmart hasnt done elsewhere in the world, they just dont want to do it here, in the US. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cymbalism15 Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 also, US Walmarts are the only stores in the world that are non-unionized. so its not like this isnt something Walmart hasnt done elsewhere in the world, they just dont want to do it here, in the US. I think that says a lot right there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 What other countries have Wal-Marts? Doesn't surprise me if you say Canada and any European country. They tend to be more progressive. If China or Brazil or places like that have unions, I would guess they are not very strong and maybe essentially just for show. What happened with the walk-off? I didn't really read about it in the news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 What other countries have Wal-Marts? Doesn't surprise me if you say Canada and any European country. They tend to be more progressive. If China or Brazil or places like that have unions, I would guess they are not very strong and maybe essentially just for show. What happened with the walk-off? I didn't really read about it in the news. nothing immediate happened with the walk-offs, sales didnt drop, and its probably only the first step towards union representation for Wal-mart employees as they'll probably orchestrate additional walk-offs to raise awareness in the future. It'll end up being individual stores, one at a time, unionizing, so it'll all depend on the store/township/city/state on how quickly unionization could happen. Walmarts are Unionized in China, France, Canada, Mexico, etc., it doesnt matter if they're in "more progressive" or government controlled nations... the fact is that Wal-mart Unionization is NOT NEW to Wal-mart is the point. They unionized everywhere BUT where they're from, and were, up to this past weekend, extremely hostile towards employees discussing union representation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 And my point was that "Union" has very different meanings in the US and China. A quick quote form an article I found on the subject: And small wonder. Unions affiliated with the All-China Federation seldom push for wage increases or safer machinery. Indeed, the locals are often headed by someone from company management. Not that there isn't worker discontent in China: Every week brings accounts of spontaneous strikes, and now and then an occasional riot over such lifestyle impediments as unpaid wages. But the role of the state-sanctioned unions isn't to channel the discontent into achievable gains; it's to contain it to the employer's benefit. The leaders of genuine workers' movements in China don't end up running the All-China Federation. They're to be found in prison, in exile or in hiding. So to say "How come Wal-Mart hasn't unionized in America, they have it in China (and other places)" is like saying "I dominated my softball league, think I'm gonna try out for the Red Sox". Totally different environments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 so what about unions in europe or more "progressive" countries? since those nations would be like saying "i dominated in international baseball leagues, think im going to try out for the red sox". totally similar environments. its easy for you to pick the extreme outlier like China in this instance because its well documented that the government "approves" all unions/leaders in their employment setting, and doesnt actually allow, for now, its citizens the right to unionize on their own (that is changing). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Hundred Fifty-Two Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 Best case scenario for Wal-Mart unionization: employee's wages will be raised enough to cover union dues. Zero net gain to employees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 Best case scenario for Wal-Mart unionization: employee's wages will be raised enough to cover union dues. Zero net gain to employees. sure, if you figure that everything else negotiated in a CBA is worthless. defining overtime hours and fulltime status alone would offset the minimal raise to cover union dues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcm1610 Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/why-raises-walmart-workers-are-good-everyone "Chances are you missed this particular bargain on Black Friday: Agree to spend 15 cents more on every shopping trip, and Walmart, Target, and other large retailers will agree to pay their workers at least $25,000 a year. Big box retailers aren't actually offering that deal, but a new study by the liberal think tank Demos argues that it would be a great bargain for us all if they did. Increasing the average wage at large retailers from $21,000 to $25,000 would probably cost you less than $20 a year at the register yet lift some 1.5 million people out of poverty (including your cashier), create 100,000 new jobs, and boost GDP by some $13.5 billion. " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 Mike, you totally missed on that analogy. I compared "level of progressiveness (or amount leaning towards the left if you would prefer" with "level of competitiveness" in baseball. European countries are even more progressive than us with stronger unions. So, if you want to fault my analogy and say the US is "triple-A" with Europe being "big leagues", then sure. But the whole point from the start was that your post (while not saying explicitly) had this "everyone is unionized but us so what are we doing wrong connotation". I focused on China, but my point was that unions in any third world country are going to be effectively powerless against the company and government. So who gives a shit if they technically have a union? If you want to say, "every store in Europe and Canada has a union, so why shouldn't we?" This is a valid argument (by valid I mean nothing technically wrong with premise, whether it is true or not). It just doesn't have the zing of "even people in China have unions, but we don't". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryq Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I get the impression that US unions are a lot different than unions in other countries. mercedes-benz and volkswagon are unionized in germany, but not here (at least as of this article last year). what does that say? furthermore, that article makes it sound like the UAW wants to organize those companies for their own financial gain, rather than "the good of the workers" (not intended to be an earth-shattering revelation) maybe if union organizing in the US didn't seem like such a money/power grab (with a sympathetic facade), more companies/factories/workplaces in america would be unionized. are working conditions at mercedes-benz so bad that the UAW wants to protect their workers, or does UAW recognize that foreign automakers are growing and see this as a great opportunity to cash in? are conditions at walmart really that much worse than at target, fred meyer, shopko, etc., or is walmart just an uber-massive company that would give some union billions in member fees? I think we can all agree that unions need to focus on the people who are really in need, like the UAW did last year when they tried to unionize grad students at the U of M. a salary that includes great health insurance and tuition remission is a slap in the face of grad students working ~20 hours a week for 2-6 years while they further their education... /sarcasm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Figured this was a decent place to share: My dad is a teamster and went from Detroit to Lansing yesterday to protest MI becoming a right to work state (which passed). Got sprayed in the face with pepper spray by a state trooper. He didn't really want to talk about it. I wish I knew more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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