http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...al_mart_canada

Why won't they just let them have unions?

I take it that the cost reasons that they give are simply not credible?

Hoorah, more reasons to despise Wal-Mart.

Hiya Shamrock,

Wal-Mart has become a bit of a problem in that their business practices are rather rapacious. They have a corporate policy of using any means necessary to keep their profits high without regard for the people who work for or with them.
They have a large customer base in the u.s. because they offer low prices; how they achieve those low prices is a matter of concern for some.
Here's a link to an aticle that covers some of those issues.

www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

Hey Absynthe - thanks for the very informative link! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Personally I find it hard to see the attraction..I sampled a couple of Walmart stores when I was staying in the States, along with Target as well, and I..erm...wasn't really impressed!

They've moved up to number 2 in the UK supermarket business (using the ASDA brand) but really that can be attributed more to the relative decline of Sainsbury's than a major breakthrough on their part. Tesco's still have the lion's share of the market and its increasing.

Interestingly, the British consumer obviously looks for different things than the American consumer, because both Sainsbury's and Tesco's really push ethical foods, both in terms of being grown/produced organically and naturally and in terms of a fair price for suppliers. Whilst this 'supplier-bullying' no doubt still exists, in the UK people are willing to pay slightly more to ensure that they have good quality natural food and that farmers receive a fair price. Where this doesn't occur, often individual farms have started selling their produce direct to local markets with often astonishingly successful results. It all helps to temper the harsher edges of excess capitalism.

They probibly want to keep their prices lower, it's their business, they are doing what they believe is best.

<font color = lightgreen>Americans do have a love/hate relationship with Wal-Mart. Every small town throughout the South will inevitably have a Wal-Mart; this will bring goods to the folks in that town the likes of which they might not have had before, but Wally-World [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] will kill every nearly every other mom-and-pop store in that town.
We shop there, even though we don't like it sometimes. They can afford to stay open 24 hours per day, and when you're hungry at 2:30 in the morning you have no other choice.

I can attest to the fact that WM doesn't always--or rarely--treats employees fairly. <font color = red>Belle</font> worked for WM for a while; if she logged even 3 minutes of overtime during a pay-period she would be "coached" by her shift supervisor. However, you could not clock out early to go home--if your shift ended at 7 you clocked out at 7, not 6:59.

This particular Wal-Mart was also bending the law. The floor-cleaning crew were...not fully legal (if you know what I mean); Wal-Mart would pay the cleaning company for its services and the cleaning company would pay the crews in cash, which doesn't have to be reported as income. :beigesmileinkgrin: When INS came to town looking for illegals, this Wal-Mart did two things: first they gave them all blue vests in order to appear to be Wal-Mart employees, then fired the company a week later to distance themselves from the whole situation. Nice.</font>

Well the Union that organized at this Wal Mart in Quebec is totally disingenuous because the Union organizers held a secret vote to create a Union and they LOST it. But rather than abiding by that secret vote they had a majority fill out a card and turned them in to be certified as a Union. (Union laws in quebec need a greater percentage of yes votes for a secret ballot than for a public one).

My parents hate Wal-Mart but occassionally they shop there anyway.

And that line pretty well sums up their power. In a perfect world, people would vote their conscience. In the real world, people more often vote their pocketbook...