No, Wal-Mart doesn't drive the competition out of business -- Wal-Mart's customers do. (And in my experience, they usually aren't driving the locally-owned mom and pops out of business, they're driving other discount chains out of business.) The customers have a choice -- shop Wal-Mart or shop the other stores -- and quite a few of them choose Wal-Mart.

I can't stand Wal-Mart -- I'll go everywhere else possible before I go into their over-crowded, messy stores. Still, I get so tired of the Wal-Mart is the devil incarnate attitude. But if it is the devil incarnate, it only succeeds because too many people give in to the devil's temptation.

I agree with what you're saying. I'm going to sound like an ass here (but hey, that's never stopped me before), but I wonder if part of the "Walmart as devil incarnate" attitude arises from the thought that many (not all) people shop at Walmart because it's cheap and they're too stupid to know better and realize the negative effects doing so can have on our society.

Exactly,

Walmart doesn't make the other stores raise their prices, they just offer lower ones. The majority of the people who try to keep walmart out of their town will shop there because of the prices and the "convenience" of being able to buy a napkin holder at 2AM. (South Park did a great episode on this)

In my city we have 2 Super Walmarts, 4-5 Krogers, a Cubs and a few small grocery stores that survive due to being conveniently located or having a full service meat counter. Those local stores aren't threatened by Walmart so much as the Krogers. And the Super Walmarts haven't harmed Krogers either, in fact it has grown as well. (Eagles went out of business and Krogers bought them up) Schnucks tried to move in to town but blamed Walmart on their store's failure... when a Kroger was closer.

Rambling here, but the point is that Walmart does not equal destruction of a city, here at least it functions very well.

As much as a detest Wal-Mart expansion (we are about to add the 3rd store within a 4 mile radius of my home) I don't see a problem with this kind of scheduling. I worked for "the worlds largest electronic retailer" (think television) and I worked what was called "on call". I picked my schedule based on their projections two weeks out....got to schedule my own hours, and had a great deal of flexibility. And it always amazed my with how accurate they were in determining when we were going to be busy. I felt much more productive at work, and I enjoyed this job immensely because of it.

This is completely irrelevant to the argument.

Saying they'll schedule more people on Friday nights than Monday afternoons is not the same as saying "you're f-ed for childcare" and I'm not sure why we're taking it to that extent.

Wal-Mart symbolizes a LOT of problems with micro-level capitalism, but this simply doesn't seem to be one of them. We're "hippy-ing" up this thread (thanks for the term, Val!) when the conversation is really much simpler.

I will agree, from the PR point of view (at least to the public), this doesn't look good. However, I'll also say that, if someone wants to go into plumbing or be an electrician, school isn't necessary. They can hook up with someone in the area and learn on the job. I realize it's not the easiest thing to do (my dad is a contractor who learned those skills on the job), but it's an option for people who wish to make more money and have more secure employment.

I think I'm just coming from a biased position on this whole, larger issue, of self-improvement, etc. My family didn't have much money, and I worked full-time (2 jobs senior year) to pay for undergrad (KSigRC can attest to this), and am currently working full time to pay for law school (evenings). It's not necessarily relevant to the present conversation, but it's the reason why I tend to side the way I do in situations like this. I think there are opportunities out there for people to better themselves, although I'm also fully aware that it's difficult for many in these situations to do so.

To back up what MysticCat is saying, it's happening right now in my hometown (as I noted). People are flocking to the WalMart, and slowly businesses in the area are starting to close down. Customers are ignoring the local places, and that's not WalMart's fault.

What is Cubs?

Do you have another discount store? (Kmart, Target or a similar local store)

Do you have a department store? (Walmart is not a true department store.)

Do you have a variety store?

Do you have stores that sell clothing?

Do you have stores that sell CDs?

I'm sorry, but "Walmart didn't hurt us, we have 2 of them and lots of Krogers!" is in the top 5 of really silly statements I've heard where Walmart is concerned.

Because the use of this type of scheduling makes it hard if not impossible for people whose FULL TIME job is Walmart to 1) budget or 2) schedule ahead of time. I don't use childcare, but I'm guessing they wouldn't be too jazzed if I kept calling and saying "I'll know 2 hours ahead of time but no earlier if I'm bringing little Connor in, oh, and by the way, I might have to work late, so can I maybe leave him there till 8 PM?"

Wow, I'm assuming that's supposed to be sarcastic, but it's a statement I agree with dead on. But I wont get into all that because I'll derail the thread...

on a different note - I HATE shopping at walmart - simply because of the check out process. The lines are always too long, the cashiers are short tempered (cant blame them, I've worked retail before and I HATED it) and the deaf,dumb and stupid people with a cart full of items thinks it's *cute* to go through the self serve lines, while someone like me, who goes to walmart for the simple convenience of location, for 1 or 2 things, has to wait 15 or 20 minutes in line.

Believe me - if it's not a matter of distance and convenience, I'll bypass walmart and go to Target. I NEVER have to wait in a long line at Target.

I'd still put charges that Wal-Marts decimates towns and basically eliminates any other retail outlet as number one on that list.

You're assuming, without much evidence as far as I can see, that's how it would work. Heather17, who actually has worked under a system like Wal-Mart is implementing, described it quite differently.

Wait, it's cool to make fun of deaf people now? I'm sure they're sorry that their disability makes you feel like you have to spend more time standing in line at the store, although I don't think it follows that a deaf person using the self-serve line would take any longer than a non-deaf person using the self-serve line.

I think you're right, valk. A blind person may take longer, but not a deaf person. I don't think I've seen braille on those machines. Although,they have braille on drive up ATMs - which is a major "go figure" for me.

You aren't far off the mark. How hard is it really to learn how to be a welder? How difficult is it to be a plumber? Even trade schools have financial aid, so the money thing isn't the huge problem you make it out to be. It is still a choice to do poorly in school. There are opportunities for people who want to succeed. Can they piss those opportunities away by building up a criminal record or bad credit? Sure. Those are choices as well though.

If they're ineligible for financial aid because they have a history of not paying their bills.... again, whose fault is that? Wal-Mart's?

Being born into poverty does not preclude one from getting an education. Is that really what you think? It is merely an obstacle that must be overcome in order to succeed.

A non-union chain supermarket

A super Target, at least one Kmart, plenty of dollar stores as well.
The mall is just north of the actual city. Several large department stores and a Kohls. Downtown I worked at a small dept. store that does office/gifts/toys/books/wicker/christmas. So there are locals as well.

Not sure what you mean, but the answer is likely yes. We have a LOT of the chain stores though I swear they're sucky in comparison with the next city over.

See said mall as well as stores downtown such as Talbots and locals.

BB, CC, and locals. Suncoast/Sam Goody dropped our store (and most of them in the area) when they got bought out.

The majority of stores that close or leave our area are due to corporate issues. Our downtown started struggling when the city said "we don't need the mall" and let it go outside of the city limits. To be fair, at the store I worked at downtown, everyone would have earned more money (except the owner) working at Walmart. That said, they made most of their money off of selling wicker furniture and Christmas trees anyway so Walmart wasn't much of a competition.

Grocery stores are just one example because I felt like I was already rambling. Supermarkets put many local grocers out of business years ago. Yet most people now shop at the nearest supermarket, even if they shop around for a few special items. Walmart isn't much more than a continuation of that trend. People just keep getting what they want.

They get 2 hours notice? Where did you read that?

I'm guessing they have at least a 1 week notice. I'm vaguely familiar with a similar piece of software called "PeopleSoft." I've heard few complaints from teh folks working under that schedule. I imagine that the software does allow for some employees to have priority as to their schedule remaining the same (e.g., students who have to go to classes).

That this affects all employees in the same way is arguing the facts without having access to the facts.