Walmart Bikes

Triathlon Forum
53

In our city you have a Wal-mart with a Lowes across the street and about 1 mile away you have a Target with a Home depot across the street. All of them stay very busy and it sure does cut down on the amount of time and money I spend going all around town.

I only know of one ‘mom and pop’ hardware store that has gone out of business and there are many reasons for this. Mainly the location of it.

Our ‘box stores’ have created thousands more jobs in our community.

I still shop some of the mom and pop stores, it just depneds on what I am looking for, do I need personal service or help with it and the price.

54

You don’t need to put guns to people’s heads to get them to take crappy jobs. A large number of people need jobs. Any job. Have you seen the unemployment figures in this country? The official figure is over 5.5% – and that doesn’t include people who have been out of work for more than a few months. Some estimates put the true unemployment rate at about 8-9%. This is why people work at WM. Only 38% of WM employees have health coverage through WM because the premiums are so high and the wages so low.

Your $244 billion figure is questionable, to begin with, because it is hard to calculate how much people are really saving. What do you compare it with? And how do you know they would have bought those same goods, in the same quantities, if they hadn’t set foot in a WM in the first place? There is a huge tendency to over-buy at big discount stores.

In addition, you need to factor in the squeeze that WM puts on its suppliers, and their employees and families.

Bottom line is that WM helps bring us closer to the least common denominator.

56

I actually agree with you about WM’s effect on supply logistics. I’ll give them credit for that.

I don’t agree with the rest of your post. What information do you have about satisfied WM employees? And why does the fact that WM is growing imply that it is a good place to work? From what I’ve read, the average hourly wage at WM, nationally, is $8/ hour, and the starting wage is about $6.25.

Here are some interesting numbers I picked up off the web:

45%: Proportion of her entire annual wage that a single Wal-Mart employee might have to pay out-of-pocket before collecting any benefits from the company-sponsored health plan

42,000: Number of Wal-Mart employees in the state of Georgia in 2002

10,261: Number of children of Wal-Mart employees in Georgia who are enrolled in the state’s PeachCare for Kids health insurance program, which provides medical coverage to children whose parents cannot afford it

$420,750: Annual cost to U.S. taxpayers of a single 200-employee Wal-Mart store, because of support required for underpaid workers – including subsidized school lunches, food stamps, housing credits, tax credits, energy assistance, and health care

45%: Decrease in annual sales of Levi-Strauss clothing from 1996 through the first half of 2003, largely because of competition from less expensive jeans sold at Wal-Mart

6%: Sales increase in the third quarter of 2003, just after Levi-Strauss began supplying jeans to Wal-Mart

60: Number of U.S. clothing factories operated by Levi-Strauss in 1981

2004: The year in which Levi-Strauss will close its last two U.S. plants and stop manufacturing jeans, importing them from overseas instead

57

Until Wallyworld drives all the competition out of an area. At which time, it knows it’s got you be the balls and raises prices to more than what you paid at the mom and pop. When we lived in rural Tennessee, the allegedly low, low prices at Superwalmart (only game in town, monopoly situation) ran about 15% higher for a cart of groceries than prices at yuppie, allegedly expensive Kroger in Jackson (larger city 45 miles away with competitive grocery market) Living in an area where Wallyworld effectively had a monopoly on what it sold left me with a seething hatred of the place.

They also allegedly have a messy history of only promoting the “right kind” of employees to management positions. Women and minorities in management roles= tokens at best, things to be avoided at all costs in other stores.

58

Why does the fact that WM is growing imply that it is a good place to work?

First, to my knowledge WM has had few layoffs. Most people identify job security as one of the most importnat factors in quality of an employer. Second, I refer back to an earlier post where I said about 70% of Wal-Mart top execs started as hourly employees (yes, I realize there are definitional issues associated with the term top exec). Wal-Mart is growing at 12-15% per year. What can KMart offer its hourly employees? A dead end job in a bankrupt company (now merging with Sears). I have met Wal-Mart execs who started as hourly employees and while not everyone wants the opportunity or is capable of exploiting it, it definitely exists.

59

What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers’ Habits
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/14wal.html?oref=login
.

62

I thought Walmart’s legal problems in that area were well known. They certainly got a lot of press when the class action lawsuit charging them with discrimination against women got certified a while back.

64

The class action lawsuit is ongoing. Wal-Mart is the most sued company in America.

65

Still winding its way through the legal process. From what I’ve heard of the case it sounds pretty similar to some other grocery store sex discrimination cases over the years where the stores ended up getting slapped down pretty good by the courts or coming up with settlement terms v. favorable to the plantiffs. (see Publix in the 90s)

69

WM has made success stories out of the small mom and pop stores around the country. They’ve given those small shops a chance to sell their goods world wide by becoming suppliers.

AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! !!! !!! !!! OH BOY- *THAT’S FUNNY! *

they can’t compete and go out of business, they can close up shop and go work at Wal-Mart. It’s a win/win situation!

If you consider working at Walmart comparable to owning your own business, I guess. Too stupid.

70

Since when are US citizens “entitled” to all of these benefits? Where did this sense of entitlement come from…?

Many companies do not offer any benefits to their employees. It’s true Wal-Mart has a lower than average benefit program but not any worse than other companies I’ve seen or worked for…

I’m perplexed by the sense of entitlement that workers feel they are obligated to have.

do you have health insurance? have you contracted a serious medical condition while not on health insurance? I’m sure it’s very easy for you to say that people have no right to healthcare.

if Walmart were to put the squeeze on insurance companies, I might start shopping there…

71

When I was at IMFL last week, I didn’t get my FedExed bike until the last possible moment Friday night. I went and priced bikes at Walmart so I would have something (stupid and insane yes) if it never showed. I had my eye on a $50 beauty that was marked half off. $25 for a bike? I ended up renting a tri bike from the expo, but I still think that might have made a great story. An Ironman on a Walmart bike. Sheesh.

73

Like I said, no one is holding a gun to these peoples heads. They don’t have to work at Wal Mart.

It was that attitude that sprung up unions and labor laws in the first place.

74

“Since when are US citizens “entitled” to all of these benefits? Where did this sense of entitlement come from…?”

That’s not my point. I’m not talking about entitlements (although I would argue that basic healthcare should be an entitlement). I’m talking about what’s good for the country and what type of businesses I want to frequent. I don’t put all the blame on WM for this country’s healthcare problem, but they certainly aren’t helping matters. On the other hand, look at a business like Starbucks, which provides good cheap healthcare to even part-time workers.

This is just one issue with WalMart. They generally treat their employees like dog doo. The stories are legion. I think I’ve said enough on this subject in this forum, though. If someone is really interested in hearing more, start a Lavendar thread, I guess.

75

An Ironman on a $25 Huffy. That would be impressive.

I guess the thowaway bikes serve a purpose. I’m still stunned by that price though. The volume must be astronomical.

77

“Like I said, if the workers are worth their salt, they can find employment elsewhere. Anyone with a sense of pride and dignity wouldn’t stand for being treated like “dog doo” if that’s truly the case, which I doubt.”

Well, I wasn’t going to write anymore on this subject, but I must respond to your statement. Depending on whether you like the government stats (5.5%) or the private sector estimates of the “true” unemployment rate (around 9%+), somewhere between 1 out of 10 and 1 out of every 20 people in this country who would like to work can’t find ANY job at all. I’m sure some of those people must be “worth their salt.” While it would be great to be able to turn down a WM job on principle, people in the real world don’t have that luxury.

You should check out Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, in which she takes several “poverty-level” wage jobs, including one at Wal*Mart, to “see how the other half lives.” The answer: not well.

79

Yeah, but if we don’t buy the $50 bike, some poor bastard in China gets sent back to the farm to cook his dinner over a yak turd fire, if he can afford the yak turd that is!

Buy the bike, ride the bike and be happy!

81

Brian286, what to you think would happen if Walmart started selling a cheap tri bike, maybe $100. A little steel road job with some cheapo areo bars. If that happened, I think you would see a few of them in transition at races all over the country, maybe not Ironman races, but sprints.

83

Great idea!

I say $200 and go with pursuit bars and behind the seat bottle launchers and the bloody things would ride themselves out the door!

Walmart would be on to a winner IMHO

85

You’re right about that. I don’t think many people would stay on those bikes long if they decided they wanted to pursue the sport, because I don’t think the bike would be of any quality. But. it would be great for a beginner to be able to get into the sport initially for cheap, and if they decided it wasn’t for them they could just give the bike away and not feel guilty about having spent the money. If a bike like that ever does become available, you can bet it will be through Walmart. I’m not saying cheap is always a bad thing in regards to quality. I’ve gone to Walmart and gotten coolmax type running shirts for $7 on sale, that beats the $20-30 you will find in running stores. But, with bikes it’s a little different.