2006 Projects?

And you can refuse to do business with most of them. As long as people just shrug their shoulders, nothing will change. I think it's worth targeting the worst offenders, like Shaws and Wal*Mart, and refusing to shop there until they change their practices. People raised a stink about Bill Gates' lack of philanthropy and look what happened.

Corporate culture is that way because political and social culture allows it to be. Until we as a society say that this is unacceptable and we're not going to just sit and let it happen, nothing will change.

Elizabeth

A driver who is weaving is showing abnormal behavior. A person simply leaving the store with her packages is not.

Elizabeth

And I can refuse to work for them now - but when I had a small child and we needed my paycheck to make ends meet, I couldn't refuse to work the hours my employer insisted on.

I do refuse to shop at Shaws, but since I also refuse shop at K-Mart/Sears for different reasons, where am I going to find children's underwear or socks with out paying the mall superstore premiums? Same package of Hanes undies costs at least $2 more at mall and I have to drive further. Where would you shop? I can "afford" the surcharge, but not everyone can.

First, doesn't make his product any better, which is why we boycott Microsoft as much as possible. Second, I don't credit Bill with doing anything except supplying the money. His wife on the other hand, deserves lots of credit. Third, look at all the cheap publicity MS gains; every news outlet in the country has done an article on them including his own.

As to corporate or personal charitable giving, never forget such "giving" has positive affects on taxable income.

I don¹t know that boycotts work, long term. After all, the boycott of Disney by certain groups (over "gay day") has hurt them at all. (this is an example not an opinion; Disney rocks on this issue.) Ditto the Nestle boycott.

I'm not really sure what would help the people that need Walmart - as employer or a place to buy. I don't see Congress investigating their labor practices. The media might have some effect, but that would cut into their advertising revenue. The pressure to change will have to be more subtle.

Cheryl

Cheryl Isaak wrote: > Would I like to see them treat

Amen to that. I've read interviews with lawyers bragging that "legal secretaries are a dime a dozen", when they get fed up with how you treat them and quit, you just hire someone else who's desperate enough for a job to put up with the verbal abuse, temper tantrums, stress...

I've had lawyers driving expensive cars tell me they "can't afford" health insurance for their staff. At the beginning of my career, I worked briefly for a law firm that paid just over minimum wage, the only benefits were those you paid for (i.e., they made insurance available, but the poor underpaid employees had to scrape together the money to pay the whole premium, and since you must offer all your employees the same insurance, the gold-plated insurance that the boss wanted for his family cost a huge chunk of our near-minimum wage paycheck).

I've worked for a firm that promised you a pension/profit-sharing retirement plan, but what they really meant was that they were offering you a plan ... not any profits to put into it. At year-end, the partners would vote themselves bonuses in the amount of the profits. The only money in the profit-sharing plan was the couple thousand bucks they had to put in to start it and keep the account open.

On that subject, I worked for two places that set up and administered benefit plans for Professional Corporations (doctors, lawyers and CPAs). Many of them were incredibly generous (e.g., one that comes to mind paid the full tuition, room & board for the employee and their children at any college or graduate school, with no limits on how much tuition or for how many years). Unfortunately, you had to be with the company for years to qualify, and that meant that they could engineer keeping all the benefits for the owners. If you qualified for the benefit at 5 years, oh, too bad, you got laid off at 4 years, 11 months.

I don't hear anyone demanding we boycott doctors, lawyers, and CPAs because they treat their employees like crap and screw them out of benefits. I don't hear anyone demanding we boycott McD's because they pay minimum wage and most of their employees work only part-time.

WalMart pays its employees at least as well as KMart and Target. WalMart treats its employees at least as well as some of the executives who've won the secretarial association's Boss From Hell award.

And as much as people would like to blame WalMart for the amount of stuff manufactured overseas, let me point out that in 1981, when there wasn't a WalMart within 2000 miles of me, I could not find an American-made TV at any store in a major city. It was the stockholders of the American manufacturers -- not WalMart -- who at that point had the power to demand that $15/hour US employees be replaced by 15c/hour Taiwanese, reducing the cost to produce substantially, while the price paid by the consumer didn't go down at all.

Brava!

Unfortunately, with the rise of 401ks and IRAs, strata of society which previously never owned stock, now do, which means more people than ever are in favor of whatever keeps the value of their stocks high. And that means taking benefits from employees, paying them as little as possible, and sending their jobs overseas at pennies on the dollar. As long as it's the employees of the company you own stock in, and not the company you work for, it's a terrific idea to cut costs and increase profits.

Are we going to refuse to buy a TV or a toaster because we can't find one Made in the USA? I didn't. I felt bad about having to purchase an import, but not bad enough to deprive myself of the TV. I don't think you'll find that many people with the courage of their convictions to say "no TV is better than a Chinese TV".

I was just reading Freelance Daily before I came to RCTN. A company in Manhattan (highest cost of living in the US) is offering a whole $10/hour while demanding scads of experience in writing successful business plans. In Manhattan, you could make more than that as a receptionist. But these folks believe they can get a qualified person at $10/hour and the shame of it is, they'll find someone who is so desperate to pay the electric bill that they'll take it. A local lawyer (who's going to bill it out to his clients at $75/hour) is offering $10/hour for some bright, experienced person to research and write his motions. He makes $65/hour profit for doing nothing, while the person who actually DOES the work earns only 15% of what his/her time is being billed to the client as. A several-years-old study showed that the least you can earn in this town to make ends meet is $12/hour, but again, he'll find someone so desperate that they'll work for less than what the government says is Living Wage.

Although there's been a move afoot in the freelance writing community for eons to demand a fair wage for our work, it hasn't happened, and won't happen, because there's always someone willing to work for less. And this is a job which requires a native speaker of English, can't be outsourced to China or Mexico.

Cheryl Isaak wrote: > On 12/22/05 8:54 AM, in article > yPKdnX-LBa6CLTfenZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com, "Dr. Brat" > wrote: >>Cheryl Isaak wrote: >>>There are some things I like about Walmart - I'm never treated to the sight >>>of pierced eyebrows, lips or noses. Neatly dressed and groomed staff. In >>>general, the staff is polite and helpful. Would I like to see them treat >>>their employees (of all stripes - janitors to management) better - you bet. >>>But I can safely say that about 80% of companies in this country. >>

Exactly. That's why it takes a group effort.

I shop at Target when I have to get that kind of thing. They're not great, but they're a little better than the others. I also do tend to pay premium prices, not at the malls, but at the small shops in my city. But I also do live in a city where I can walk to the shops. There are no perfect answers, I realize. I'd prefer to buy clothing made in the USA, for example, but it's almost impossible. I just wish people were more aware of the choices they do have. Most people seem to just default to the lowest price without thinking about the long term costs of that low price.

I didn't mean to hold him up as a perfect example, but certainly he is one where public opinion has had an effect. His product and his business practices are a different side of the coin.

Sure, but that's often not the only reason people give.

I don't know that they don't work either. I think the results are mixed, depending partially on the size of the boycott and the issue. But even if boycotts don't work, I don't want to give my money to corporations that don't treat their people well. I may not have a perfect set of choices, but I do have some. I can shop at Costco instead of Sam's for example. I can go to my local cafe instead of Starbuck's or Dunkin Donuts. I can shop at my LNS instead of Michael's or JoAnns. I buy my groceries from a smaller local chain (Crosby's). In the summer, I get my vegetables from a local CSA. I try really really hard not to purchase fuel from Exxon/Mobil, either, although I'll do it rather than run out, of course.

And yes, I realize that many of the choices I make are available to me because my household income is large enough to make those choices available. But that's also true for a lot of people on this group and for a lot of the people who unthinkingly go to Shaw's and Wal*Mart because that's where the prices are best. I don't want to live in a world where Shaws and Wal*Mart are my only choices.

At least three state legislatures (Georgia, Arizona, Maryland) are looking into forcing Wal*Mart to carry its own share of health insurance for its employees. And Congress *is* starting to pay attention:

No, that is not controlling - she is clearly breaking a law. Now if he was pulling people over and checking to see if they had booze in the car, that would be yet another thing. That would be basically accusing them before the fact.

I disagree because checking people's bags will not stop shoplifting, so the bags of the honest people are checked which seems pretty pointless and very insulting. They are questioning my honesty, so I don't shop where they do that. If I have just spent my money at their store why on earth would I be humble ? I am the person they need in there, a customer.

I think Benjamin Franklin meant exactly what he said, in other words watch out for all your liberties and freedom, they were hard won and it is treacherously easy to watch them slip away. Bad enough we are surrounded by security cameras which don't actually protect you, but now they want to search your stuff entering and leaving stores ? I don't think so! What next - you can only shop if you are nude and the greeter has sealed off all body cavities ?

I meant Linda, not yourself lol

Yep. I would love to buy underwear from a small locally-owned store within walking distance, but I need cotton undies for health reasons. The boutiques only carry synthetics, at $15 a pair and up ... I can get a six-pack of cotton ones at Walmart for $7. The LYS about a mile away stocks only expensive, high-maintenance yarns. I'm not going to spend $50 on a sweater the kid will wear for 3 months, nor inflict on a harried new mother something that can't be thrown in the washer when it gets spit-up on twice a day. Sears and Target have stopped carrying yarn, Payless Drugs and Woolworth have closed, which means Walmart is the nearest place I can find machine-washable yarn.

So many of the things that I need to buy simply aren't available in the boutiquey shops in my neighborhood. They sell "fancies"; I need essentials. The good news is, the boutiquey shops are doing exactly what they need to, in order to compete with WalMart: stocking things that WalMart doesn't. The bad news is, because they're specializing in frou-frou, I can't find the basics I need in walking distance. And, no, a rayon thong sequined "Hot Stuff" is NOT interchangeable with plain white cotton panties.

This is correct and in the case of their employees, they are not in a position to smack them. With Wartmart, a store in Jonquierre in Quebec, unionised. All of a sudden, Wartmart decided that was not a profitable store and closed it. Makes you think ~ they spent the money to build it, were clearly making a profit but were prepared to close it in order to demonstrate to other Wartmart employees what would happen if they had the idea of introducing a union. That's pretty brutal.

Elizabeth, you can't be serious about people and the idea any of them get to say what a wealthy person does with their money or not, are you? It's none of my business what Bill Gates does. I for one don't want anyone telling me how I should give my money to charities or whatever. That is voluntary.

So, you're using what kind of computer and what kind of operating system?

Yes, to the eye this is true. However, last year shoplifting was a 13 billion dollar business and I think anythng which deters that is worth it. I'm more interested in the important issues of death penalty and the criminals of Enron and our president who is a major league thief. I put much more energy into those issues than to stopping for ten seconds at the door of a box store.

You can blame our Federal government for that. In the 1970s and 1980s, the law was: anyone who worked over 24 hours a week was considered full time for benefits. So, our Congress dismantled that right. Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs: The legislators that we voted into office. Put another way: point the finger back at yourself. Dianne

You know, I can neither verify nor deny this. I did find one site that claims that KMart and Target do better on health care coverage, but I couldn't corroborate that:

my real point is that I don't want to shop at any of the three. I patronize locally owned businesses as much as I possibly can.

I find it hard to believe that in 1981 you couldn't find an RCA somewhere, but if you say so. And I'm not blaming Wal*Mart for the amount of stuff manufactured overseas. That's not my beef (although I suppose it's part of it). In fact, when Sam Walton was still alive, Wal*Mart mostly only purchased US made, which means that you didn't look at Wal*Mart for that television.

My issue is that lowering prices and lowering wages will eventually kill this economy. If you don't pay people, they can't buy things. Henry Ford knew that. Why have we forgotten it?

Elizabeth

(snip)

There is a documentary being released to DVD called, Walmart: The high cost to low price. Release date is Jan. 15. I have it in my queue in Netflix.

Unfortunately, the reality is at every turn there is a box something or other putting others out of business. I remember at one time there were actually privately owned video rental stores. Now, the only ones left are Vietnamese or Mexican or some such and only because they have movies in their native languages, and further, they are scarce.

Everywhere we look we are supporting the giants, so to boycott this or that seems a waste of time, really. The fire is too big. There are far more ways of being mindful for the little guy than not shopping at box stores of any nature.

The point I am making to you Vic is that stopping you for ten seconds at the door of a box store, is the thin edge of the wedge. It is easier for individuals to begin working with small liberties that are infringed, than with Enron. It pays better for smaller people to be the thin edge that will build.

How is Target better? Not being a pain, I'm really curious how they are better. I do shop there also, but not often.

I swear, lately there is such junk everywhere unless you botique shop that I'm considering learning to make my own clothes. I mostly wear dress anyway and they should be easy to make. It shouldn't be that hard. Does anyone here sew their own clothes?

I can upholster anything, frame anything, I should be able to follow a pattern!

It's none of your business what Bill Gates does, but it might be your business what MicroSoft does, no? Last I looked, it was a publically traded corporation. And it's a publically traded corporation whose record of philanthropic activity has responded to public criticism. That's all I'm saying.

The one my employer forced on me, unfortunately. That's a bit of a cop out, I realize, but I held out for a long time, until I lost all the footnotes on a very long document trying to print it at work.

I'm not saying we live in a perfect world where we can control all our choices. I'm saying we should pay more attention to the ones we can control, rather than just throwing up our hands and saying, well, I can't do anything about it.

A few years ago, you didn't believe me when I told you what Wal*Mart did to its employees. Now you clearly do believe me. Has it changed how you shop? Or did you just decide that it's beyond your control and there's nothing you can do about it?

All I want is for people to be aware that they can make a difference. It might just be a small one, but I think we need to try.

Elizabeth

Ah, that's why we are a pluralist society. Everyone can focus on the issue that is important to them. For me, it's not about Wal*Mart stopping people at the door. It's about their behavior as a whole, behavior that affects many more people every day than the death penalty does, but I won't play your game of "my issue is more imporant than yours." I'm glad that you have something you want to work to change. This is what I want to change and I don't think that asking people to think about it once in a while is a bad thing. It's not like I have a fit every time Wal*Mart is mentioned, only once a year or so.

Elizabeth