Walmart treats workers like shit - loses market share.
Watch the movie and then read the article.
WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE is a feature length documentary that uncovers a retail giant's assault on families and American values.
Then have a think about this:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/04/17/walmart-pays-workers-poorly-and-sinks-while-costco-pays-workers-well-and-sails-proof-that-you-get-what-you-pay-for/
Meanwhile, Costco’s primary competitor, Walmart, saw an anemic 1.2 percent rise in sales, while other competitors such as J.C. Penny and Target experienced even greater disasters in their sales results.
In an identical economy, how do we explain Costco’s growth vis-à-vis the failures over at Walmart?
Here’s a crazy thought—might it have something to do with the fact that Costco pays nearly all of its employees a decent living (well in excess of the minimum wage) while Wal-Mart continues to pay its workers as if their employees don’t actually need to eat more than once a week, live in an enclosed space and, on occasion, take their kids to see a doctor?
And just in case the occasional Walmart employee finds a way to squeak by, the company has sought to put an end to that by cutting their employment roster by 1.4 percent, even as they increased their store count by thirteen percent.
The result?
Walmart service now pretty much sucks—and customers don’t like it.
Without enough employees to get the basic work of a retail operation done—and with those on site being paid a wage so low that it is difficult to expect much in the way of pride or motivation—Wal-Mart merchandise remains stacked on pallets in the warehouse rather than making it to the floor where customers can find the products they want. At the same time, check-out lines are painfully long and annoying as the overall shopping experience continues to deteriorate.
One is left to wonder about the value of offering products at a lower price if those products are not on the shelves when the customer needs to buy them?
Per Bloomberg Businessweek:
“Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) has been cutting staff since the recession—and pallets of merchandise are piling up in its stockrooms as shelves go unfilled. In the past five years the world’s largest retailer added 455 U.S. Walmart stores, a 13 percent increase, according to company filings in late January. In the same period its total U.S. workforce, which includes employees at its Sam’s Club warehouse stores, dropped by about 20,000, or 1.4 percent.”
The article continues, “A thinly spread workforce has other consequences: longer checkout lines, less help throughout the store, and disorganization.
Last month, Walmart placed last among department and discount stores in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the sixth year in a row the company has either tied or taken the last spot.
The dwindling level of customer service comes as Walmart has touted its in-store experience to lure financially strained shoppers and to counter the threat from online rivals such as Amazon.com (AMZN).”
So, does paying an employee a living wage make a difference when it comes to profits?
Harold Myerson writes in a terrific piece published in today’s WashPo—
“One lesson that emerges from the experience of low-end retailers is that putting workers in crummy, low-wage jobs tends to yield crummy service as well.
McDonald’s earnings have fallen, the Wall Street Journal reports, and a management webcast to franchise owners acknowledged that customer dissatisfaction is rising in part because “service is broken.”
Myerson adds, “Some of the most successful retailers follow a different path.
As MIT management professor Zeynep Ton argued in Harvard Business Review last year, Costco and Trader Joe’s pay their workers far more than many of their competitors, offer their employees opportunities for promotion and enjoy markedly lower worker turnover and far higher sales per employee than their low-road counterparts. Sales per employee at Costco are nearly double that at Sam’s Club.(emphasis added)”
As the old saw goes, you get what you pay for. Costco pays their employees a livable wage and gets sales per employee at double what Walmart subsidiary Sam’s Club gets from their employees who work for lousy pay.
Maybe the time has come for Wal-Mart to take a lesson from Costco and consider the potential upside of treating employees like human beings.
It might just prove to be good for business.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile the scum-fuck antics of Ahmed Fahour and his team sleaze management continue.
http://www.cwu.org.au/postal-ebulletin-2013-22.html
DLC workers attach the meal allowance envelopes along with their 15c to Xmas tree.
DLC worker donates 15c allowance increase to AP boss Ahmed Fahour.
Last week, Post began paying the extra 15c meal allowance as a result of Ahmed Fahour's magnanimous EBA gesture.
At Dandenong Letters Centre, the payment took the form of 15c sticky-taped to the outside of the meal allowance envelopes. This raised the ire of all the workers and dramatically highlighted just how miserable AP really is.
Greatly insulted by this paltry "pay rise", someone decided to donate it to Ahmed Fahour to help with the repayments on his new house. So they attached it to the Xmas tree situated on the work floor just outside one of the managers' offices.
This was on Friday night about 10PM. What happened next was truly amazing - the likes of which has never been seen in this place before. Over the course of the next several hours, worker after worker made a pilgrimage to the tree and also attached their meal allowance envelopes to the tree, along with their 15c donation to Ahmed.
By end of the day, Saturday morning, the Xmas tree was literally covered with empty envelopes with their 15c attached, bearing various Xmas greetings to the AP boss, Ahmed Fahour.
There were no rude or insulting remarks. Most simply wished Ahmed a "Happy Xmas" or offered it towards his new house. One simply said, "4.7m + 15c"! As one worker said, "We are donating to Ahmed 100% of our pay rise!"
If Ahmed should in any way feel insulted by these donations - of receiving just a miserly 15c -then, by god, so do we!
Post script: Management called the CWU delegate into the office the following Monday and presented him with an envelope stuffed with all the allowance packets, with the 15c attached, asking what they should do with them. Forward them to the person that they were intended for he said. They couldn't do that they said!
Members who still wish to make a donation to Ahmed should mail them in to Ahmed "15c" Fahour Appeal 111 Bourke St. Melbourne 3000. Use your postage stamps left over from your last Xmas "Bonus"
(Source: CWU member Vic Branch).
Many members have expressed their absolute disgust with the CEO's pay increase from $2.8 million last year to $4.7 million this year, especially given his mantra of "pay restraint" during his EBA "Roadshows".
Keep the petitions coming. We will be formerly submitting them to AP in the New Year. We will not be providing people's names to AP. Contact us directly (details below) in the CWU national office if you need any more copies for your workplace.
But there's more to the story said the Union in its written submission to the current Senate Inquiry into the performance, importance and role of AP in the Australia communities and LPOs.
Yes traditional mail volumes are going down. Yes substitution by email is going up. But mail is not dead. This is not a business that is going to go away anytime soon. AP presents a far more pessimistic outlook than that provided by international postal experts. Why? If you want to close post offices, reduce the workforce and cut services you need a permanent change in thinking. Mail volumes are declining so of course it is killing AP - except it's not. Undermining postal services will do much more harm to AP than declining mail volumes.
Individual posties complain that AP is fiddling the figures. Mail volume is going up, not down. Posties are being bullied into doing ever longer rounds.
A full-time postie in a large capital city says he is working pretty consistently 10 hour days. "Overtime used to be optional once, not anymore."
A part-time postie in the same capital city said he is coerced by his team leader into doing 8 1/2 hours every day. If a postie says, "Don't tell me about falling mail volumes, I'm carrying more than ever," a lot of the time they will be correct.
Posties are delivering fewer letters but small parcels and packets have replaced the declining volume of traditional letters. Domestic parcel volumes are increasing at an unprecedented rate, up 9.3% in 2012 - 2013. Around 84 % of all small parcels are processed through the delivery centres, with more than two thirds of these now delivered by posties.
Most posties are working harder than ever. Alongside our posties, our retail members in post offices are under increasing pressure. Many offices run short staffed. People do unpaid time. The big rise in parcels because of the popularity of online shopping brings foot traffic but has put retail workers under more pressure and exposed to health and safety risks.
Parcels not delivered by contractors are returned to post offices. It is not uncommon for big, awkward and heavy parcels to present at post offices. Recently a car gear box turned up as a carded parcel.
There is minimal parcel handling equipment and limited storage space in most post offices. Asking workers to get someone to help lift a parcel is not feasible in a busy post office nor is it an acceptable work method. Notwithstanding that members are working harder than ever they will receive a total of 1.5% into salary this year which is again another pay cut in real terms.
AP should at least commit to top up pay to CPI and engage with the union on the profit share commitment that was promised during the EBA discussions. Read our whole submission on our website from Monday.
WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE is a feature length documentary that uncovers a retail giant's assault on families and American values.
Then have a think about this:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/04/17/walmart-pays-workers-poorly-and-sinks-while-costco-pays-workers-well-and-sails-proof-that-you-get-what-you-pay-for/
Walmart Pays Workers Poorly And Sinks While Costco Pays Workers Well And Sails-Proof That You Get What You Pay For
Costco’s most recent quarterly earnings report reveals a fairly healthy eight percent rate of growth in year-on-year sales—including a five percent rise in same store sales. What’s more, with membership fees rising from $459 million in the same quarter last year to $528 million this year, it’s pretty clear that a significant number of customers are moving over to the retailer to do their discount shopping.Meanwhile, Costco’s primary competitor, Walmart, saw an anemic 1.2 percent rise in sales, while other competitors such as J.C. Penny and Target experienced even greater disasters in their sales results.
In an identical economy, how do we explain Costco’s growth vis-à-vis the failures over at Walmart?
Here’s a crazy thought—might it have something to do with the fact that Costco pays nearly all of its employees a decent living (well in excess of the minimum wage) while Wal-Mart continues to pay its workers as if their employees don’t actually need to eat more than once a week, live in an enclosed space and, on occasion, take their kids to see a doctor?
And just in case the occasional Walmart employee finds a way to squeak by, the company has sought to put an end to that by cutting their employment roster by 1.4 percent, even as they increased their store count by thirteen percent.
The result?
Walmart service now pretty much sucks—and customers don’t like it.
Without enough employees to get the basic work of a retail operation done—and with those on site being paid a wage so low that it is difficult to expect much in the way of pride or motivation—Wal-Mart merchandise remains stacked on pallets in the warehouse rather than making it to the floor where customers can find the products they want. At the same time, check-out lines are painfully long and annoying as the overall shopping experience continues to deteriorate.
One is left to wonder about the value of offering products at a lower price if those products are not on the shelves when the customer needs to buy them?
Per Bloomberg Businessweek:
“Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) has been cutting staff since the recession—and pallets of merchandise are piling up in its stockrooms as shelves go unfilled. In the past five years the world’s largest retailer added 455 U.S. Walmart stores, a 13 percent increase, according to company filings in late January. In the same period its total U.S. workforce, which includes employees at its Sam’s Club warehouse stores, dropped by about 20,000, or 1.4 percent.”
The article continues, “A thinly spread workforce has other consequences: longer checkout lines, less help throughout the store, and disorganization.
Last month, Walmart placed last among department and discount stores in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the sixth year in a row the company has either tied or taken the last spot.
The dwindling level of customer service comes as Walmart has touted its in-store experience to lure financially strained shoppers and to counter the threat from online rivals such as Amazon.com (AMZN).”
So, does paying an employee a living wage make a difference when it comes to profits?
Harold Myerson writes in a terrific piece published in today’s WashPo—
“One lesson that emerges from the experience of low-end retailers is that putting workers in crummy, low-wage jobs tends to yield crummy service as well.
McDonald’s earnings have fallen, the Wall Street Journal reports, and a management webcast to franchise owners acknowledged that customer dissatisfaction is rising in part because “service is broken.”
Myerson adds, “Some of the most successful retailers follow a different path.
As MIT management professor Zeynep Ton argued in Harvard Business Review last year, Costco and Trader Joe’s pay their workers far more than many of their competitors, offer their employees opportunities for promotion and enjoy markedly lower worker turnover and far higher sales per employee than their low-road counterparts. Sales per employee at Costco are nearly double that at Sam’s Club.(emphasis added)”
As the old saw goes, you get what you pay for. Costco pays their employees a livable wage and gets sales per employee at double what Walmart subsidiary Sam’s Club gets from their employees who work for lousy pay.
Maybe the time has come for Wal-Mart to take a lesson from Costco and consider the potential upside of treating employees like human beings.
It might just prove to be good for business.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile the scum-fuck antics of Ahmed Fahour and his team sleaze management continue.
http://www.cwu.org.au/postal-ebulletin-2013-22.html
1. Workers send a strong message to Ahmed Fahour
DLC workers attach the meal allowance envelopes along with their 15c to Xmas tree.
DLC worker donates 15c allowance increase to AP boss Ahmed Fahour.
At Dandenong Letters Centre, the payment took the form of 15c sticky-taped to the outside of the meal allowance envelopes. This raised the ire of all the workers and dramatically highlighted just how miserable AP really is.
Greatly insulted by this paltry "pay rise", someone decided to donate it to Ahmed Fahour to help with the repayments on his new house. So they attached it to the Xmas tree situated on the work floor just outside one of the managers' offices.
This was on Friday night about 10PM. What happened next was truly amazing - the likes of which has never been seen in this place before. Over the course of the next several hours, worker after worker made a pilgrimage to the tree and also attached their meal allowance envelopes to the tree, along with their 15c donation to Ahmed.
By end of the day, Saturday morning, the Xmas tree was literally covered with empty envelopes with their 15c attached, bearing various Xmas greetings to the AP boss, Ahmed Fahour.
There were no rude or insulting remarks. Most simply wished Ahmed a "Happy Xmas" or offered it towards his new house. One simply said, "4.7m + 15c"! As one worker said, "We are donating to Ahmed 100% of our pay rise!"
If Ahmed should in any way feel insulted by these donations - of receiving just a miserly 15c -then, by god, so do we!
Post script: Management called the CWU delegate into the office the following Monday and presented him with an envelope stuffed with all the allowance packets, with the 15c attached, asking what they should do with them. Forward them to the person that they were intended for he said. They couldn't do that they said!
Members who still wish to make a donation to Ahmed should mail them in to Ahmed "15c" Fahour Appeal 111 Bourke St. Melbourne 3000. Use your postage stamps left over from your last Xmas "Bonus"
(Source: CWU member Vic Branch).
2. AP profits up, Fahour's pay up, demands for your share up
AP profits up, Ahmed Fahour's pay up big time, and petitions by you demanding your share up. We have received hundreds of petitions from members directly into the CWU national office. State Branches have also received hundreds of responses from members.Many members have expressed their absolute disgust with the CEO's pay increase from $2.8 million last year to $4.7 million this year, especially given his mantra of "pay restraint" during his EBA "Roadshows".
Keep the petitions coming. We will be formerly submitting them to AP in the New Year. We will not be providing people's names to AP. Contact us directly (details below) in the CWU national office if you need any more copies for your workplace.
3. Union provides submission to Senate on Australia Post
If you listen to AP mail volumes are declining faster than predicted and it is all because of the internet.But there's more to the story said the Union in its written submission to the current Senate Inquiry into the performance, importance and role of AP in the Australia communities and LPOs.
Yes traditional mail volumes are going down. Yes substitution by email is going up. But mail is not dead. This is not a business that is going to go away anytime soon. AP presents a far more pessimistic outlook than that provided by international postal experts. Why? If you want to close post offices, reduce the workforce and cut services you need a permanent change in thinking. Mail volumes are declining so of course it is killing AP - except it's not. Undermining postal services will do much more harm to AP than declining mail volumes.
Individual posties complain that AP is fiddling the figures. Mail volume is going up, not down. Posties are being bullied into doing ever longer rounds.
A full-time postie in a large capital city says he is working pretty consistently 10 hour days. "Overtime used to be optional once, not anymore."
A part-time postie in the same capital city said he is coerced by his team leader into doing 8 1/2 hours every day. If a postie says, "Don't tell me about falling mail volumes, I'm carrying more than ever," a lot of the time they will be correct.
Posties are delivering fewer letters but small parcels and packets have replaced the declining volume of traditional letters. Domestic parcel volumes are increasing at an unprecedented rate, up 9.3% in 2012 - 2013. Around 84 % of all small parcels are processed through the delivery centres, with more than two thirds of these now delivered by posties.
Most posties are working harder than ever. Alongside our posties, our retail members in post offices are under increasing pressure. Many offices run short staffed. People do unpaid time. The big rise in parcels because of the popularity of online shopping brings foot traffic but has put retail workers under more pressure and exposed to health and safety risks.
Parcels not delivered by contractors are returned to post offices. It is not uncommon for big, awkward and heavy parcels to present at post offices. Recently a car gear box turned up as a carded parcel.
There is minimal parcel handling equipment and limited storage space in most post offices. Asking workers to get someone to help lift a parcel is not feasible in a busy post office nor is it an acceptable work method. Notwithstanding that members are working harder than ever they will receive a total of 1.5% into salary this year which is again another pay cut in real terms.
AP should at least commit to top up pay to CPI and engage with the union on the profit share commitment that was promised during the EBA discussions. Read our whole submission on our website from Monday.
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