Talk:Walmart/Archive 1

message: "33% of the employees are temporary"
Are 33% of the employee temporary during the Christmas Season or is this the case throughout the whole year? I know it is a standard practice to hire tempory workers such as cashier for the Christmas Season when the customer count is higher or in the lawn and garden department during the peak spring and summer months. Is the figure true for the full year at Walmart?  20:40, 10 November 2003 Mathew Carrier
I have a real problem with some of the facts and much of the tone of this paragraph.  It does not seem to be NPOV even for a "criticism" section. My specific concerns are listed below. If you can satisfy those concerns, please revert my wording but, in the meantime, I'm going to soften a few things. Rossami 03:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: None of Wal-Mart's stores are unionized and ~33% of the employees are temporary (2002). The company is the target of persistent unionizing efforts, but has aggressively and sometimes illegally fought off all attempts. In 2000, the meat-cutting department of the Wal-Mart superstore in Jacksonville, Texas voted to unionize; two weeks later, Wal-Mart shut down all its meat-cutting operations. Wal-Mart's unionized grocery competitors such as Kroger and Safeway are at a disadvantage, as wages at Wal-Mart are about 20% less than at comparable companies. There is a high employee turnover rate; nevertheless many employees express satisfaction with the status quo. Employee Kathleen Baker submitted a petition from 80 Wal-Mart employees which requested wage increases, she was then fired for "theft" of the company typewriter. Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage. (Palast -- pp. 121)
# 33% temporary workers - not at all unusual for US retailer. also obscures the stated desire of some (though obviously not all) Wal-Mart employees to remain temporary (for work-life balance, summer job, scheduling flexibility, etc.).
# "illegally fought off" unionization - please source this specifically that they were convicted and the conviction was upheld. That is a very strong statement and, if untrue, could be libelous.
# high employee turnover rate - again, not at all unusual for any US retailer. Also not unusual for the demographic of their target employee.
--Rossami 03:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Labor practice criticisms NPOV (Nov&ndash;Dec 2003)

message: The  Milestones section refers a few times to the number of "associates" they have.  Wouldn't "employees" be a bit better there?  I realize that Wal-Mart calls its workers "associates," but strictly speaking, it's a bit of a misnomer.  Dictionary.com gives the definition "A person united with another or others in an act, enterprise, or business; a partner or colleague."  Since Wal-Mart's figures undoubtably include all employees, regardless whether they are in fact "partners or colleagues," it would seem better to me to say employees....
what do you think?  I'll go ahead and change it in a couple days if noone objects. --Yourcelf 17:44, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "associate" vs. "employee" 

message: From the looks of this page the current discussion, a few people were complaining that most sections of the article were anti-Walmart, well someone went and turned it into a carbon copy of the WalmartFacts.com site, which by the way is a pack of corporate propaganda that does not need to be repeated.
What kind of company pays it's employees (including single mothers) $6-$7 an hour, dumps them on the taxpayer funded public assistance programs, and then makes them do a "cheer" for said employer at every meeting?
I myself will not buy any music or books from them because I don't take kindly to a large corporation moving right in and running my favorite local book/music stores out of business and replacing my buying selections with a bunch of censored lyrics and titles they won't stock because of what some Christian moron found offensive, personally I find Toby Keith and Benny Hinn more reprehensible than Metallica and Maxim   Magazine.
Furthermore, apathetic employees, which is what you get with low wages, tend to provide less customer service.
On products I did buy there (and never will again), I ended up exchanging a computer 5 times before finding one that was not defective, and I exchanged an air conditioner twice, talk about QUALITY....
* I agree with everything you said, and thanks for entering into a dialog. But we're building an encyclopedia and that makes different demands on editing. We're here to report the facts and not make judgments. That's the founding ideal here. You can report that they have certain issues/problems but when you do you need to provide sources to back up the statements, include certain judgments and legal issues and you get your point across. We are always looking for good editors, why don't you hang out a while and get the swing of things? Rx StrangeLove 14:56, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why does Walmart deserve any praise? 

message: In the history of walmart, they have operated other stores, such as Hypermart*USA, dot Discount Drugs, Sav-Co (I think that was the name) home improvement warehouses, and helen's arts and crafts (all in the US). They should be mentioned somewhere joe 12:43, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Also see the NPOV/Timeline issues above. I have listed the Hypermart USA stores as "former operations" on the "List of Assets owned by Wal-Mart" article, which is linked to from the main article. The list there comes from Annual Reports of Wal-Mart when they had opened and closed the storesjoe 17:36, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: But the point is that no stores are operated as Hypermart*USA anymore, and wal-mart has bought out the joint partner's stakes in those stores. I will get the info on those former operations and make up a section to include, because the hypermarts are not the only former formats operated by walmart joe 06:30, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Hypermart and other businesses in Timeline

message: Also, the "Diversity" section refers only to the "Corporate Equality Index" of the Human Rights Campaign without any explanation of what this index measures.The HRC article doesn't explain this index either,but the organization,despite its broad name,is primarily concerned with promoting public acceptance of homosexuality,so I have to wonder if it measures ethnic/racial/disability/linguistic etc. matters of "diversity" as well as whether homosexual relationships are treated as "equal" to heterosexual ones in the ways the company deals with its employees.Why not explain it? --Louis E./le@put.com/ 12.144.5.2 21:16, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Diversity Measures

message: First, see the timeline discussion below above. Also, I think the bit about the rating in the diversity section should be in the criticism section, and there should be the criticism there, but there should also be the other point of view to balance it out. I also think that the only links that should be at the bottom are to walmart's sites, and perhaps to the walmart watch site. sprawl busters isn't against walmart only, and the article linkings just seem to not be needed. joe 21:03, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Timeline and diversity issues still unaddressed (Nov 2004)

message: Some NPOV issues:
* Category: Corporate Abuse...Really? Is walmart in the same leauge as Dow Chemical and the Bhopal incident, worldcom, Enron?
* "Links" Section..Why are all the articles and documentaries listed negative towards walmart? Why should articles be linked anyway? every entry in wikipedia would become huge if we linked every article and news story about every entry. Why is a blog linked, who decided that was a trustworthy source? I think some critical sites, not articles, and then WM's corporate sites should be linked.
* "Criticism" section..It lists criticism, but no rebuttal or counter-points. 
* "Financial Success" , "History", and "Business" sections. Not POV issues, but couldn't these be condensed and made a little bit easier to read and fluid instead of jumping around? Please comment on these, everyone is making these edits but not actually discussing anything.
joe 18:36, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Misc NPOV issues (Feb 2005)

message: As originally posted, they were a clear copyright violation.  Posted as an unexplained external link in the middle of the article, the aren't appropriate for a Wikipedia article.  Wikipedia is not a collection of external links.  I won't fight putting "Sam's Rules" back in if these two issues can be addressed successfully, but just describing the link isn't enough: links must support content, not be a substitute for content.  --Unfocused 04:45, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons why Sam's Rules were removed. 

message: Some of this is a rehash of discussion of the pre-merge Criticism article..
*magazine eds and 1st amendment freedoms- as near as I can tell, no editors/publishers made statements along the lines of "WalMart's actions infringe on the 1st Amendment...". They're educated enough to know that 1st amend = "Congress shall make no law"... it doesn't address free commercial association. Big anti-WalMart critics may have talked about 1st Amendment consequences, but not people in the biz
*the phrase "claimed to be" is synonymous with "deemed" in the context. I'm trading three words and a bizarre grammar constuct for one word with a clear adverb.
*fun with quotation marks- regarding RIAA parental advisory labels... the producers determine what is/isn't offensive... Wal-Mart has no editorial control on this.
Feco
:Not in theory. But the suppliers won't produce items they can't sell in America's biggest retailer. Therefore they have hardly a choice not to comply to the notorious rules of WalMart. So WalMart controls them simply because the company is so large. 
:And second, in your opinion the 1st amendment is only for Congress but big companies like WalMart are allowed to influence the freedom of the press, if I understand you correctly?
::I agree. I wouldn't wonder if WalMart occasionally came back to the producer of an album and told them: "Guys, there's a song that our costomers might find offensive" (or, rather, in truth, WalMart finds it offensive) and make them overdub that song because if they didnt they wouldnd carry the album. --Krawunsel 15:36, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  5/15 Product Controvery edits 

message: I removed the blurb along the lines of "some have alleged that Wal-Mart employees have been fired for watching R-rated movies and M-rated video games on their personal time. The store contends that this is not-family-friendly behavior, which is counter to the store's policy." I tried several different google variations to see if I could find any reference to this... no luck. If anyone has a source for this, please link to it and re-post. Otherwise, the text seems a little too much like one guy's speculation about why he was fired. Feco 22:19, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Something you personally don't agree with isn't necessarily "POV blurb", Mr. Censor. You see, there are opinions besides your own!! --85.74.186.134 09:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is about verifiability, not censorship. Articles should not material that rests on the sole authority of the editor. Feco's point is perfectly valid. If Wal-Mart employees have been fired for watching R-rated movies on their personal time, that IMHO is an interesting item that's germane to the article. But it has to be sourced. Not just "some have alleged." You have give some kind of traceable, independently verifiable source, such as a newspaper article, that says this. Otherwise it can't go in the article.Dpbsmith (talk) 13:35, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of Allegations of Firing for "Non-Family-Friendly" Viewing 

message: This was covered in the pre-merge 'Criticism' talk page, but here it is again: there are no available sources to indicate that Wal-Mart either A) announced it wouldn't carry; or B) removed from shelves the toy in question. Given the paucity of google hits, perhaps the toy isn't stocked b/c it wouldn't move quickly enough to justify shelf space. Wal-Mart doesn't carry millions of items; unless there's a specific reason why something isn't carried, I don't think speculation should go in the article. Feco 23:37, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gundham Deathscythe