My Wal Mart Story

[RoyGBiv]

Several years ago my home town of 15,000 people drew the attention of Wal Mart, and before anyone could say "What the!" we had a brand new supercenter and a huge committment by the city to re-route traffic, build new roads, etc. The sell for the deal was, of course, all the wonderful jobs.

Well, in that town, a minimum wage job wasn't horrible, not good, but not like trying to survive on it in a place like California. (A person could rent a 3 bedroom house in a decent neighborhood for around $400/month.) My wife at the time decided to apply for one of what was advertised as "permanent" positions with the new store in favor of the factory job she held that left her coming home each day smelling like molten plastic. She was hired within a week.

She helped build the shelves, stock the store, and by the time of opening had achieved a promotion to one of their pseudo-supervisory positions. This was sometime in October, and all was going well. After it had opened, Wal Mart instantly became the third highest employer in the town, right behind the local regional college and the hospital.

December came, my wife got a raise, and for the first time in our young marriage we were living fairly comfortably considering our circumstances. I was sitting in my house on December 18th having just gotten home from my job. I was watching something on television when I saw my wife drive up, about 7 hours before she was scheduled to get home. She walked in, tears running down her cheeks. She'd been fired. They'd called every person in her position into their office and let them go en masse.

She'd asked why, naturally, and they told her simply that they'd "over-hired" and had to cut back. When all was said and done, they'd rid themselves of a third of their work force and had eliminated entirely the position that my wife held. By talking with others we realized that the "promotion" she'd received was what was eliminated and they in *every single case* the person who had been promoted to that position for each department was a part of a certain group into which they'd been devided on their first day of employment.

IOW, they'd known from the beginning who they'd be getting rid of, and they categorized them like sheep, promoted them to pacify them, and then just dropped the knife.

Here's hoping the citizens of Inglewood don't make the same mistake my town did.

[bluestateguy]

1. Looks like Inglewood said no

Of course, you know those corporations. They lose in the political arena and then they go whining to the courts for relief.

[punpirate]

3. The referendum was intended...

... to prevent later court action. If the city council had voted against Wal-Mart, they then could have gone into court to have that overturned. Under California law, there's no appeal, except on the basis of Constitutional distress (i.e., the referendum was held illegally or its terms were illegal). Since Wal-Mart wrote the referendum, they have no case.

[Ediacara]

2. Inglewood appears to say NO by a 2 to 1 margin

[Don_G]

4. The Only "Good" Wal-Mart

Is a dead Wal-Mart.

They opened up a store in my Aunt's small town about 18 years ago and did fairly well there. Well, they drove about two-thirds of the local businesses out of business, gave nothing back to the community and relocated thirty miles away to a more profitable location 7 years later.

The town still hasn't recovered and probably never will.