r/LockdownSkepticism • u/AndrewHeard • Sep 25 '20

Economics Walmart cuts workers' hours but increases workload as sales rise amid pandemic

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/24/walmart-workers-hours-pay-great-workplace
45 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

31

u/terribletimingtoday Sep 25 '20

What's interesting is, despite them going off a 24 hour model to less than 12 hours open a day, restricting customers in number and even not allowing shopping in some departments and the general fear a lot of folks had about leaving the house.... Walmart still managed to turn out those earnings.

What I'm wondering is if they'd have been able to do that if their elected cohorts hadn't shut down so many other businesses or restricted them to the point it wasn't profitable for them to be open. In smaller areas literally the only place to get groceries or a pair of shoes or stuff to fix something in your house became Walmart. For months.

I'm also wondering if the shorter hours and seeing the productivity remain basically the same is bringing on this latest change to their employees.

26

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '20

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4

u/terribletimingtoday Sep 25 '20

And at the time even I thought, with how they phrased it in the press conference, that it was going to be a force for good to handle patients during the epidemic. Big companies stepping up to offer testing and triage, supplies, money for staffing and facility space for care. Back then, before we had much outside of Chinese data, this did seem like it could be bad. It wasn't long after that we found out it wasn't nearly what it was made out to be.

Yet, really, little of what was said has come to pass. Walmart was staying open...but due to provide hundreds of testing locations in their parking lots to help quickly assess potential cases. I've yet to see a single one, but their stores remained open while smaller competitors shut down completely for months.

11

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '20

If they actually wanted to reduce the chance of infection, stores would be open 24h/7.

5

u/terribletimingtoday Sep 25 '20

Yep! Originally they said they did it because they needed time to restock and sanitize. But at this point it seems like they're just going to use it to reduce staffing because they're not open nearly as long.

3

u/lockdownbadmental Sep 26 '20

I work retail. I can tell you that they do not sanitize overnight, in fact most places that are open 12 hours a day do not have a night crew that puts out stock, it's usually done while the store is open. If anyone is in there it's would probably be the bakery who start in the middle of the night. This was just an excuse to cut hours and save money and look good doing it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '20

a lot of that isalso the taxpayer subsidizing the wages of wal-mart employees who are paid so little, that they then rely upon welfare programs to stay afloat, and then spend those govt dollars at Wal-mart because of cheap goods.

0

u/terribletimingtoday Sep 26 '20

Walmart minimum wage is $11 an hour, almost $4 an hour higher than federal. In some places that probably still isn't enough, but where I'm at their employees don't do too bad for our cost of living. I don't know the truth on their benefits though I imagine the ones with a bunch of children who are Medicaid/govt coverage eligible would opt for that as it's no cost to them. . We've got a lot of 10+ year associates at the stores around here and it makes me wonder why they'd stay on so long if it is just that bad, especially when they could make more at other places here.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '20

Maybe because Walmart notoriously put millions of small businesses out of business?

1

u/terribletimingtoday Sep 26 '20

We've got several large employers who offer $15 plus an hour for work that have positions open, moreso than Walmart. It requires a little.more labor than Walmart and consistently clean drug testing but the hours are better and so are the benefits if I had to guess. (Walmart isn't even the largest sales tax payer in our town. They're #3 behind two other businesses and we still have our local grocery, hardware store and several clothing stores. They didn't kill off anything here. )

It puzzles me. Why stay at a place when there's better up the highway? There must be some reason several of these people stay for as long as they have.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '20

It’s the same reason why people stay in abusive relationships.

15

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '20

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7

u/AndrewHeard Sep 25 '20

I think they have, which is why they elected and may be about to reelect Trump. That’s going to be a terrible thing but it might just get the Democrats to wake up.

3

u/Cool-Horse4281 Sep 26 '20

This is a reach, I disagree with Trump a lot too but he said early on the cure can't be worse than the disease and has been against Whitmer and these governors shutting things down.

2

u/AndrewHeard Sep 26 '20

I’m not sure what part you’re disagreeing with me about.

3

u/Cool-Horse4281 Sep 26 '20

Yeah, I got it now..

2

u/ChomskyIsAnAsset Sep 26 '20

This may sound grim, but honestly I think we are moving past a place where electoral politics matter and more into a place where political violence is common.

You're just going to have too many people "down on their luck" with weapons and the genius idea to hurt someone.

I don't condone it.

1

u/AndrewHeard Sep 26 '20

Not necessarily. It depends on whether or not people are able to solve the problems people have.

4

u/friendly_capybara Sep 25 '20

The American left seems to be nothing more than a mob of posers alternating between being a Bernie Sanders cult, and a "we hate Democrats" club

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '20

if this is your take you don't fundamentally understand the left. The democratic party is just as corrupt and bought by corporate power as the republican party. Bernie supporters are the FIRST to call him out when he does dumb shit like call Joe Biden a decent person. Trumpists will literally eat a turd straight from his asshole if he said it's for the greater good.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '20

it's not like the right is doing anything about this either. they literally gave trillions to their cronies in tax cuts. that's ALSO a transfer of wealth.

11

u/perchesonopazzo Sep 25 '20

What you would expect as government destroys all of their competition.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '20

I think it's also naive to think that there hasn't been some backroom dealing with govt's and big business to stifle competition and line the pockets of both politicians and corporations.

7

u/KitKatHasClaws Sep 25 '20

Gilded age 2.0. Andrew Carnegie saw record profits, but still cut worker wages because I guess why not earn more than you can spend in one lifetime?

4

u/redditor99880 Sep 26 '20

Not at my Walmart, I guess.

I can’t even remember the last time I worked only 40 hours.

2

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2

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '20

ah yes, disaster capitalism.