<p>If a company respects their customers & workers a union isn’t needed.</p>
<p>So true emeraldkitty. Costco is not unionized but it has very happy employees. I shop at Aldi’s a lot and they pay $11.75 for starting cashiers.</p>
<p>Yep, Aldi’s is proof that it is possible to have low prices to benefit low income customers and to pay workers a higher than minimum wage at the same time. $11.25 an hour won’t make anyone rich by any means, though it is a lot closer to a living wage than the $7.25 federal minimum wage is.</p>
<p>I love Walmart! Some of their employees are treated very well. My brother works there and they’re good to him, and he gets paid good (grant it he’s a pharmacy tech). Also, the employees in the Walmart near my area are very friendly most of the time and are very engaging :). I do a lot of shopping at Walmart and buy pretty much anything there but clothes.</p>
<p>Wegmans is great - no mistake about it. They do treat their employees very well which is why they’re consistently ranked at the top of the best companies to work for. They also are extremely generous offering many scholarships to high school kids who work there. They are also huge supporters of people with special needs or are learning disabled. The “Helping Hands” at Wegmans are frequently adults who would not have been able to get a job elsewhere. However, I have heard that they also will keep their part time employees from getting enough hours to qualify for benefits. The mother of a disabled child (autistic) who was somewhat of a sports hero/legend here in Rochester several years ago was on a radio talk show recently complaining about her son, whom Wegmans has used in commercials and other press, being kept with just enough hours that he can’t get benefits. Wegmans service and quality of product is exceptional but they aren’t perfect.</p>
<p>We don’t have Wegmans near us. None of my kids had Wegmans near their colleges either. Too bad. I think they both would have liked this store. I wonder if there are Wegmans near any colleges. Seems like it would be a popular location.</p>
<p>My husband works his second job at a unionized supermarket that is considered a good employer. There are a handful of the stores owned by one individual as franchises of a larger chain. This chain isn’t hated like Walmart but holds its workers under the hours threshold to avoid paying for benefits. Ruthlessly. This happens a lot more than people whose experience lies elsewhere may think. The anti Walmart herd mentality is very amusing to me in the context of making people feel god about themselves. Many companies, even those mythical small businesses engage in the exact same business practices. It’s just considered part of the cool kid code to revile Walmart.</p>
<p>If you like packed parking lots with rogue shopping carts, crowded and messy stores, and just a few open checkout lanes when the majority are closed, you should shop our local WalMart. I’d rather drive dull pencils through my eyes than shop but, if I have to run out to get something, I’m going to Target.</p>
<p>Splashmom, you could have the exact miserable experience in shoprite or Stopandshop in my area. King Cullen closed here because it was such a pit, and Pathmark is worse than anything I have ever seen or heard about Walmart. All unionized, all treating employees badly. Which is why I go to Wegmans. The issue isn’t Walmart, the issue is that the employee population that takes those jobs isn’t valued and is considered fungible. From the employer point of view, the turnover is huge and even was when the economy was booming and wages were higher. Many of the workers have residence stability issues, law enforcement issues or health issues or immigration issues. Some can’t physically handle the demands of the jobs like standing for so many hours or stocking the shelves with hundreds or thousands of very heavy items and being treated like a mule.</p>
<p>Wegmans just came to my area about a few years ago. Went there once to purchase alcohol for a big party because I heard the prices were good. Had a funny thing happen–didn’t bring my wallet into the store–just a credit card. When I got to the counter, the cashier asked for an ID. I laughed at her. I’m 60 years old (and while I do look younger than most of my peers–I’m clearly middle aged.) Cashier said that the policy was to card everyone. Friend who was with me bought the alcohol since she had her license. Wegman’s is 20 miles from me and it’s in a direction I rarely go, so I haven’t gone back.</p>
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Sorry, but I don’t agree - at least about myself. Never was one of the cool kids and don’t make my personal decisions based on what the cool kids might think. One of the nice things about being in my late 50s is that I don’t have to wonder what the cool kids think any more (if I could even figure out who they are).</p>
<p>So on this thread we have Wal-Mart revilers and Wal-Mart reviler revilers. Isn’t it possible that we all have legitimate reasons for feeling as we do? Why the need to put down the other guy for thinking what he/she thinks? Why the certainty that we know where the other guy is coming from, and why he thinks what he thinks? </p>
<p>As the saying goes - we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.</p>
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<p>Not paying health insurance for part-time employees isn’t universal. My husband and his two partners employ 22 people (almost all full-time, but 3 or 4 part-time) so I guess they’d be considered a small business. H and partners have found that providing health insurance benefits to everyone (even the part-time employees) is a way to attract and keep good people, who they need to be successful. All three of the partners agree that it’s also important to reward people for good work and all employees (even the administrative assistant) get success bonuses.</p>
<p>Zoosermom–though Wegman’s sounds wonderful, the one nearest to me, as i just discovered by googling, is 20 miles away (it’s probably the one you cross state lines to get to.)</p>
<p>That being said, my everyday shopping is at our local Shop Rite. Their prices are great, the cashiers and baggers are pleasant and efficient, and the store is well-maintained. They usually have almost every lane open, and a bagger at every one. Many of the baggers are in some way developmentally handicapped–I don’t know of that many places that would hire them. Additionally, the store is a good citizen in other ways: they take part in many local civic events, sponsor youth teams, and in other ways are good guys in the community. I’ve shopped there for many years and seen the same faces; it seems to be a good place to work. And unionized, too!</p>
<p>We’re getting our first Harris Teeter - will be about a mile from me. They are touting it as Wegman’s-style. The standard here is Wegman’s now so the others are trying to compete. We have a Safeway nearby that is only a few years old but it is very lightly staffed and doesn’t seem to have been cleaned recently.</p>
<p>When DS lived in NC there were two Harris Teeter stores near his house. I shopped there a few times and thought it was mighty pricey. Not as expensive as Whole Foods, but much more expensive than the Stop and Shop in New England. That being said…it was a really nice store, clean and well stocked.</p>
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<p>Completely agree with this. I know people who work at Target and have the exact same complaints about hours, benefits, working conditions and so on. But it’s PC to revile Walmart (and its customers) while it isn’t so with Target. Target’s from Minneapolis! They have great ads! They have designer clothes! </p>
<p>I wish we had Wegman’s where I am. I grew up going to my grandmother’s Wegman’s in upstate NY when I visited her each summer. We are about to get a Hy-Vee near us, which is supposed to be great. We’ll see.</p>
<p>It’s the fact that so many people are incensed about Walmart’s business practices without bothering to find out that companies they prefer engage in the same practices.</p>
<p>Frazzled, I apologize for,the fact that I didn’t make clear that I wasn’t referring to the members of cc, I was thinking of the people in my community who won’t allow a Walmart because of those objections but patronize businesses that are sometimes worse.</p>
<p>Bromfield, supermarkets don’t need to attract the best employees, so they have no incentive to do more for their employees.</p>
<p>I live in Minnesota, so we have wonderful Targets here! Everyone loves shopping there, myself included. We also have plenty of Walmarts, quality varies from city to city. I have a very nice Walmart near my home, and it is adjacent to a regular Target (doesn’t have full grocery). I tend to go to Walmart more often for groceries (larger inventory and noticeably cheaper), unless I am near a Super Target. However, I would never purchase clothing from Walmart, it is not at all appealing to me. Walmart is definitely not looked upon as highly as Target is here, it’s quite stereotyped as “low-class” and “unorganized”. Though they’re not quite up to par with Target, I think Walmarts are still decent places to buy things cheaply…they just need to work on their store presentation, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Garland, being unionized doesn’t mean workers are treated well. Shoprite is known by its employees for doing thing that will get it in the newspaper and privately treating their workers very badly. Very badly. However, there isn’t just one owner, they are affiliated stores with many different owners. I believe the ones here are the only ones owned in common and it is not a nice place to shop at all.</p>