Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

There are just so many outrageous things in this story - let's start with the Department of Labor. It doesn't (because it can't or won't) do any meaningful enforcement, then engages in months of foot-dragging before releasing public data to the Times showing how pitiful its efforts were. But they don't have enough investigators in general, and enough who speak Korean or Cantonese or whatever in particular, to do their job, so it's hard to be too pissed at them.

And how about the Mercedes-driving predators who pay so little (and charge their victims a fee of $100 for the privilege of being underpaid) and impose such long hours and exercise so much control that one can't help but think of the 13th Amendment?

Or those of us who only think "hey, $10 for a pedicure! Awesome!" and who demand that the store replace our Prada sandals when nail varnish is spilled on them?

Or, people like me, who know better about things, but pretend not to realize that someone is getting very screwed when I pay a mere $10 for a service that takes 30 minutes. Sure, I like the way my soles feel after a pedi (not to mention the look of MAC Dark Angel on my toes), but I really need to remember the actual cost of it.

I am so angry about this. And I want to throw this story in the face of every smug bastard who, with a straight face, can talk about how terrible it is that we want to get poor people fired when we propose raising the minimum wage or enacting some legislation or regulation to protect workers.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

You're looking at it wrong. At these labor rates, you could hire your favorite pedicurist full time, have them at your beck and call, and still pay them twice what one of these shops are paying. Invite your clients over for pedicures.

But of course, everyone time one shops at Walmart, you're encouraging this sort of thing, not just went you grab the $10 special from the pedicurist down the alley.

Re: Where life is beautiful all the time
 

Eh, it's the last month of the legislative session. I'm assuming that this whole invasion thing is a distraction from something actually harmful to the residents of this state.

Thank god these assholes only meet for four months every other year.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Now is when I smile smugly about never having gotten a pedicure and never shopping at Walmart.

(You just keep your mouth shut about how Target and every clothing retailer does the same stuff).

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

If you're talking about Walmart's labor policy, I'm pretty sure that regardless of all the ways they game the system, they at least mostly comply with wage and hour laws in the US. Leave aside whether that alone is sufficient for social justice, but ...

If you're talking about the labor practices of Walmart's suppliers overseas, yes. And I encourage it by using my iPhone and wearing Nikes. And everytime I complain I mention how "free" trade isn't really free trade because many countries subsidize the production of goods by either not having or not enforcing labor (or environmental) standards re wages and safety, I get laughed at and told that we can't stop the Invisible Hand ("from smacking labor around" is the unspoken end of the statement.

Whatever. I think I'm writing in Michael Harrington's name on my presidential primary ballot next year.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Good one Not Bob!

See, e.g.,

In 2008, Walmart agreed to pay at least $352 million to settle lawsuits claiming that it forced employees to work off the clock. "Several lawyers described it as the largest settlement ever for lawsuits over wage violations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart

Re: Washing her feet by candle-light. First she washed them, then she dried them...
 

Stop by Not Bob's place. He now has an on-site pedicurist taking care of his every desire.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Well, yes. And the whole "abuse the salaried manager exemption to avoid paying overtime for "managers" who don't really manage anything" strategy, too.

I get it. I just think that the working conditions at Walmart are not quite the working conditions for manicurists that the NYT article described. Every single nail salon that they looked at fucked their workers out of money. Every one. Even Walmart isn't that evil.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

That so many of the nail salon workers were illegal immigrants, and that our immigration laws are what they are, made it awfully difficult for any of the workers to complain about their treatment.

I've seen this sort of thing, when working at a legal clinic -- an illegal immigrant essentially has no protection. Which, in turn, means that legal residents are competing with people who are willing to be paid in snails and ass-rapings.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

2. Libs created a world where the people they want to protect get fucked. If only the fuzzy brained would step back and let the adults run the world, then these poor souls wouldn't be mistreated. Sad.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Indeed. As this girl could tell you, things were so much better for the Not Rich before the Progressives and the New Deal.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-cont...ld-Laborer.jpg

On a happier note, the Rangers won last night. Seems like a lot of OT and low scoring games in the playoffs this year.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I know Wal-Mart is a favorite enemy in these stories, and the animus is often directed at least in part at those who shop there. But when you have $20 and you have to make it last four days until your next check arrives, the $10 free-range, antibiotic free organic chicken from Whole Paycheck doesn't really work as a viable option.

Re: Where life is beautiful all the time
 

I just assumed they were all cousins and the gene pool down there needs some serious chorine.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I used to be able to pride myself on never shopping at Wal-Mart. Now I just think about the times I didn't have the option

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Don't forget those signs in the Wal-Mart break room explaining in detail how to apply for food stamps, and their policy of NEVER hiring anybody below the level of department manager full-time.

I couldn't begin to fathom how to write or enforce such a law, but their policies on hiring and limiting hours should be criminal

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were speaking satirically.

Wonking
 

Not too bad for two weeks away, eh?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I'm not saying that the working conditions are comparable, but how is forcing employees to work off the clock not fucking them out of money? Isn't that exactly what it is?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Sorry for my lack of clarity. I wasn't trying to minimize what happened at Walmart. And , yes, forcing people to work off the clock is most definitely an example of fucking the workers out of money.

But working at a big box retailer is very different from working in a nail salon. At least places like Walmart pretend to obey the wage and hours laws. Maybe it's just the apparent willful disregard of those laws by the salon owners (as described in the article) that got to me. And the fact that, even when the workers win, they never collect. Anyway, Earnest Not Bob will try to get off of the topic.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Of course it is if they're hourly employees. It's different for salaried employees, but they know walking in that they're getting fucked.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I have no energy to post about the truth here, it would take paragraphs because of the level of ignorance on this board. The main point of ignorance being the image that the people going in for cheap manis are wall street bankers. it is the poor shopping at the places fucking the poor that cause the issue. Once the poor decided to buy stuff not made by US paid labor then the rest became inevitable. And it all started when Pa steel workers and Cali electronics workers decided they should buy Asian made cars. Once others bought Asian steel it was suddenly an issue; Where can I buy an American made TV?

I won't engage again, unless someone here posts something more than kumbayah.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Right. Because it's "libs" who believe that all illegal immigrants should be deported, and fear of deportation is the reason why illegals can't report this sort of mistreatment.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Part of the reason why so many people are in that situation is that Walmart targets and destroys small businesses and then hires a few people in each of the areas it destroys, pays them peanuts, and calls itself a job-creator.

TM

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

It also forces its suppliers to cut their prices so much there is little but to send manufacturing to China and otherwise knock down salaries. Walmart doesn't just fuck with its employees, it fucks with other company's employees.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I don't disagree with you about the biggest fans of cheap goods and services being working class/lower middle class/whatever term you prefer. I also think that the law of unintended consequences applies pretty broadly, and that laws or rules passed with Kumbayah intentions can hurt those it was meant to protect and/or others who were not really targets of the law one way or another. You suggest, I think, that many aspects of Obamacare do this because of your experience with your firm's health insurance. I think that you may be wrong, but it's too early to tell. Or that the bad stuff you are seeing is attributable to other causes, or that the carriers could choose to screw your plan next year even if the ACA was never passed, etc. But you raise a fair point on this.

But while i see that demand for cheap manicures in some part helps create a market for corner cutting regulations to keep the price at $10, I just don't see how the law of unintended consequences applies to the nail salons - do you have a regulation or law in mind that has hurt the salon workers?

Also, I think it's too simple to say that customer choice of cars in the 1970s caused our current situation - though I agree that the shift for Chevy to Toyota was in the mix. But I'm old enough to remember that Detroit didn't really want to put out smaller and more fuel efficient cars, and the ones they did at first (Pinto, Vega) sucked. And while many would blame the unions for cost issues leading to crappy cars, it wasn't the guys and gals in places like Flint who were designing or marketing cars. They didn't create the mantra of "planned obsolescence" which was a business scheme that guaranteed that my mom's Maverick would break down and need replacement in 4 years, while Mr. Johnson's Datsun kept running like a clock until the salt-drenched winter roads of the Ancestral Homeland caused the body of the poor thing (a B-210, I think) to disintegrate at 150,000 miles.

But at some point, the American consumer became less interested in buying American, and I think the last TV made in the US was by Zenith in the early 1980s. You are completely correct that the loss of American manufacturing (and the jobs it provided) is the root of the problem.

I can't buy a TV made in the USA anymore, but I can buy shoes (Allen Edmond), suits (Hickey Freeman or Hart Shaffner & Marks), and sometimes shirts (Nordstrom, Brooks Brothers - but look at label). But even that is hard, because thanks to Casino Jack and Tom DeLay, swear-shops on certain Pacific Islands have the right to use the "Made in USA" label. And thanks to my dad and uncles, I've mostly owned cars/SUVs from one of the Ford brands (though I think some were made in Canada, but that's practically same, right?).

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Yes! I meant to mention this. There was a great article about this regarding a lamp company (I think) that stopped making things in the US after Walmart became a customer. If my memory is correct, they wait until you are dependent upon them buying the product from you before they start suggesting ways to cut costs. Bad. They claim they stopped this, but ...

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Did it? Or did non-American choices just arrive to compete?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Oh, you mean like those Toyotas built in Tennessee and the Hondas from Ohio, right?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Agreed.

That's why I think we need to change our entire agricultural policy to stop subsidizing hedgerow-to-hedgerow corn and beans and start subsidizing a resurgence in the family farm.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

That's their long-term strategy with local sources. Kind of like how the pusher always gives you the first taste for free.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Amuricans seem to think so. Canadians, in my (limited) experience, not so much.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

This points up something important. I really have trouble with this whole discussion of how Wal-Mart is creating pricing pressures that result in offshoring jobs to China. Yes, they are. So what? That's capitalism for you. And it's a good thing -- several hundred million people have been lifted out of poverty as a result, and China is now a consumer of goods and services from the US and other developed countries that are based on high value-added labor.

Yes, we have to watch for currency manipulation, and have decent wage laws that are enforced. But overall, lower prices are not bad, and having poor people do shitty manufacturing work is not bad.

The car plants show that sophisticated value-added manufacturing can be done here. And that the real problem with the auto industry was far less due to workers getting paid a decent amount, but to execs building crappy cars.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

i believe lots of the southern "foreign" plants are non-Union, and I do believe the jobs here are mainly assembling foreign made parts. I know the big three beat up suppliers so all the $25/hour jobs are now $10/hour. But let's all keep jacking ourselves because Honda builds cars in Tennessee!

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

You don't see the difference between "we cannot operate our plants if there is a union" and "we'd rather not have to deal with a union"?

And you don't think that the choices American car companies made in the 70s, of continuing to produce gas guzzlers and shitty cars, had anything to do with their loss of position?

Of course you don't. You are Hank.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Well I worked in D factories in those days, but sounds like your blogs tell the story better so I'll take your word?


Edit: and the designs may well have been part of the choice, but then companies didn't need to buy US Steel, Japanese steel was fine. And electronics then became fair game too. Did US steel company owners make poor design decisions? We're US TVs somehow the wrong kind?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Do you think non-unionized workers in the US could have competed with third-world manufacturing in the 1970s? That non-unionized auto workers in Detroit could have competed with Mexican labor?

There are certainly unions who demanded too much and didn't see what globalization would do to their bargaining power. (That is notwithstanding that union demands helped build the middle class and move away from the gross overexploitation that had persisted before, and was such a factor in the depression.) But to suggest that unions are the only thing limiting US ability to compete with third world labor, in labor-intensive industries, is nonsense.

Do you attribute the fact that so much electronics manufacturing moved to Korea, and then to China, to the overreaching demands of those powerful Japanese trade unions? And the powerful Korean unions?

Did Nike move to Vietnam to avoid Chinese unions?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

My days of living on $15 a week were accomplished through farmers markets, food coops, and very large sacks of rice and dried beans bought at little ethnic stores. All both tastier and cheaper than big box stores.

Of course, $15 was worth more then.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Yes, the nail salons can attract attention and get clamped down on. Walmart, however, just continues to gain market share.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I've never bought anything but an American car myself, so I do vote on this issue with my pocketbook. But at a point when unions are besieged from every direction, legal and economic, in the US and Europe, what we need more than ever are similar organizations in China, India and elsewhere making sure people there get a fair wage and good working conditions. That's whats going to figure out whether our children and grandchildren scrape by with jobs at Walmarts and Wumarts run for the benefit of the megawealthy or get to be well-healed professionals futzing around on the internet all day.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Umm once Americans were willing to buy foreign no one in America could compete on price.

I don't know where you got that I was bashing unions, but Rave On!