"Cowardly " Wal-Mart's Unionized Quebec Store Closes

That would be a good idea, except you forget the fact that some of those people can find jobs nowhere else...

You'd rather they starve?

The "You'd rather they starve?" argument is not valid. Many of these people make a salary that barely allows them to survive in today's cost of living and which denies them access to the services our social safety net provides. Welfare is an attractive proposition under such labor conditions.

And here I was under the assumption that while flying the finger at Wal Mart for having an American base of operations, we were trying to espouse the joys brought about by our wonderful social programs which provide 199th rate health care to SOME of our people SOME of the time for which we pay huge premiums up the wazoo to our thieving, lying government which pockets the money for their own selves and their corporations and in return pays a Canadian doctor approzimately $20 for an office visit whereupon said Canadian doctor develops a "screw it" attitude in the treatment of Canadian patients as the doc spent much more time and money getting the credentials to practice. Than did the auto mechanic or plumber down the street who makes as much as he/she does. We pay more here in Ontarion for health care than the damend Americans do and it's third rate health care at that. We pay higher taxes to cover it...and no PREMIUMS..same as Americans pay for private health insurance. We have more exclusions to our weak kneed excuse for health care coverage than the damned Americans whine and complain about, but we are the sheeple and we must be fleeced. Exclusions to the exclusions. What IS still covered anymore? It is our way. Our destiny. And we will insist that the fleecers remain in office to continue fleecing. Even after the theivery having been shown to us, and admitted to by them. It's what they do. It's what we seem to enjoy. Are we some weird, sick, twisted sado-masochistic society here? So if Wal Mart provides jobs for the working Canadian so they can pay for all the myriads of health care procedures and treatments they need not provided to them by their government in exchange for their hard earned tax dollars, just what is the harm? Do we really want to punish Canadians by running off every good job opportunity provided them by a company JUST because that company is American? More prejudicial, self-destructive behaviour. Who could blame Wal Mart if they close down every last operation they have in the whole of Canada and write us ALL off? You attract businesses (and jobs) to a community by making the business envirnoment appear attractive. Common sense. But then I guess as always there will be those among us who lack that particular quality. Common sense.

I don't understand...

I think this person is saying they are worse off than Wal-Mart's exploited labor, but who knows.

Walmart leads the race to the bottom for wages and benefits for workers. I think they are despicable and I wouldn't shop there if they were the last store in town and I only had a dollar left to my name. However, as I am currently unemployed I wouldn't be adverse to getting a job there and starting a union drive if I knew who to contact. Any ideas?

TUAC: <a href="http://www.tuac.ca">http://www.tuac.ca</a>

Results 1 - 10 of about 632,000 for Walmart + unions in China. (0.25 seconds<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23725-2004Nov30.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23725-2004Nov30.html</a><br />
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Wal-Mart Loves Unions (In China)<br />
By Harold Meyerson<br />
Wednesday, December 1, 2004; Page A25 <br />
Wal-Mart has finally found a union it can live with. <br />
Up to now America's largest employer has opposed every effort of its employees to form a union. Wal-Mart doesn't recognize unions; it doesn't even recognize "employees." The proper Wal-Mart name for its workers is "associates," a term that connotes higher status and collegiality and that actually means lower pay and workplace autocracy. For the privilege of associating themselves with Wal-Mart, its employees are paid so little that many can't afford the health insurance the company generously allows them to buy. One study of health care in Las Vegas revealed that a plurality of that city's employed Medicaid recipients worked at Wal-Mart.<br />
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But that was the old Wal-Mart. Last week Wal-Mart announced that if its associates wanted a union to represent them, that would be hunky-dory -- as long as the union was affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, a body dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. The official statement was simple and seemingly unambiguous: "Should associates request formation of a union, Wal-Mart China would respect their wishes." <br />
Wal-Mart America has made no such declaration, of course. Why it deems its 20,000 Chinese associates who work in its 40 Chinese stores worthy of representation while its million U.S. employees can't be trusted with the right to represent themselves is a good question. Whence the Sinophilia and Americaphobia?<br />
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<a href="http://www.rense.com/general13/walmart.htm">http://www.rense.com/general13/walmart.htm</a><br />
<a href="http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/277344.shtml">http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/277344.shtml</a> <br />
<p>---<br> "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." <br />
Alfred Korzybski <br />

I agree with your statement about Walmart as despicable. I used to shop there for there cheap prices. I came to realize that their prices are low because of exploitation. I no longer shop at Walmart. To me the people that run it are evil sub-humans whose god is the almighty dollar. Selfish, disgusting breed of humanity. This is the worst form of capitalism around. They make billions of dollars and are not willing to even give their employees a decent salary. Pathetic. To me the name Walmart is up there with Union Carbide, Enron and Exxon. Walmart's name is now mud in Canada. Hopefully they will leave.

Hopefully. Then we can pay out welfare to a few hundred thousand more Canadiens out of gainful employment. Intelligencia raineth supreme!

With the WalMart gone, the businesses it helped close will now come back and hire many of those people - at higher wages yet.

The commmunity will be far better off with the WalMart.

Oh yah... right. If you want to see what walmart really does, check out the southern states like Alabama. Walmart had a very large part in destroying the economies of their communities. They build walmart on the outskirts of a few small towns, the people start shopping there for the cheap Chinese sweat-shop prices and access to macdonalds garbage which puts the smaller local shops and restaurants out of business. Main street is boarded up, the towns are a mess. The workers are then forced to work part-time at the walmart for low wages and no benefits which leads to them being forced to also collect food stamps and access the state run medicaid plans for health care. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are rampant. The states are nearly bankrupt. Walmart doesn't pay the taxes to maintain the infrastructure like the small businesses that they put under would have. In fact they are a drain on the state's economy because their poverty stricken workers or "associates" require state welfare. This is true, I was down there and saw it. That was when I realized how bad they really are.

They should be exorcised from the face of the planet, they are truly a pyschopathic corporation.

no...tell us you're lying, please...did you say and I qoute (gulp) "...which leads to them being forced to also collect food stamps and access the state run medicaid plans for health care."

really???

And here I thought they let everyone starve and die for want of health care down there in evil America.

Goes to show how friggin/ much I know! Health care! On the state's dime no less. And FOOD??? Are you absolutely sure now....come, on...you can tell us what we want to hear...they don't feed and heal the average citizen in America. They really just torture them down there and you're just fibbing to us aren't you...come, on now...you can tell US here at vive ...

<p>As a damned American, I’m curious — what <i>do</i> Ontarians pay for health care? What percentage of your taxes (payroll deduction? income tax? sales tax? other?) go towards health care? Do people with higher incomes pay more than people with lower incomes?</p>