Wal-Mart Returning To Full-Time Workers-Obamacare Not Such A Job Killer...

[RobJohnson]

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, announced Monday that 35,000 part-time employees will soon be moved to full-time status, entitling them to the full healthcare benefits that were scheduled to be denied them as a result of Wal-Mart’s efforts to avoid the requirements of Obamacare.

FORBES

Interesting article. I think it boils down to customer satisfaction issues and Wal-Mart trying to remain strong in the marketplace.

For anyone who has not been following the Wal-Mart saga, sales have been sinking dramatically at the retailer as the company has turned to hiring mostly temporary workers (those who must reapply for a job every 180 days) to staff their stores while cutting full-time employees’ hours down to part-time status in order to avoid providing workers with healthcare benefits.

The result?

Empty shelves, ridiculously long check-out lines, helpless customers wandering through the electronics section and general disorganization at Wal-Mart store locations.

This is hardly a recipe for success.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Haven't seen any of those problems at the three or four WalMarts around here, of course no matter how many employees WalMart cut out of full-time, they were going to have to deal with Obamacare everywhere anyway, so cutting so many full-timers never did that much for them anyway.

[RobJohnson]

My town's Wal Mart is bad. If the internet says they have an item in stock, that might mean its in a semi trailer that will take them three or four days to unload. The first week of the month the shelves are bare in the food section. Very long lines at checkout. They once again put in self checkout that they took out previously. Often the self checkout is not open as they do not have anyone to staff the workstation.

They eliminated the greeters and now the greeters are back. The problem is now the greeters do not have a podium and they look like they are lost. At one time the greeters were essential for loss prevention, especially when it came to people returning products.

Most people go there out of necessity as there are not many options in my rural town.

And ‘go’ is exactly what Ms. Hancock did—no doubt to Wal-Mart’s competitor, Costco, a company that experienced a 19 percent increase in profits in Q2 2013 while paying its employees 40 percent more on average (the average Costco wage is $21.96 per hour) than what a Wal-Mart worker can earn. In that same quarter, Wal-Mart numbers revealed the company is going nowhere fast given its current state of operations.

So, where is all that product that once filled Wal-Mart shelves?

Oh, the goods are in the store—either in the back room or in the unopened boxes lining the aisles as they await the availability of a store clerk to get to the rather critical job of moving the merchandise from the box to the shelf where a customer can actually purchase it. But when there are insufficient numbers of store clerks available—due to Wal-Mart’s commitment to using temporary workers or busting its full-time employees down to part-time so as to avoid worker benefit—the products Wal-Mart sells stay off the shelves and unavailable for customers to purchase.

Of course, Wal-Mart’s efforts to keep its workers from earning a decent living while achieving health care benefits has created some full-time work for some.

The company now hires people to work with its employees to help them sign up for Medicaid, the government program that makes healthcare available to Americans who neither get coverage at work or are able to afford it without public assistance.

What that means is that you and I are subsidizing Wal-Mart’s poor treatment of its employees as we pay for their workers health care coverage with our tax dollars and all so Wal-Mart can feather and mask its sinking profits by allowing you and I to pay to pay for their responsibilities, whether we shop at Wal-Mart or not.

[NHSparky]

It's damned near impossible to find an open checkout on the weekends, and the ones that are open have lines 5-plus deep with people shoving carts full of crap.

And yeah, good luck getting any help in any section if you need it.

[JohnnyReb]

Our WAL-MART seems to have clerks in the guns and ammo section only during banking hours(well, 8 to 6).

Is it that way other places or am I hitting there at the wrong moments?

[Big Dog]

Our WAL-MART seems to have clerks in the guns and ammo section only during banking hours(well, 8 to 6).

Is it that way other places or am I hitting there at the wrong moments?

I saw a clerk next to the ammo cabinet at 7:00 pm the other day, but she was dumb as a bag of hammers.

Velvet and I were looking for shotgun shells for next weekend's sporting clays tournament (benefiting the Boy Scouts). I was looking for 12 ga, 2 3/4", #8 low brass shells. No joy. The aforementioned bag of hammers yelled at us (because a dog with "Hearing Dog" on her vest means "yell at us"), as she picked up the boxes I had just looked at. We left- not just the sporting goods section, we left the whole damn store.

I ended up buying the shells at Orscheln's Farm Supply, for $7.50 a box. I got 6 boxes.  WalMart got none of my money last week.

[FiddyBeowulf]

I only go to Walmart in the morning before 10 AM.  Empty checkout lanes and stocked shelves.

[JohnnyReb]

I only go to Walmart in the morning before 10 AM.  Empty checkout lanes and stocked shelves.

If and when I go, it's usually 4 am......the isles are full of boxes and people stocking shelves but most of the drunk/high DUmmies have finally gone home by that time.

[Undies]

I love our Walmart that's about two hundred yards away across a field from my driveway.  It's our pantry.
 

[sybilll]

I only go to Walmart in the morning before 10 AM.  Empty checkout lanes and stocked shelves.

Smart move. The parasites can't be bothered to get up that early. But whatever you do, don't go at midnight the 1st day of the month when EBT is replenished.  And no, this is not about race, an equal number of the EBT recipients at my WalMart are white. 

[NHSparky]

I saw a clerk next to the ammo cabinet at 7:00 pm the other day, but she was dumb as a bag of hammers.

Velvet and I were looking for shotgun shells for next weekend's sporting clays tournament (benefiting the Boy Scouts). I was looking for 12 ga, 2 3/4", #8 low brass shells. No joy. The aforementioned bag of hammers yelled at us (because a dog with "Hearing Dog" on her vest means "yell at us"), as she picked up the boxes I had just looked at. We left- not just the sporting goods section, we left the whole damn store.

I ended up buying the shells at Orscheln's Farm Supply, for $7.50 a box. I got 6 boxes.  WalMart got none of my money last week.

Your Walmart sells guns?  AND ammo?

[Big Dog]

Your Walmart sells guns?  AND ammo?

Yes. A pretty good selection of lobg guns. Ammo is hit and miss right now, with a three box limit.

[longview]

The Walmart in town at the north end of the state, never did go to more part-time workers.  Just not that big of a labor pool up here.  But, the couple of older women who I know that work there are heralding this decision in other areas of the country as meaning better job security for them.  The Walmart in the eastern, central part of the state was notorious for hiring a person as full-time, then reducing them to part-time after their first 90 days.  That ended as energy jobs became more plentiful, the town experienced a mini-boom, and most other low skilled, entry level jobs started paying better and offering benefits. 

I only go to Walmart in the early, early mornings (before 6 a.m.) if they need something at work for a patient.  Like socks.  People don't keep their loved ones in decent socks.  Surely just an oversight, but I can't tell you how many pair the staff have bought for folks. 

[Eupher]

Our WAL-MART seems to have clerks in the guns and ammo section only during banking hours(well, 8 to 6).

Is it that way other places or am I hitting there at the wrong moments?

I stopped buying ammo at Walmart because, well, there's nobody there at the counter.  EVER.

Marginally less of a problem at the auto care section. While I would be loathe to have Walmart even so much as change the oil on my car or rotate the tires, I occasionally go there to drop off used oil for recycling. Good luck finding a clerk so you can sign the stuff in.

Basically, for me at least, Walmart is a self-serve store. In those odd moments where I actually do need help, I almost always have to go to the so-called Customer Service center.

Forget electronics, forget the photo thing, and for God's sake don't even bother with jewelry.

Mostly, it's pick up a few groceries (good luck with that too, as produce generally sucks donkey balls and go ahead and try to find lemons that are fresher than 2 months old. Apples? Sometimes not even there. WTF?

For me and where I live, though, it's just about the only game in town. There's another store in town, but produce there is even worse than at Walmart.

[debk]

We're also going in to the holiday season. How many of those full timers will even have a job come the end of January?

[Wineslob]

I believe one of the provisions in the Hellcare Act is that a employer can insure only the employee and not family members, thus getting around the penalty.

[Dori]

I believe one of the provisions in the Hellcare Act is that a employer can insure only the employee and not family members, thus getting around the penalty.

I think that if your wife/husband can get insurance through their employer, then they can't be on your spouse's policy.  But I hadn't heard anything about not insuring the kids.  Some companies will pay for an employee's insurance, but not pay for the dependent's portion.

I think too, if you have to pay for your insurance through your employer, that they can't take more than 9% of your income.  Another thing I heard too, was that if your employer pays for your insurance, and it exceeds a certain limit, then you will be taxed like income for anything over the allowable amount.  These are called Cadillac plans.  I think this is one of the reasons why the Unions are upset about Obamacare.



 

[debk]

My BFF works for UT and has had insurance through them for her, husband (he was self-employed, now retired) and her kids. Last kid, a student, just dropped off when he turned 26 last December.

We were talking about insurance rates, cause I'm looking for insurance as I'm self-employed. (best I have found is $200+ with a $5000 deductible    ). She said in the last year, her insurance has increased $200 PER MONTH for the two of them! And what is covered has changed, they have to fill out pages and pages of information about their health, eating, drinking & smoking habits (neither smoke, but both drink - not to excess ), how much they exercise - when, where & what do they do. All kinds of really personal stuff that like she said, she's not very happy that this is information is going through her employer's HR dept.