Wal-Mart introduces new dress code, employees must buy own clothes

[Skull Pilot]

Excuse me but a retail business does not make a profit on items it uses itself.

At best they can write off the cost of the items but there is no profit. And they can't write it off twice

Tell me again how rich you are if you don't even know that?

Let me go slow for you.

WalMart is a four-tiered profit company.

Procurement

Logistics

Transportation

and

Stores/Sam's Club

The first three are private companies owned by the WalMart seven which marks up and sells to the next.

Stores is the publicly held company.

They can't write it off twice? If the former employee doesn't return it they can. If you purchase an item and no longer have the benefit of that item, that is a loss. Loss is deductible.

If you use a product you cannot write it off twice. It's no different than using a perishable good off the shelf. If i own a convenience store and use a carton of cream for the coffee station I can only write off the cost of the cream once. if I make less profit on that one carton of cream I cannot call that a loss and write it off again.

If you provide uniforms for staff all you can write off is the cost of the uniform. You cannot write it off again if that uniform gets stolen or damaged.

Now on the other hand the uniforms can be considered an employee benefit and the employees may be liable for taxes as the value of the uniforms can be counted as income.

 

[Politico]

I already knew what the responses would be here. Dont worry tho they can just apply for an increase in their welfare to cover the loss...then republicans can complain about that instead.

Oh not about Walmart...dont be silly...Complain about the people who apply for welfare because of Walmarts shit wages.

I think the Waltons want...no need to open another art gallery anyway.

So you show up to work naked on the first day? And when they ask you say hey you didn't buy me anything to wear.

Uh oh, now you've been forced into the silly argument corner

Silly premis = Silly response

What's your point?

Exactly.

 

[EverCurious]

They bill the employee for cleaning? Cintas is a uniform LEASING company. Cleaning is INCLUDED in the lease price. Which RAT-BASTARD in the administration of your hubbies company is pocketing the cleaning fees?

It's called 'standard practice' of ripping-off your employees.

Semi-related: I found out not to long ago that Alaska State Troopers are not reimbursed for dry cleaning their wool uniforms. The city police department has contracts with local dry cleaners and pay for 100% of officer's cleaning/pressing; typical uniform is washable unless they're a sergeant then the pants are dry clean. Also the military folks on base say the 'covered' dry cleaner place they have is "terrible" and they refuse to go there, so a lot of them pay for their cleaning/pressing at local dry cleaners without reimbursement. I also found out that bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers cannot get a tax deduction for cleaning their suits.

 

[EverCurious]

WalMart subsidies are $7.8 billion per year which doesn't include the $6.2 billion per year in welfare their employees receive. The simple fact that WalMart has full-time employees that make so little they qualify for welfare (your tax monies) should be pissing you off, but instead you are humanizing the villains. What's wrong with you?

I was curious so I was researching, seems Walmart doesn't put out stats on how many of it's employees are full time vs part time, but I did come across this:

Walmart Only Hiring Temporary Workers In Many U.S. Stores Report

Which roughly states that some 10% of Walmart's workforce is now 'temporary.' Walmart says the majority of their workforce is still full time, and they just started doing temp hires because of the tight economy, others assert it's [at least partially] related to ACA:

[Walmart company spokesman David] Tovar said fewer than 10 percent of its U.S. workforce is temporary - or what the company internally calls "flexible associates" - compared to 1 to 2 percent before 2013. The majority of its workforce is still regular full-time staff, he said.

[...]

The hiring strategy could save Wal-Mart money by trimming labor costs at a time when its margins remain under pressure. Many consumers are still struggling given a high jobless rate and lack of income growth, leaving retailers of everyday goods with little pricing power, according to other company CEOs and benefits experts. Competition from dollar stores, other big box discount chains and grocery stores is also intense.

[...]

Wal-Mart's U.S. staffing has remained relatively flat even as more stores have opened in recent years. At the end of fiscal 2013, Wal-Mart had "more than 1.3 million" workers in the United States, the majority of them at 4,005 Walmart U.S. stores, compared with "approximately 1.4 million" workers in the United States at the end of fiscal 2009, the majority of them at 3,656 Walmart U.S. stores, according to the company's annual filings for both years.

[...]

"Full-time people are getting slimmer and slimmer," said a supervisor at a store in North Carolina, who asked not to be named, as did other store-level employees who were interviewed for this story, because she is not authorized to talk to the media.

She said that the five new employees hired this year at the store are all temps and hours of existing employees are being cut.

"Everybody who comes through the door I hire as a temporary associate," said a store manager in Alaska, who asked not to be identified. "It's a company direction at the present time." (Personal note, not surprised by that at all, we have more jobs open than we have workers up here - especially with school back in session - so most of the box stores just hire temp help to get through the school year. If you don't make yourself worth keeping they dump you for a better employee when the kids have their days free)

"Long-term associates are particularly distraught by this short-term hiring as many are looking for more hours and full-time work," said Mary Pat Tifft, a member of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart, a group of current and former Walmart employees campaigning for better wages, hours and benefits. It does not define itself as a union, although its members do pay $5 monthly dues. OUR Walmart is part of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

[...]

Hiring temps is "one strategy" that retailers could use to mitigate the potential rise in healthcare costs due to the new healthcare care law, said Neil Trautwein, a healthcare lobbyist for the National Retail Federation. "Another strategy could be employing more part-time employees."

Wal-Mart already has begun to change the healthcare plans it provides workers. Last November, it said that newly hired part-time employees would have to work a minimum of 30 hours a week, up from 24 hours previously, before they can qualify for health coverage.

Its U.S. employees also faced an 8-36 percent increase in premiums in 2013, the company said at the time, prompting some workers to forego insurance. The majority of eligible employees at Wal-Mart sign up for the company's health insurance.

Under the reforms, large companies must next year offer healthcare to 95 percent of employees who work more than 30 hours a week or pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker for the entire workforce.

When the work hours are so variable that the employer is not certain whether an employee qualifies, they can elect to determine eligibility by measuring hours during a period of up to 12 months, a strategy Wal-Mart said it plans to use.

Temp workers may therefore have to wait a year - provided they are still employed at the company - to find out if they are eligible.

"A temporary worker may never get that far," said Barbara McGeoch, a principal and health benefits expert at consulting firm Mercer's legal, regulatory and legislative group. "They may never get the coverage."

I did have an unrelated question though, if the employee declines health insurance because it's too expensive, is Walmart still fined in ACA??


Anyway, I personally don't understand why people are continuing to work at Walmart min wage when they aren't getting paid enough to 'support their family'. They need to find other jobs instead of sticking around bitching about it. If everyone quit going to Walmart for low paying work, then Walmart would be forced to pay more competitively.

 

[candycorn]

And there is a cost involved in all of that.
Now you're adding on shipping costs.

All of what? Filling out a form? Shipping adds $6.00 maybe, so what.

Pfft....

Someone has to maintain the inventory. Cost
Someone has to pick/pack/ship the orders. Cost
The shipping costs involved. Cost

We haven't even started talking about mis-fills and returns yet. Cost


"So What" is a coward's explanation. It's pretty easy to spend someone else's money but when you consider Wal Mart is a world-wide franchise with something like 2.2 Million employees WMT Profile Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Common St Stock - Yahoo Finance ... there would be significant costs involved although not all of them fall in the uniform guidelines.

 

[candycorn]

I understand that cities and towns court WalMart to come to them. We did that here (although we made them buy the land and make road improvements to accommodate increased traffic), just like we did with many plants, just like we did with the movie theater/bowling alley complex, etc. I was referring to the government giving WalMart money for payroll, which was the implication in the post I was responding to. I have no problem courting business to the area. We receive the benefit, not only of WalMart, but the Cato, Sally's, Supercuts, Radio Shack, nail salon, restaurant, etc that also come with them. It has been great for this community. What I am not aware of is taxpayers giving money to WalMart to meet payroll. Perhaps it is the misuse of the word "subsidy" that confused me.

Courting? You make it sound so moral. You do understand it's legal bribery. Don't you?

Besides what you mentioned, buying the land, building the building, no taxes for years, all goes into one big pot, part of which pays payroll. Then when WalMart opens, it displaces 1.7 jobs for every one it creates. And who wins?

'
Again, if it were so onerous...few would shop there and fewer would work there. It turns out hundreds work there and thousands can't wait to shop there daily.

Facts don't lie.

 

[Skull Pilot]

And there is a cost involved in all of that.
Now you're adding on shipping costs.

All of what? Filling out a form? Shipping adds $6.00 maybe, so what.

Pfft....

Someone has to maintain the inventory. Cost
Someone has to pick/pack/ship the orders. Cost
The shipping costs involved. Cost

We haven't even started talking about mis-fills and returns yet. Cost


"So What" is a coward's explanation. It's pretty easy to spend someone else's money but when you consider Wal Mart is a world-wide franchise with something like 2.2 Million employees WMT Profile Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Common St Stock - Yahoo Finance ... there would be significant costs involved although not all of them fall in the uniform guidelines.

Not to mention insurance, storage, heating, cooling trash removal etc etc etc etc etc

Whine Percenter thinks he's rich but doesn't know squat about running a business.

 

[OnePercenter]

I see where you are coming from, but I disagree. I don't often shop there, but they have been good for this community. I have no problem giving a company something to get them here. We gained, they gained, we are happy with the arrangement, they are happy with the arrangement. We didn't lose our family owned groceries. Those family groceries are expanding and building new locations. We still have our boutiques. We still have KMart. We still have both of our family owned lumber yards, too, despite Home Depot and Lowe's moving in, too. I don't see any displacement. I just don't have an issue with big box stores in general. I disagree that an entry level, minimum wage job should be able to support a family. I disagree that we are subsidizing WalMart's payroll if a grown up can't earn a raise or move on to a higher end store to make more money with experience gained at WalMart. I just don't consider that a WalMart subsidy at all. That is a family subsidy IMO.

I will concede that we lost an Albertson's big box grocery, but they weren't any different than WalMart in their practices.

My question, which no one answered, is why name a single employer that pays minimum wage. Why say we subsidize WalMart's payroll when no one ever says we subsidize KMart's payroll or Buffy's car wash payroll? Why always single out the one company out of so many? They are all doing the same thing. By singling them out, it just looks like a targeted witch hunt. Why not hate on the practices as a whole?

Are you ok with KMart? Are you ok with Buffy's car wash? Are you ok with Circle K? Why are those never mentioned? It seems off to me is all.

Interesting, you lost Albertsons. Albertsons IS different, very different, they payed Union scale.

Big boxes not making a difference? Just wait. In Vegas, we lost Raileys, and most Albertsons and Smiths.

When those you mentioned start costing taxpayers $6+ billion/yr in welfare to support their employees we'll talk about them.

 

[OnePercenter]

If you use a product you cannot write it off twice. It's no different than using a perishable good off the shelf. If i own a convenience store and use a carton of cream for the coffee station I can only write off the cost of the cream once. if I make less profit on that one carton of cream I cannot call that a loss and write it off again.

Using a product wasn't an issue. An ex-employee not returning a uniform was the issue. That's loss.

If you provide uniforms for staff all you can write off is the cost of the uniform. You cannot write it off again if that uniform gets stolen or damaged.

Someone breaks into a company truck and steals tools and I have no deductible loss? Really? My CPA would have issue with that.

Now on the other hand the uniforms can be considered an employee benefit and the employees may be liable for taxes as the value of the uniforms can be counted as income.

Not if the uniform must be returned.

 

[Darkwind]

Will it never stop with these guys?



The company even set up a website for employees to buy their new required work clothes at Walmart.

Well, isn't that nice?

http://abc13.com/careers/walmarts-new-dress-code-criticized-by-employees/295823/

This reminds me of old west days where company stores sold everything employees needed. Effectively getting labor for free due to markup of everyday goods like food and clothing.

Gonna start wearing my pro-union stuff at Wal-Mart. Say loudly near mngt. "So you guys unionized yet?"

You may have a point...except it is on your head as it bears no resemblance to that at all.

Pathetic.

 

[Darkwind]

I have no respect for the ultra rich, they are heartless bastards...

It appears you don't know any rich, ultra or otherwise.

But that's okay. I have no respect for the left, they are deliberately cruel and ignorant.

 

[ClosedCaption]

<snip>The average age of people in those "entry level" jobs is 29. So your premise of the teens working these jobs is circa 1980. Btw this now sounds like you are defending the low wages while complainning that the left wants to put the rich in charge of the poor. Classic double talk there.

Well if that's the case then statistically they are making more than min wage so they can buy their own damn shirts and pants.

11 Facts About The Minimum Wage That President Obama Forgot To Mention

Despite the hoopla surrounding the issue, only a tiny percentage of American workers actually earn the federal hourly minimum wage: 1 percent, to be exact. In 2012, the most recent year for which nationwide minimum wage data is available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), roughly 1.5 million hourly workers

Workers between 20 and 24 years of age comprise 24 percent of all minimum wage workers, those between 25 and 34 years comprise 15.5 percent, workers between 35 and 44 years comprise less than 10 percent, and those 45 years and up comprise roughly 20 percent of all minimum wage workers in the U.S.

So basically we're statically talking about 15.5% of that 1% of the workforce that even make minimum wage (roughly 233k) and of those how many actually work at Walmart vs another employer?

Even if we go off how many Walmart employee's in the US, 1.4 million and say that a full 1% of their workforce is paid minimum wage, then we would be statically talking about roughly 21,700 workers - or statistically 0.00014% out of nearly 155 million workers in the US.

Its not even a blip on the radar...

Did you notice that a person making a dime over min wage is no longer considered min wage?

Show the poverty stats and get back to me

 

[OnePercenter]

Semi-related: I found out not to long ago that Alaska State Troopers are not reimbursed for dry cleaning their wool uniforms. The city police department has contracts with local dry cleaners and pay for 100% of officer's cleaning/pressing; typical uniform is washable unless they're a sergeant then the pants are dry clean. Also the military folks on base say the 'covered' dry cleaner place they have is "terrible" and they refuse to go there, so a lot of them pay for their cleaning/pressing at local dry cleaners without reimbursement. I also found out that bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers cannot get a tax deduction for cleaning their suits.

Alaska State Troopers don't have a uniform allowance? The former Governor should be proud.

Contract employees and self-employed CAN deduct cleaning. That would cover all three that you listed. Also, all three don't wear a uniform.

 

[candycorn]

And there is a cost involved in all of that.
Now you're adding on shipping costs.

All of what? Filling out a form? Shipping adds $6.00 maybe, so what.

Pfft....

Someone has to maintain the inventory. Cost
Someone has to pick/pack/ship the orders. Cost
The shipping costs involved. Cost

We haven't even started talking about mis-fills and returns yet. Cost


"So What" is a coward's explanation. It's pretty easy to spend someone else's money but when you consider Wal Mart is a world-wide franchise with something like 2.2 Million employees WMT Profile Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Common St Stock - Yahoo Finance ... there would be significant costs involved although not all of them fall in the uniform guidelines.

Not to mention insurance, storage, heating, cooling trash removal etc etc etc etc etc

Whine Percenter thinks he's rich but doesn't know squat about running a business.

Not sure about what he thinks but he's not thinking this issue through...that much is obvious.

 

[Pop23]

What good is paying for the uniforms if the employee can't get to work in the first place?

Walmart should make car payments for their employees, they have the money to do so after all.

We'll talk about Wally World paying the car insurance later.

 

[Tresha91203]

So it is not the policy, but the specific company. Others can play by the same rules, just not the evil WalMart.

There's a way to change the rules if you get enough people to agree. I believe the ripple would be harmful to the country. I don't see how you can make WalMart follow different rules than KMart. If you somehow did, suddenly KMart would become evil and be next on the list, then Buffy's.

 

[OnePercenter]

Pfft....

Someone has to maintain the inventory. Cost
Someone has to pick/pack/ship the orders. Cost
The shipping costs involved. Cost

We haven't even started talking about mis-fills and returns yet. Cost

That would be the uniform companies dime.

"So What" is a coward's explanation. It's pretty easy to spend someone else's money but when you consider Wal Mart is a world-wide franchise with something like 2.2 Million employees WMT Profile Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Common St Stock - Yahoo Finance ... there would be significant costs involved although not all of them fall in the uniform guidelines.

I stated 'so what' because it doesn't effect me.

WalMart made $17 billion in profits last year. I made $5 million in profits last year. I can afford to pay for uniforms, but WalMart can't. Sure they can't. Sure. Keep believing that and they'll have you where they want you.

 

[OnePercenter]

So it is not the policy, but the specific company. Others can play by the same rules, just not the evil WalMart.

There's a way to change the rules if you get enough people to agree. I believe the ripple would be harmful to the country. I don't see how you can make WalMart follow different rules than KMart. If you somehow did, suddenly KMart would become evil and be next on the list, then Buffy's.

It would be a very small percentage drop in profits.

 

[OnePercenter]

What good is paying for the uniforms if the employee can't get to work in the first place?

Walmart should make car payments for their employees, they have the money to do so after all.

We'll talk about Wally World paying the car insurance later.

WalMart should pay enough for their employees to make car payments.

 

[OnePercenter]

Not sure about what he thinks but he's not thinking this issue through...that much is obvious.

That's where you are wrong.