NationStates Jolt Archive

Finally, the workers at a Wal-Mart walk out of a store in protest of the company's disgusting policies. It even looks like they may have even won a concession from Wal-Mart. Amazing.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15305178/

It's a good sign. Wal-Mart was really trying to fuck their long term and higher wage employees, and these folks said they were going to stand up and let them know what the deal was. I imagine half of them will be gone inside six months, if it takes that long, but it had to feel good.

Finally, the workers at a Wal-Mart walk out of a store in protest of the company's disgusting policies. It even looks like they may have even won a concession from Wal-Mart. Amazing.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15305178/

"... later come back to buy lunch."

God, murhicans are so effing lazy.

I hear the drums rolling. . .





















'BOUT TIME TO BOYCOTT WALLY WORLD!!! :mad:

Good for them.

Here in Sunny Phoenix we had a couple of guys set two wal marts on fire, which was pretty cool I guess.

It turned out though that they were also the same two guys who drove around in a car at night for a year shooting people, shot like 25 people, killed 4.

Very not cool.

will all these employee policies... why not just admit they want to hire illegal aliens because they won't complain to the authorities. :p

Finally, the workers at a Wal-Mart walk out of a store in protest of the company's disgusting policies. It even looks like they may have even won a concession from Wal-Mart. Amazing.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15305178/

Excellent! :)

It's a good sign. Wal-Mart was really trying to fuck their long term and higher wage employees, and these folks said they were going to stand up and let them know what the deal was. I imagine half of them will be gone inside six months, if it takes that long, but it had to feel good.

And if they don't go, Wally World's likely to just close the store.

God, murhicans are so effing lazy.

:rolleyes:

Ah, finally. Some good news. :)

I hope this is only the beginning.

The protest wasn't led by any union group. Rather, it was instigated by two department managers, Guillermo Vasquez and Rosie Larosa. The department managers were not affected directly by the changes, but they felt that the company had gone too far with certain new policies. Among them were moves to cut the hours of full-time employees from 40 hours a week to 32 hours, along with a corresponding cut in wages, and to compel workers to be available for shifts around the clock.

In addition, the shifts would be decided not by managers, but by a computer at company headquarters. Employees could find themselves working 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. one week and noon to 9 p.m. the next. "So workers cannot pick up their children after school everyday, and part-timers cannot keep another job because they can be called to work anytime," says Vasquez.

In addition to scheduling changes and reduction in hours, workers are now required to call an 800 number when they are sick. "If we are at an emergency room and spend the night in a hospital and cannot call the number, they won't respect that," says Larosa, who has worked at the store for six years. "It will be counted as an unexcused absence."

Yet more reasons to hate Wal-Mart.

Like we didn't have enough already.

If they walked off the job then Wal-Mart does have the right to fire them.

I like playing devil's advocate. Such a fun pinball game.

Good on 'em. I wish it would happen more.

Direct action gets the goods.

If they walked off the job then Wal-Mart does have the right to fire them.I think that would fall under collective action, which is legally protected. If so, WalMart can't fire them.

In Germany, we have boycotted Wal Mart from the day they opened their first stores. ;)

And now they have sold their shops because the Wal Mart strategy didn't fit to the German mentalaty. Silly morning shoutings doesn't motivate any Germans. And to forbid them relationships with other employees wasn't accepted either. From the beginning, there were processes beetwen the employees and the management, and the customers prefered the traditional super markets.

WTF is a Wal-Mart?

WTF is a Wal-Mart?
The official store of the Bible Belt.

I can drive 20 minutes in any direction and reach a Wal-Mart.
5 minutes and reach a Dollar Store.

The official store of the Bible Belt.

I can drive 20 minutes in any direction and reach a Wal-Mart.
5 minutes and reach a Dollar Store.

Sounds scary. Hooray for Ireland not having any!

Sounds scary. Hooray for Ireland not having any!

Don't you have Tesco over there? Wal Mart's like a more evil version...

Don't you have Tesco over there? Wal Mart's like a more evil version...

Yeah, tesco are bastards. Friend of mine(allegedly) got attacked in Cork and ran into tesco, only to be thrown out by the security guards.

WTF is a Wal-Mart?

If Satan ran a national department store chain, it'd be Wal-Mart. :)

Sounds scary. Hooray for Ireland not having any!

They own ASDA, dosen't Ireland have them?

makes me glad they do not have wal-mart where I live.

They own ASDA, dosen't Ireland have them?
I don't tihnk we have many. ASDA is more an english thing, I think.

In Germany, we have boycotted Wal Mart from the day they opened their first stores. ;)

And now they have sold their shops because the Wal Mart strategy didn't fit to the German mentalaty. Silly morning shoutings doesn't motivate any Germans. And to forbid them relationships with other employees wasn't accepted either. From the beginning, there were processes beetwen the employees and the management, and the customers prefered the traditional super markets.

Good for the Germans. Keep it up. :)

I remeber them trying a version of the computer designated shift systems in ASDA a few years back but it didn;t really work as msot of the staff were on fixed hour contracts and the managers went out of thier way to ignore it.

Of course from the folks is till know who work in ASDA things are gettign steadily worse, msot notably so since the great managment shrink of last year which despite the promise that the savings would be used to employ more shopfloor staff seems to have resulted in bugger all new staff and seriosuly overworked and undermotivated managers (i never thought i would see the day when i ahd sympathy for super market managers...)

Direct action gets the goods.

I think that would fall under collective action, which is legally protected. If so, WalMart can't fire them.

Not in Florida. We're a "right to work" state (and yes, the quotes are meant to imbue that term with every ounce of derision it deserves).

Well, if you treat your employees like trash - something will happen. You just can't erode their employee conditions constantly and expect happy staff.

Well, if you treat your employees like trash - something will happen. You just can't erode their employee conditions constantly and expect happy staff.

Wal-Mart is pissing off their employees deliberately. The more turnover they have in the ranks, the lower their labor costs, and thte higher their profits.

WTF is a Wal-Mart?

All you ever wanted to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart
And all that Wal-Mart doesn't want you to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wal-Mart

They own ASDA, dosen't Ireland have them?
I don't tihnk we have many. ASDA is more an english thing, I think.

Nope. It's Wal-Mart's baby now.

ASDA is a chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom offering food, clothing and general merchandise products. It became a subsidiary of the American retail giant Wal-Mart in 1999, and is currently the second largest chain in the UK after Tesco.

ASDA is Wal-Mart's largest overseas subsidiary, accounting for almost half of the company's international sales. As of January 2006, there were 21 ASDA/Wal-Mart Supercentres, 243 ASDA Superstores, 37 ASDA Smaller/town centres, 5 ASDA Living stores, 10 Georges, and 24 depots (distribution centres). ASDA has 150,000 employees, whom it refers to as "colleagues" (90,000 part-time, 60,000 full-time). The company is also engaged in property development through its subsidiary company, Gazeley Properties Limited.

As a wholly owned division of Wal-Mart, ASDA isn't required to declare quarterly or half-yearly earnings. It submits full accounts to Companies House each October.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASDA

(And from the looks of the section on unions in that article, looks like Wal-Mart's keeping up their evil work.)

Wal-Mart is pissing off their employees deliberately. The more turnover they have in the ranks, the lower their labor costs, and thte higher their profits.

How so? Its my understanding that training new employees is expensive and time consuming and until the employee learns the job, its done very inefficiently.

How so? Its my understanding that training new employees is expensive and time consuming and until the employee learns the job, its done very inefficiently.

People who are on the job longer require more pay simply out of seniority. So they can gradually hire people for less and less, have orientation consist of watching the same boring set of videos about the evils of discrimination and unions, and then send them out onto the floor with virtually no training. Then they can gradually replace them with self-checkouts, which may require maintenance but don't require wages. Given enough time and technology, I am sure a Wal-Mart could be run with only security people and a couple of managers on site at any given time, though there would have to be maintenance people who could be called in to fix the machines.

Then they can gradually replace them with self-checkouts, which may require maintenance but don't require wages.
A set of self-checkouts, always 4, require at least one Wal-Mart floor worker there because they are rather shitty machines, especially the Wal-Mart ones.

A set of self-checkouts, always 4, require at least one Wal-Mart floor worker there because they are rather shitty machines, especially the Wal-Mart ones.

They also require someone to check ID when purchasing alcohol. They're actually pretty damn strict about that. I was at Kroger with my parents, and they'd bought a six pack of Great Lakes, and I was scanning the stuff over the scanner while my mom was sticking stuff in the bags, and I scanned the beer, the "show ID to employee" thing came up, and the employee came over. Even though my parents were there and paying for everything, because I, a 20 year old, am not allowed to scan beer, apparently.

Wal-Mart is pissing off their employees deliberately. The more turnover they have in the ranks, the lower their labor costs, and thte higher their profits.

So they get uninspired lowly paid people who leave and get replaced by other uninspired lowly paid people. Hence the place is run by idiots employing idiots? No wonder people hate Walmart.

So they get uninspired lowly paid people who leave and get replaced by other uninspired lowly paid people. Hence the place is run by idiots employing idiots? No wonder people hate Walmart.
Any idiot who went to Wal-Mart more than once a month could be a senior worker at Wal-Mart, the general floor workers really don't do shit.

People who are on the job longer require more pay simply out of seniority. So they can gradually hire people for less and less, have orientation consist of watching the same boring set of videos about the evils of discrimination and unions, and then send them out onto the floor with virtually no training. Then they can gradually replace them with self-checkouts, which may require maintenance but don't require wages. Given enough time and technology, I am sure a Wal-Mart could be run with only security people and a couple of managers on site at any given time, though there would have to be maintenance people who could be called in to fix the machines.

What about restocking? You need people to restock the shelves as there are no machines capable doing a that kind of job properly at the moment. I don't managers want to be doing that job either - they want to sit in an office doing nothing.

What about restocking? You need people to restock the shelves as there are no machines capable doing a that kind of job properly at the moment. I don't managers want to be doing that job either - they want to sit in an office doing nothing.

Robots. Lot's and lot's of ceiling mounted robots, or, even better, turn Wal-Mart into a giant warehouse, put up some touchpad computers up front, and let people look through the inventory, choose what they want to buy, and the automated warehouse will go and pick it up for them.

I work at ASDA-Walmart, and its not as bad as you lot are saying. Over here in the UK, it constantly gets rated one of the best places to work by many newspapers.

Robots. Lot's and lot's of ceiling mounted robots, or, even better, turn Wal-Mart into a giant warehouse, put up some touchpad computers up front, and let people look through the inventory, choose what they want to buy, and the automated warehouse will go and pick it up for them.

Great idea in theory and it could work if you can guaranteee 24x7 power and IT systems don't break down a lot.

In Germany, we have boycotted Wal Mart from the day they opened their first stores. ;)

And now they have sold their shops because the Wal Mart strategy didn't fit to the German mentalaty. Silly morning shoutings doesn't motivate any Germans. And to forbid them relationships with other employees wasn't accepted either. From the beginning, there were processes beetwen the employees and the management, and the customers prefered the traditional super markets.
My, how times have changed. It was only a few decades ago that the German people appeared very happy to have some jumped-up little sod shouting at them, telling them what to do and whom to marry.
;)

So they get uninspired lowly paid people who leave and get replaced by other uninspired lowly paid people. Hence the place is run by idiots employing idiots? No wonder people hate Walmart.

And since Wal-Marts routinely run local businesses out of business, they've got a constant supply of out of work people who'll suck it up and work there for a while.

What about restocking? You need people to restock the shelves as there are no machines capable doing a that kind of job properly at the moment. I don't managers want to be doing that job either - they want to sit in an office doing nothing.

Alright, 1 managers, 1 cleaner, 2 guys to fix the machines when they break and an illegal mexican restocking - and working for nothing more than being allowed to live in the dumpster out the back.
better?

A set of self-checkouts, always 4, require at least one Wal-Mart floor worker there because they are rather shitty machines, especially the Wal-Mart ones.

Yes, they need some fine-tuning. But picture this - let's say there are 32 checkouts in a Wal-Mart. Would Wal-Mart rather have 32 cashiers paid $7 an hour and have to have lanes closed constantly? I'll say they have half of those lanes open on average. That's 16 people for 24 hours at $7 an hour. That's $2,688 in daily cashier wages. Or you could piss off all those cashiers, hire new ones at $1 an hour less, and only have an average of six people manning four self-checkouts at a time. For 24 hours, that's 6 people at $6 an hour. That's $864. If maintenance is less than $1,824 a day, Wal-Mart makes more money this way. That $1,824 can even go into making the machines better so that one assistant manager making $8 an hour can watch them from behind the glass. If $864 isn't bad as far as labor costs go, try $192. And maybe the machines will still be shitty. But there are 32 of them.

They also require someone to check ID when purchasing alcohol. They're actually pretty damn strict about that. I was at Kroger with my parents, and they'd bought a six pack of Great Lakes, and I was scanning the stuff over the scanner while my mom was sticking stuff in the bags, and I scanned the beer, the "show ID to employee" thing came up, and the employee came over. Even though my parents were there and paying for everything, because I, a 20 year old, am not allowed to scan beer, apparently.

Some places have devices that you can swipe your driver's license. And since an assistant manager making $8 an hour would be watching from behind the glass, he/she can go over and ask what's going on if he/she suspects anything. I would guess that such a setup would incorporate something like this.

What about restocking? You need people to restock the shelves as there are no machines capable doing a that kind of job properly at the moment. I don't managers want to be doing that job either - they want to sit in an office doing nothing.

Robots. Lot's and lot's of ceiling mounted robots, or, even better, turn Wal-Mart into a giant warehouse, put up some touchpad computers up front, and let people look through the inventory, choose what they want to buy, and the automated warehouse will go and pick it up for them.

Maybe. What I was thinking was a system of underground feeder shelves. People come from warehouses in trucks and re-stock into one area in the back. A computer system scans a barcode and feeds the items into where they should go with conveyor belts.

Also, when people ask for help, they would inquire on computer terminals using either a FAQ or an Ask Jeeves-type query engine. The only people who would be needed for an operation like this:

Assistant manager behind the glass
Truck drivers who would double as stockers
Operations manager
General manager
Warehouse manager
Security personnel
Maintenance people

I think I just invented a dystopian supermarket.

...

Assistant manager behind the glass
Truck drivers who would double as stockers
Operations manager
General manager
Warehouse manager
Security personnel
Maintenance people

I think I just invented a dystopian supermarket.

Well, you need the Communications/IT person too.

Well, you need the Communications/IT person too.

They'll run that from the main office in Bentonville--one IT person for 20 stores or so.

They'll run that from the main office in Bentonville--one IT person for 20 stores or so.

He's going be busy. I pity the poor fella when a system wide crash happens.

He's going be busy. I pity the poor fella when a system wide crash happens.

Well OK, one team of people for an entire region, and if they have any sense of how to run a computerized system, disasters will be pretty rare. Rule number one is "no single points of failure." Any good system will be designed with that in mind. Of course, this is Wal-Mart we're talking about here, but a team of IT professionals in Bentonville, AR may be able to manage it. Of course, if I were an IT professional, I wouldn't want to live in Bentonville, AR. To borrow a line from my grandfather, I don't want to be God in Bentonville, AR.

:headbang: :p :mad: :p i agree with JuNii let the illegal aliens go in there and work they do any thing to make a few bucks:p :headbang:
why are yous all worried about walmart?

this is how i tuly feel bout wal mart


:upyours: WAL-MART:upyours: :mad:
:p

<snip>Worst. Post. Ever.

Worst. Post. Ever.

Eh. At least it didn't have gun smileys in it.

Eh. At least it didn't have gun smileys in it.

Granted, but countered by the double headbang-upyours attack.

Granted, but countered by the double headbang-upyours attack.

We need to establish a Ten Commandments of using emoticons here. Commandment One should be, "Thou shalt keep the use of emoticons to a reasonable minimum."

We need to establish a Ten Commandments of using emoticons here. Commandment One should be, "Thou shalt keep the use of emoticons to a reasonable minimum."

Thou shalt never use the gun smileys, lest thou be mocked as a n00b.

Ever since Sam died the place has become more and more corrupt.

In Germany, we have boycotted Wal Mart from the day they opened their first stores. ;)

And now they have sold their shops because the Wal Mart strategy didn't fit to the German mentalaty. Silly morning shoutings doesn't motivate any Germans. And to forbid them relationships with other employees wasn't accepted either. From the beginning, there were processes beetwen the employees and the management, and the customers prefered the traditional super markets. Yeah that was great. Embarrased them completely.

I work at ASDA-Walmart, and its not as bad as you lot are saying. Over here in the UK, it constantly gets rated one of the best places to work by many newspapers.

You must be among the lucky few. Working at a Wal-Mart has to be among the worst thing you can do. I am frankly surprised they still manage to hire people so easily given their awful reputation. There are other retail stores to work at who won't try to screw you at every opportunity.

You must be among the lucky few. Working at a Wal-Mart has to be among the worst thing you can do. I am frankly surprised they still manage to hire people so easily given their awful reputation. There are other retail stores to work at who won't try to screw you at every opportunity.

I worked at Sam's Club for a while. It wasn't really that bad. Sure, they blathered on in orientation about how they hate unions, but I wasn't interested in anything long-term; I was a student looking to earn money to take with me to college. In that situation, Wal-Mart is a perfectly fine place to work. For those who need a little more of a robust job, it may not be.

I worked at Sam's Club for a while. It wasn't really that bad. Sure, they blathered on in orientation about how they hate unions, but I wasn't interested in anything long-term; I was a student looking to earn money to take with me to college. In that situation, Wal-Mart is a perfectly fine place to work. For those who need a little more of a robust job, it may not be.

Wal-Mart seems to attract the "working mother" and the elderly, not just the temporary job that college students look for. This is what some will be doing for the rest of their life and the company does whatever it can to make sure they can not make a living. Wal-Mart really is a real life stereotype of a evil corporation.

Wal-Mart seems to attract the "working mother" and the elderly, not just the temporary job that college students look for. This is what some will be doing for the rest of their life and the company does whatever it can to make sure they can not make a living. Wal-Mart really is a real life stereotype of a evil corporation.

For the part-time student looking for cash to spend on dorm room accessories and take-out Chinese, it's a fine job. The same goes for an elderly person who can't bear to be completely retired.

For an elderly person who needs money and what-not and whose job has been offshored, it's potentially bad news.

For the working parent who needs benefits and security, it's especially bad news. It's no different from working at McDonald's. And sadly, for a lot of people, it's all they can do.

And if my dystopian supermarket ever took off, they wouldn't even have that.

For the part-time student looking for cash to spend on dorm room accessories and take-out Chinese, it's a fine job. The same goes for an elderly person who can't bear to be completely retired.

For an elderly person who needs money and what-not and whose job has been offshored, it's potentially bad news.

For the working parent who needs benefits and security, it's especially bad news. It's no different from working at McDonald's. And sadly, for a lot of people, it's all they can do.

And if my dystopian supermarket ever took off, they wouldn't even have that.

As I understand it, even the bag boys at supermarkets have a union they can join. When employees at Wal-Mart try to form one and they close down the store in response, I can't help but see the evil there. I can't argue with the student thing though I still think there are other retail places you can work and get more money.

In the mid-1990s, Wal-Mart had a "Buy American," campaign, which was eventually cancelled. By 2005, about 60% of Wal-Mart's merchandise was imported, compared to 6% in 1995.[55] In 2004, Wal-Mart spent $18 billion on Chinese products alone, and if it were an individual economy, the company would rank as China's eighth largest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia, and Canada.[56] The growing deficit with China, heavily influenced by Wal-Mart imports, is estimated to have moved over 1.5 million American jobs to China between 1989 and 2003.[57] According to the AFL-CIO, "Wal-Mart is the single largest importer of foreign-produced goods in the United States", their biggest trading partner is China, and their trade with China alone constitutes approximately 10 percent of the total US trade deficit with China as of 2004

Whoa... that is pretty scary, not to mention ridiculously hypocritical.

On the ASDA Wal-mart beign a good place to work, the surveys that came up with that answer were a bit misleading as they asked staff at one ASDA branch and the least said about the "We're Listening" surveys the better.
When i worked in ASDA the pay wasn't that bad, it was better than a lot of other shop chains and local independents although nowhere near as good as the staff and M&S were getting and the benefits packages weren't bad.

Of course this was from a student's point of veiw where getting 20% off your booze was a big bonus.

As for the list of jobs on the dystopian super market, you can proabably score all the jobs that require any qualifications as those jobs will all get outsourced if they haven't been already. When i still worked for ASDA all the actual store infrastructure maintiance was outsourced, the cleaning was outsourced and for long enough the entire IT/coms bit belonged to IBM (hence the office being filled with big server racks covered in big red labels telling you not to touch them and to use the big red phone inc ase of emergency).

Wal-Mart seems to attract the "working mother" and the elderly, not just the temporary job that college students look for. This is what some will be doing for the rest of their life and the company does whatever it can to make sure they can not make a living. Wal-Mart really is a real life stereotype of a evil corporation.


It is amazing what Wal-Mart does and is doing to their employees. My husband has worked for one of the zillion local wal-mart's for the past 5 years (he just got a warm and fuzzy certificate and small plastic pin to celebrate /sarcasm)

Lately, there has been an attempt to change wal-mart's image, from the white trash, cheap knockoff bargin store that's not much better than K-Mart, to a more contemperary we will sell you cheap items but you won't mind sort of store. They are trying to be more like Target. With this, comes a myriad of other changes in policy and such.

First, there is the cutting back of full time hours from 40 hpw to 32 hpw. This hasn't happened in all stores, but is being considered. As for callingin sick, you must now call a 1-800 number, which enables you to recieve a confirmation number. The call is then directly connected to your store, you give a manager your confirmation number, and then basically tell them you are not coming in. The confirmation number is used to keep track of the number of employee abseneces, and, after three unexcused (i think) call-ins, the managers are prompted by wal-mart email to take action against the employee (ie verbal warning, written warning, D-day, termination) so there is no way that management can make exceptions in extreme cases. This is the same procedure that must happen to leave work early, I beleive. So if some mom has to leave to pck up her kid from an emergency, it could mean she is getting written up when she comes back. With the exception of deparment managers and ICS, there is no "set schedule". Most employees may work a 7-4 shift one day and a 9-close shift the following day.

As for wages, they have done away with merit raises (they are exactly what they sound like) and have basically put a cap on any hourlay wage. This really screws the people who have been working there for 15+ years and in theory, would get a nickel-ten cent raise every eval period. The store is a revolving door. They get bodies in there, fire a bunch, and get more bodies in there. There is no incentive to do better. They have done away with the good job pins (do something above and beyond- get a good job pin, collect four, turn them in for a piece of stock) and other incentives.

The thing that strikes me really funny, Bentonville controls everything. We had a fairly long heatwave at the end of August- hotter than normal temperatures for about 2 weeks. The store was sweltering, but there was nothing that anyone can do since the temperature of the store (air conditioning, heat, etc.) are controlled by Bentonville. Even when the store manager called, she was told that the temperature in the city should be 78 (it was 90+) so that the store was set at 72 and 72 was where it would stay.

The job pays the bills, but the corporation is screwed up. When Sam Walton was alive, thigs were different, but now that his money-grubbing kids have their hands in the pot, it has all gone to hell. No one cares about the employees, all they care about is making the big bucks. Walton must be rolling in his grave.....

As for the list of jobs on the dystopian super market, you can proabably score all the jobs that require any qualifications as those jobs will all get outsourced if they haven't been already. When i still worked for ASDA all the actual store infrastructure maintiance was outsourced, the cleaning was outsourced and for long enough the entire IT/coms bit belonged to IBM (hence the office being filled with big server racks covered in big red labels telling you not to touch them and to use the big red phone inc ase of emergency).

Well, that's entirely possible; a lot of the important stuff could be outsourced, but the actual in-store jobs would have to be filled by Wal-Mart people.

I think I've concluded the following. There needs to be: stores, warehouses, maintenance, security, IT/development, and management. I might be oversimplifying, but some of that could be outsourced while others of it would have to remain in the company.

We'll start at the warehouse. Sure, people who get stuff to Wal-Mart's warehouses would be employed by various companies - Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Johnson and Johnson, Proctor and Gamble, etc. What would happen is that the floor supervisor (Wal-Mart's guy) would sign for it, and the stuff would go into the warehouse's massive storage system. I'm picturing regional warehouses that service several stores, i.e. one frickin' huge warehouse that services a city and all of its outlying areas. Delivery drivers would then haul the stuff from the frickin' huge warehouses to the stores. Since delivery drivers tend to be Wal-Mart employees, so far we have forklift operators, delivery drivers, and whoever's in charge of the warehouse. The forklift guys would probaly travel with the drivers and assist with unloading.

Remember, since this is the Wal-Mart of the future, aisles are stocked by a system of conveyor belts and barcode systems. Shipments may take the better part of a driver's day. So once it's on the shelves, the driver and forklift guy head back to the warehouse, and customers come in to buy stuff. They go and check out, always at self-checkouts, and they sign for credit cards on those electronic thingies. If there's a problem or if something's not working, there is an assistant manager watching through the glass. For security purposes, assistant managers are watching the rest of the store through cameras as well, with each assigned to a different area. One can be sent out to do restocking of items that people leave behind. One can be in charge of clothing. Then there's a manager who commands the whole thing.

So what gets outsourced? Well, who fizes the self-checkouts when they break? Who designs the latest and greatest self-checkouts? Who fixes the aisle stocking system? Who fixes all this modern technology? IBM, probably. As for security...there are companies that do that sort of thing. Basically, those security guys serve as backup to whatever assistant manager is trying to toss out some troublemakers.

So at any given time, there are, say, six people watching the store. One at the front, one in clothing, one to re-stock, and three other strategically placed. One manager is on duty as the only full-time employee. At, say, 32 hours a week, many of these "assistant managers" cannot make a living, and they have to compete with the odd 24-hour-a-week part-timer. I'll also assume that six people is an average. So about 25 people and five managers work at any given Wal-Mart while about 25 people and five managers work at any given warehouse. Regional offices oversee several areas.

I would say it's a lot cheaper than what they have to do now, but the system is more prone to failure due to dependence on technology. But it's Wal-Mart. Assuming 2,000 stores in the U.S. and 100 warehouses, that still make them a large employer, though only about 60,000 people work for them. Assuming the average employee makes about $10,000 a year, they're looking at saving billions off of labor costs with this level of employment. Granted, the infrastructure will be expensive to implement, but considering how quickly they put in new stores, it's more than doable.