Workers question union battle
By Allison Lampert, Canwest News Service April 26, 2010

“Yet unlike employees at other stores, St. Hyacinthe workers — a mix of students, single moms, parents and retirees — can challenge Walmart’s decisions through the grievance process, he said.
“I have the right to talk without fear of reprisals”

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Workers+question+union+battle/2950931/story.html#ixzz0nf7usGBS

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Workers+question+union+battle/2950931/story.html

“Yet unlike employees at other stores, St. Hyacinthe workers — a mix of students, single moms, parents and retirees — can challenge Walmart’s decisions through the grievance process, he said.
“I have the right to talk without fear of reprisals”

Walmart was founded on great principles but the current management is pretty ridiculous….they don’t value their employees or the public that shops there. The customer is rarely right. If you ever return anything they copy all your license information and store it, which I also dislike.

I have seen advertisements and shelf prices that don’t match up but to get anything price matched you have to wait hours in customer service and often they won’t be reasonable….and don’t even attempt a price match from electronics. Their furniture falls apart. The electronics break down. I’ve seen them come into town choke the competition by cutting prices ridiculously and then jack up the prices when all the other stores go out of business….so much for low prices always. I think they are an abusive corporation.

The sad thing is that I would love to avoid them completely, but I find I end up having to go there once a year or so for some item I cannot find anywhere else. I hate walmart but I go there anyways. Grrrrr!

“Jon Lehman worked for Wal-Mart for 17 years, managing six stores in four different states before he left the company in 2001…”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/interviews/lehman.html

“What is the opening price point? Why is it so key to Wal-Mart’s strategy?

OK, it’s lawn-and-garden time. Your grass is getting high. Your lawn mower is broken from last year, or you need a new lawn mower. You’re going to go to Wal-Mart. So you go to Wal-Mart, and you’re looking for a lawn mower, and to your delight, you walk in, and you see this $99 lawn mower. You may not want a cheap, basic lawn mower, but you see that price point on an end cap or a big display stack base, and you say, “Wow, what a great price.” And it draws you in. It lures you into the department, and you form the perception immediately that “Hey, Wal-Mart’s got the lowest prices in town. Look at this item right here. How could they sell it for $99?” …

But as you walk into the department and look for that $269 power-drive lawn mower that you really are after, they’re not losing money on that item. And it may not be the lowest price in town. Wal-Mart used to advertise “Always the low price.” They don’t do that anymore.

Because?

They got in trouble. Some of the other competitors sued them, tried to go after them and say, “You can’t say ‘Always the low price,’ because you’re not always the low price.” They did a study — a very critical study, very thorough study — and found that Wal-Mart was not always the low price. And Target and Kmart got a little miffed, and some other competitors that [said], “How can Wal-Mart advertise this and it’s not true?”"

From what I’ve been told, you must bring the Supercentre flyer in for us to pricematch it.

Pay closer attention to the ad and you won’t make the same mistake again. You’re lucky they don’t sue you for slander.

So they’re not necessarily robbers, they’re just playing the market local to any particular Wal-Mart store. Possibly less than nice, but not “robbing.”