Wages

Listen as Wal-Mart employees ask why their wages are so low when the retail giant is making so much profit.

• More Work Experience For Less PayI’ve been working for Wal-Mart for nearly a year. This March will be my anniversary.
• Breaking my back just to make ends meet.I was hired as a part time door greeter in 2007.That was fine because I am disabled. In early 2008, my husband was laid off at his decent paying job and got on at Wal-Mart part time. Because of his age and the hours and pay from Wal Mart, he had to take early Social Security. Before, he was getting at least 24 hours, but since October Wal-Mart has constantly cut his hours. This week he got 11 hours. It is hardly worth his time for that, but we need it to pay bills. |
• Six Bosses To Answer ToI have been working at Wal-Mart for 6 months now. I started as a part-time cart pusher being paid $7/hr. |
• “No Matter What, It Is Always Your Fault”Wal-Mart does not value its employees unless it is in front of the public eye. |
• Frustrated CSM see hours, breaks cutI am currently an employee for Wal-Mart. I work as a Customer Service Manager for Wal-Mart full-time. They have hired another CSM who is part time which is only a way for this store to cut hours. During the holiday I was working 40 hours but now they have cut my hours down to 33 a week. Not only that but during the last week of Christmas rush I was denied taking a break because it was said that breaks for cashiers had to be given out first. |
• Anonymous in Pennsylvania discusses pay cut, improper scheduling during the holiday seasonI’m very disappointed with Wal-Mart as an employer. In April 2008, I was hired to work at a supercenter in Pennsylvania at $9.30 per hour. But in August I quit to move to New York for my son’s treatment. In November of that same year, I reapplied and was rehired for the same position, but with a lower pay $8.40 an hour. They didn’t want to give me the credits I got when I was hired in April. At Wal-Mart a new hire get credits for previous retail experience… |
• ‘If Sam Walton Were Here Today… He Would Probably Shut The Doors Forever’If I did not need this job, I would not work another day for Wal-Mart. In my store there is favoritism big time. I have been there for two years, and still don’t make enough money to feed a family. There are many nights and days that I go hungry so the rest of the family can eat. |
• Managers Messed With The Time Clock, Allowed Dust Problem In Store To ContinueI am a former Wal-Mart employee. I worked for Wal-Mart for 7 ½ years as an overnight stocker with a final hourly wage of $12.32. My 40 cent/hour yearly raise didn’t even come close to covering the increases in cost of living and health insurance and gasoline and heating oil. Every year it seemed they wanted us to work harder and harder and more shorthanded all the time for less money. |
• Demoted, Deprived Pay for Someone Else’s MistakeMy last problem [at Wal-Mart] started back in March 2008. I was the Hourly Photo Lab Manager in the Altamonte Springs, Florida Wal-Mart. After an associate marked the wrong date on a chemical chart, I was demoted. The fact that I had been written up before led to my demotion. I later found out, as I received a write-up, that the person who wrote the wrong date only received a warning. |
• Why can’t Wal-Mart pay a fair wage?Is it not the right of the American worker to be entitled to a decent job with fair and just benefits? I work part time up to 30 hrs a week, and I am enrolled in 15 hours of college. On top of that, I’m a member of the Marine Corp. Reserves, and although I work so many hours I can barely keep up with the limited amount of bills I have, if Wal-Mart makes up to 30 billion dollars a year, why can’t they afford to at least pay its workers a wage in which they can actually live on??? |
• 40 Hours a Week is Part-Time?“I have worked for about 8 months now at Wal Mart, and have not received promised benefits although I work full-time hours. I was told it was because I am classified as a part time employee. Uh, hello? 40 hours a week is part time??” |
• “Why do you work overtime when you know that they will not pay you?”“I have posted here a number of times before and I am always amazed that I have new bullets for my anti-Wal-Mart weaponry. No, my store doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to denying overtime pay. Last Saturday a young man at my store worked a double shift…” |
• Wal-Mart Says Raise, I Say Cut“They increased my pay, then slashed my hours so that my check is a fraction of what it used to be. The full-time sales associates in my department, other than the department manager, have been cut to 25-35 hours a week instead of 40.” |
• Save Money, Live Better?“Wal-Mart’s new slogan is ‘save money, live better.’ It’s too bad that slogan doesn’t extend to Wal-Mart’s own workers.” |
• M.L. in Illinois on Wages“When you have your evaluation each year, you get a very small raise. Then they cut your hours back so that you don’t make anymore take home than you did before.” |
• Anonymous on Burning Overtime“They make us “burn our overtime,” which associates call “buying back our overtime.” If you have overtime they make us burn it on our lunches. Example: say you have one hour overtime. We get an hour unpaid lunch, but they have us take a two hour lunch instead, prior to our Friday [payday]. It is against Federal Law according to the Federal Wage Commission for them to make us do this.” |
• Anonymous on the Open Door Policy and Talking to Management“We are all caught between a rock and a hard place. Wal-Mart pays just enough to keep us there, but not enough to survive. And raises? That’s a joke!” |
• Darla Lee on Wal-Mart’s Wages“The wages you receive over at Wal-Mart are so below market average. 50% of the people working there including myself are at poverty level.” |
• Anonymous in Wal-Mart’s Meat Department“I quit Wal-Mart in March of 2008, after four and a half years. When I was hired, they started me at $6.25 an hour, knowing I had 14 years of experience.” |
• Anonymous at Sam’s Club in California“Our promise from management if we would to hit this goal was a 1000 dollar bonus if not more. When the time came we were given a large trophy for the club, and our bonus was just 200 dollars, that’s it. The store manager, over $35,000. How is this possible? Don’t the associates make the heart and soul of this club and the company?” |