"Gary" > wrote in message ...
> Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>>
>> >> We have one too; it's $7.25/hour. However, companies like WalMart
>> >> will hire twice as many people at 20 hours per week, so that they
>> >> don't have to pay benefits (for example, paid time off, health
>> >> insurance,
>> >> retirement fund) to these part-time employees.
>
> Someone correct me if I'm wrong but there's no law requiring private
> companies to pay extra benefits for full time employees. Unionized
> workers might get this but unions have also run many manufacturers
> offshore. They were a good thing once but have since demanded too
> much.

I believe you are correct.
>
> People take the financial risk of starting a company in order to *make
> money*, not to provide jobs for their neighbors. The govt. set pay
> standards low with their minimum wage. All of these low paying jobs
> will remain low as long as there are people willing to work for what's
> offered. In most cases, you start out low but if you stick with the
> company, show up on time, and work hard, you can move "up the ladder"
> in pay.

I think that's mainly if you work for a large company. Where is a
receptionist at a dance studio going to go? Not much of any place for him
or her to move up there. Same for the clerk at a small store or other small
business. When I lived on Cape Cod, there were a lot of little shops that
were open for the season. Season being mainly spring, summer and the
beginning of fall. Far fewer places were open year round. Most of these
places had the owner. And if there was another employee or two it was
usually their husband or wife, kids or a very part time employee. At most
places I applied at, the best they could offer me was 10 hours a week,
gauranteed. And that was not all in one day. It was 1-3 hours here and
there, sometimes with no real day off.

The dry cleaner I applied at, expected me to be up, showered and dressed by
8:00 a.m., 6 days a week (they were closed on Sun.) and if they needed me, I
would have to drive to any one of their 10 locations on the Cape. I was a
smoker at the time and they also required me not to smoke at all on the days
that I might be called in to work lest my smoke smell offend a customer.
And... I had to sit at home waiting for a potential call. Mind you, we had
no cell phone back then. They were available but not nearly as prevalent as
they are today. People still used beepers! There was no way in hell I was
going to take *that* job, especially since I had been told that chances were
very slim of it ever working into any sort of full time position ever. The
woman who wanted to hire me was actually a nurse but said she couldn't find
a nursing job there so took that job.

In many areas, the bulk of the jobs out there are things like that. I think
people in big cities and suburbs have better chances of getting a job where
they could move up. Yes, I could have traveled to Boston daily. Some
people did. But in those days we didn't need income from me badly enough
for me to have wanted to do that.
>
> I find it interesting how many here have singled out Walmart to
> boycott.
> Do a google search for salary (store of your choice) and you'll see
> that Walmart actually pays more per hour than KMart and Target....and
> many other retail stores and fast food places. Real nice restaurants
> often pay even less than minimum wage and let the customers make up
> for it with tips.

I don't know if they do or not. When I first started at K Mart which was I
think in 1979, my starting wage was more than minimum. My first job at the
inventory company started at $2.15 an hour and I had gotten raises to make
it $2.30 an hour when I quit after about a year. Worked briefly for Jafco
and I think I made $2.30 there. Started at $2.45 at K Mart and with raises
of 25 cents an hour every three months plus one 30 cent cost of living
raise, I felt I was doing well.

In those days we got medical insurance after 30 days and it covered 100% of
all hospital stuff. This was a bad move on their part because as you could
imagine, everyone treated every little thing as an emergency and went to the
ER. We also got a lot of newly pregnant women who sometimes managed to keep
the pregnancy a secret and get the medical care despite the pre-existing
condition. Not all employees got the medical. I think they had to work at
least 32 hours per week on a regular basis. 1 year vacation after a year's
service and 1 week of sick leave plus a personal day of our choice. We
could also buy stock in the company which I did and made money on. Not a
lot but seemed like a lot to me at the time.

I did move up in the company and as the years went by, some of the benefits
got worse. The medical for instance. It was no longer free to us. If we
wanted it, we had to pay. We had no dental for many years but then they
offered that as well. The actual plans that I had were good ones but they
offered others and some of those were not so good.

Eventually my pay topped out at $10.00 an hour. There were basically 6
levels of employment. I was at level 4. And the jobs above me were only a
few and not ones I was interested in nor were there any openings while I was
there. There were salaried positions but since I had no college degree, I
would have made less money than those who did, regardless of my experience.
I was able to get a token raise of 15 cents every other year after that and
should they have offered it, a cost of living raise. I only remember them
giving that twice and that was in the early stages of my employ there. I
retired from there after 17 years of service. At the 15 year mark, I got 4
weeks of paid vacation per year. Had I stuck it out till 20 years, I would
have gotten 5 weeks off.

I also have a pension coming to me. That is one thing that they essentially
did away with not long after I retired. But there were other perks that we
got from working there. They had a company picnic and Christmas party each
year. The picnic was free and the food and drink was provided. I believe
we had to pay a small amount if we wanted to dine at the Christmas party.
This was always a catered event but was held at various places. Sometimes a
hotel, a fancy restaurant and other times merely a hall somewhere. There
was always a band. But there were prizes. Lots and lots of prizes! So
many that you'd be hard pressed not to win one. I won a little TV set, BBQ
grill, countless clocks and pictures, candy, duffel bags, hats, sunglasses,
sweat pants, shirts, blankets, and some odd things like hairspray. I'm sure
there were a lot of other things I don't remember.

We also had the monthly birthday breakfast. This was cooked by the
employees and again there were prizes. At those I won another BBQ, candy
and a candy dish, towels, cash, and I'm sure a lot of other things I've
forgotten. There was also a recognition breakfast yearly and if it was our
anniversary, we got flowers or some other little token plus every five years
we got our jewelry which was a pin or pendant of our choice. I still have
all of mine but I would never wear them anywhere since they have the K Mart
logo on them. They do have real gems on them though. Tiny ones. Heh.

Plus we had various other contests, one of which was a sales contest. We
were assigned to teams for that and we could use pretty much any means
possible (legally) to try to either sell the most number of items or bring
in the highest dollar amount of the item we picked to sell for that week.
My team won a lot because my dad had a computer and in those days not many
people had a home computer. I printed up nice looking flyers for our items
plus I went around the store promoting them to the customers. The prizes
for these contests varied. Might be a sum of cash, a pizza party, gift
certificates to a restaurant, some item that we sold in the store or even a
day off with pay.

That job was a lot of work and stress but I was able to better myself by
working my way up. I had my own apartment and didn't have to have
roommates. Wasn't a super great apartment but it also wasn't the cheapest
one around. And I was able to buy a newer, used car and could pretty much
buy what I wanted and take a vacation or two a year, including plane tickets
and sometimes a hotel stay.

I had been looking for other jobs and had been to am employment agency who
tested me and said that my skills were in data entry and 10 key. I was
hella fast on the 10 key. But... Those jobs really weren't going to better
me in terms of wages or benefits. In fact, many employers told me to stay
where I was because they couldn't offer me better and there was no chance to
move up. I did get one offer that was better but I declined it because it
would have involved taking a bus to work. It was at Immunex. And it was in
some part of Seattle with no parking. The job was washing glassware. Test
tubes I think. I think they even would have given me a bus pass but... I
just couldn't see myself riding on a bus and I really didn't think there was
any chance of my moving up from that.

But I have digressed. At that point in time, we had no Walmarts in this
area and Target was new to us. So I didn't know a whole lot about them but
we did check wages and they all paid about the same. One big difference
between us and Walmart though was... People who worked at Walmart had a set
job. I think this is still true. I know a college student in TX who works
there. He gets carts, cleans up messes outside and assists people to their
vehicles if they need assitance such as with a heavy item. And that is all
he does.

But at K Mart, we were told never to say, "That's not my job!" We even
signed employment papers on our first day of work stating as such. It was
worded more nicely than that. So if we were called on to clean up something
nasty in the bathroom or dispose of a dead rat or follow a shoplifter or
even work in the camera department despite having no experience over here
whatever, we did it! And we didn't complain. Either that or...don't let the
door hit you in the butt on the way out. Some of our store managers were
better than others. The one that was there when I retired was a very nice
person. He would never ask us to do something he wouldn't do himself.
>
> Most construction companies don't automatically pay benefits. Most do
> start out at a higher wage because there's a lot of physical work
> involved. Stay with the company, develop a skill and you'll start
> making more per hour. Be a valuable, reliable employee and they might
> also add benefits just to keep you with them. There are no guarantees
> in life.

You are right on that! I know plenty of people in construction. And around
here it's not a year round job either. And if you get injured? You likely
don't work.