Thread about shops that have taken advantage

[westcoastal]

Who are you talking about
No phone calls
sat right across the kitchen table from my buddy over coffee
Defend unions if you want
I agree they started out with the best of intentions but have strayed miles from their original goals.

 

[308]

Who are you talking about
No phone calls
sat right across the kitchen table from my buddy over coffee
Defend unions if you want
I agree they started out with the best of intentions but have strayed miles from their original goals.

Are you a union member? I am and I'm not in love with unions for many reasons, but I have to give kudos to the sheetmetal workers union for finally pulling thei collective head out and working WITH owners instead of against then.

Your story reeks of BS. Most contracts state that anything over 8-hrs goes to time and a half and double time after 12. If what your buddy said is true, it's not the unions fault, it is your buddy being a thieving d o u c h e b a g and demonstrating the very thing that most of us despise about idiots with an entitlement mentality. I guess the only good part is that his work is hard and seasonal, therefore he doesn't have a tremendous opportunity to pollute the workforce to any real extent.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Take a long hard look at the local longshoreman's union and all the BS that goes on there and tell me it doesn't happen. Look at the teachers union and say it doesn't. And just for the record, they do have a place in our work force and have done great things for workers in America. Yet look at what they have done to great company's like Winchester for example. Or the feud between Ronald Reagan and the air traffic controllers union, or the once great steel industry here when there were no concessions that could be reached, off to Japan and China went the industry. The Davis Bacon act is another example, prevailing wage? That's the reason everyone pays far to much for stuff the government contracts out, like highways, schools etc. Yet we sure don't mind getting that $45 an hour when the real world wage paid to a skilled laborer should be around $18, go figure.
Oh, and just for the record, I'm a member in good standing with the CWA and have been a steward and district rep in the past with the IBEW. I've walked many picket lines, but I do know BS when I see it and there in a nut shell is what brings unions down, the I want more attitude.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Are you a union member? I am and I'm not in love with unions for many reasons, but I have to give kudos to the sheetmetal workers union for finally pulling thei collective head out and working WITH owners instead of against then.

Well stated. If we don't work together with those that start, build companys and employ us they wont be there, and neither will we.

 

[Colt Carbine]

Imagine if this shortage was not on guns and ammo, but was on food.

Hey, I'll sell you this loaf of bread for $100. That's too high, cool with me. Starve, makes no difference to me.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

<broken link removed> Can you direct me to your so called facts this is such bullshirt and your making up crap as you go ,But I'll bet truth be told you shop there and buy all your ammo there and bellyache about others so as to make yourself feel better.

Wal-Mart Welfare How taxpayers subsidize the world's largest retailer. by Jenna Wright

Health care benefits represent one such subsidy. Wal-Mart's employee health coverage is minimal and expensive; little of the company's vast low-wage workforce is covered. Nationally, two-thirds of workers at large firms get health insurance from their employer. But at WalMart, only 41% to 46% of employees use the company's health insurance, in large part because many of Wal-Mart's low-wage workers simply cannot afford to pay the high premium the company charges. In 2001, Wal-Mart workers paid 42% of the total cost of the company's health plan. In contrast, the typical large business expects employees to pay only 16% of the total cost for individual coverage, or 25% for family coverage. At discount retailer Costco, which competes directly with Wal-Mart's Sam's Club stores, employees pay less than 10%; as a result, 82% of them are covered through the company.

Instead of providing affordable health insurance, Wal-Mart encourages its employees to sign up for publicly funded programs, dodging its health care costs and passing them on to taxpayers. The company is the poster child for a problem outlined in a 2003 AFL-CIO report on Wal-Mart's role in the health care crisis: "federal, state and local governments" - American taxpayers - must pick up the multi-billion-dollar tab for employees and dependents, especially children, of large and profitable employers who are forced to rely on public hospitals and other public health programs for care and treatment they need but cannot obtain under their employers' health plans."

In Georgia, one of every four WalMart employees has a child in the state's PeachCare health program, according to a recent survey. Over 10,000 of the 166,000 children covered by PeachCare have a parent working for Wal-Mart; no other employer in the state has a comparable share of its employees in the program.

In California, the families of Wal-Mart employees use an estimated 40% more in publicly funded health care than the average for families of employees at other large retail firms, according to an August 2003 study by University of California, Berkeley's Institute for Industrial Relations. Providing health care to Wal-Mart families costs California taxpayers an estimated $32 million annually.

Thanks to their poverty-level wages, Wal-Mart workers are often eligible for other kinds of government assistance as well. The same study found that California Wal-Mart employees and their families utilize an additional $54 million in non-health related federal assistance, including food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, subsidized school lunches, and subsidized housing.

The Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimated the breakdown of costs for one 200-employee Wal-Mart store:

* $36,000 a year for free or reduced school lunches, assuming that 50 families of employees qualify.

* $42,000 a year for Section 8 rental assistance, assuming that 3% of the store employees qualify.

* $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming that 50 employees are heads of households with a child, and 50 employees are married with two children.

* $108,000 a year for the additional federal contribution to state children's health insurance programs, assuming

that 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.

* $100,000 a year for additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 families with two children qualify.

* $9,750 a year for the additional costs of low-income energy assistance.

Overall, the committee estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in an excess cost of $420,750 a year for federal taxpayers.

Good enough for you? If not I can cite a few dozen more studies and reports. Now, to address your personal attack and name calling, no, I don't shop there as a rule. I'm more of a Bi-Mart/Coastal/Feed Store guy, since I own a farm. Your mischaracterization of me is inaccurate, offensive, and rude. It says more about you than it does about me. You have no idea who I am, or where I shop, or what my income level is. You're frustrated and bitter, and jealous of those who have it a little better than you do.

Let me lay something out for you. I worked in the power generation industry for 32 years. Most of that time I was a union member. For 15 of those years I was a shop steward for IBEW. The union was the only protection we had in an industry dominated by large corporations, where time was literally money, and the work was extremely dangerous. Maybe you've never worked on a 12 KV line on a pole 40 feet in the air at 3 am in January, with the temperature hovering around 20 degrees and snow being driven by a 30 mph wind in order to restore power to freezing families. Is that worth $65 per hour at double time? Would you do it for $12? It was a bargain for my employer to pay a 2 hour minimum at double time, in addition to travel time to have one of us roll out of bed and drive to a power plant to bring dead generating equipment back on line, the lack of which was costing them $35,000 per hour.

You need to get your facts straight. Wage rates and working conditions are bargained for. The employer and the workers AGREED to a contract that specified wages and conditions. You give a little on wage rates and we'll give a little on paid sick leave.

Of course, if you don't have skills that are in demand you can't demand anything in return. I hold 4 different Journeyman cards, each requiring at least 3 years of training. Everything I did on the job had the potential for death or permanent injury in a split second if I made a mistake. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment were entrusted to my skills and competence. A 30 ton turbine rotor spinning at 3600 rpm doesn't come to a stop suddenly without a lot of expensive damage and lives lost.



You'd prefer your electric service to be provided by minimum wage employees? You know, you really don't have a clue.

 

[Nightcrawler]

Certain members are rabid anti-union. They must like how walmart operates.

I love how Walmart operates, as far as not jacking up their ammo prices. I won't pay more for stuff from sites like Ch***er T**n D**t because I don't want to. I didn't wait until December to keep a "ready reserve" quantity of ammo on hand.

 

[Scout67]

Soooooo.... I know this shop that is taking advantage, but it doesn't look like this is the right thread for that

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Soooooo.... I know this shop that is taking advantage, but it doesn't look like this is the right thread for that

Yea, my bad too. I went south with the flock. I know better but sometimes, well you know.

 

[Burt Gummer]

My favorite supplier is MidWayUSA. They may not be the lowest, but the service is fantastic. Liberal return policy. Notifications of back ordered items (gotta be quick on the draw).

Edit - just picked up 200 rounds of Fiocci 223 Match Vmax ammo for $.46/round; too nice for plinking, need a bolt 223.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Now to get back on topic, I was in Fisherman's in OC a while back and they had a 525 round brick of .22LR at $25. I passed, and they went way down on my list of retailers for just about everything. I may have to go back there for some fiberglass supplies, but only because I can't find it in the quantities I need anywhere else.

 

[Phillyfan]

NW Armory's ammo prices couldn't have gone up to the point of needing to charge $10 for box of 7.62x39mm. I just picked up a case for $250 the other day, so I can't image they pay more than a private citizen for their ammo.

Well, my way of letting them know that was too high was to not buy it. Sucks, at this rate I may never shoot my new mak90 project, but I'm just not willing to send mixed messages with my dollars. If the price is too high, don't buy. That is the one and only way it will ever come back down.

 

[PDXSparky]

Now to get back on topic, I was in Fisherman's in OC a while back and they had a 525 round brick of .22LR at $25. I passed, and they went way down on my list of retailers for just about everything. I may have to go back there for some fiberglass supplies, but only because I can't find it in the quantities I need anywhere else.

$25 is not a lot more than their regular price used to be for a brick of 22LR and way more reasonable that at current gun shows.

 

[JAFO]

My bad. Next time I'll just use a simple abortion or religion analogy.


So those who aren't going to shop at a specific retailer because the price went up during the scarcity; will you be going there if the price drops way below competitors prices? Or will you say you won't but sneak in when nobody is looking?

 

[salmonriverjohn]

As for me, I'll NEVER spend another dime at Hathaways store on HWY 101 across from fredmyers in Tillamook period. Some won't shop at Walmart for their goods, I choose to. This is a free nation and a free market, he chose to raise prices on stuff that I refuse to buy, those that I feel DID raise their prices to take advantage of the situation will not get any of my business. I wont sneak in JAFO, you have my word.