Is Wal Mart cheating its long term employees?

by: T.Johnson

I have worked at wal mart now for almost 20 years, in the beginning when Sam was still alive,it was indeed
a great place to work, the prices could not be beat, it was a great place to advance and indeed atleast where
I worked at it was like a family, you knew everyone in the store and for the most part,everybody was friends.

so much has changed since Sam died, from a consumers point of view,one can say, they still have low prices,they do,
just not as low as they used to,they are only a few dollars ahead of stores like Target. but for the most part,until
a consumer has to actually work for the company, they don't actually see whats going on,lets start from the top:

wal mart has developed this new policy,they have created 7 levels and place every person in the store in each level,
a category so to speak,for example if youre a door greeter youre in level 1 and if youre a department manager of electronics
you are in level 7, 7 is the highest paid level. each level has a pay range and the only way to make higher pay is to go to
a different level, this is supposedly to encourage people to seek promotion and go higher in the company,except one thing they left
out,you can only go so high. there are only going to be so many department managers,so many managers, so many district
managers and so on, and if youre happy where you are, youre stuck, you can work there for another 10 years and unless
wal mart changes policy, you wont get any new raises. they say things like why should a maintenance associate get more
than a department manager,they are on level 2 with the stockers who put up the freight, let me ask this,MOST but not all
department managers don't put up freight, they correct price changes, set the labels so customers know what the prices are,
they keep it organized,tedious work,but not physically hard,IF your stockers quit stocking who is going to stock the shelves?
will customers keep coming then? and far as maintenance go, the people who clean the place, what if they left the store dirty?
do you think customers will want to shop in a dirty store? I think not, the point is no position is or should be valued
over another.

The long term associates,the ones over 10 years especially, have it worse,some of them have been promised higher positions
and lied to. most of them are content in the position they are in, they know how to drive sales than most members of management,
most do not want to move up to any higher position but they still deserve raises,wal mart,thANks to a woman higher up(she knows
who she is) has taken that away,long term associates can work for another 5 years and they will not make any more money,they
will not make any merrit raises, its all been taken away,no matter how good you do,you wont get another raise. it is all an
underlying plan for wal mart to sAVE money,if you get rid of the long term associates, you can save money, the plan now
is to hire more part time associates,who are hired in way higher than long term associates were. its kind of like they are trying their best to make the long term associates quit,
I know wal mart would say they value their long term employees but they sure have a funny way of showing it,unless wal mart
changes their policy,it is not the best place to work for,if you ever wonder why,when youre shopping,why some of the employees
may offer poor service or there seems to be an understaffing of employees,look no farther than the top of wal mart,the
most richest yet cheapest company in the world.