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Walmart Tests Onsite Pod Hotels for Workers as Housing Costs Rise (reddthat.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/viral@reddthat.com
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[–] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (17 children)

EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

I'll be the first to say this could go very wrong, but for someone that is already homeless, this might be a step up. Employment usually requires the ability to sleep in a secure location consistently. Next would be bathing facilities I would guess. We don't know if bathing areas are included, but some employers I've seen it. I would imagine it would be difficult for a homeless person to work a job at Walmart without these two things, but if this checks the box allowing them to gain employment, it could be a critical step up from them to get their own housing outside of this Walmart pilot.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    If you think Walmart isn't going to take enough of their paycheck to make this the only option they can afford, I've got a bridge I'm trying to sell that I'd like to talk to you about.

    The article already mentions how Walmart salaries aren't enough to afford rent, now you want people to save up for a better place AND pay their nightly storage fee?

    Come on, man.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (8 children)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    The article already mentions how Walmart salaries aren’t enough to afford rent, now you want people to save up for a better place AND pay their nightly storage fee?

    Who would you hire to work at a warehouse distribution center you own?

    • Unwashed man with tattered clothing, with nothing to their name, whose most recent work history is maybe general labor 2 years ago?
    • Clean and presentable man, who was able to afford basic clean clothing, grooming, and transit costs to get to the interview on time, with a year or two of consistent warehouse experience at Walmart?

    This is the same man separated by time with the first before this Walmart pilot and the second after. Getting any kind of housing can be very hard. I certainly wouldn't blame someone that is homeless for taking advantage of this to get themselves back on track.

    Am I suggesting that Walmart is the answer to homelessness? Hell no, but our society certainly isn't doing enough to address it, and homelessness is going to get worse in the near future.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    This isn't a solution to homelessness either though, it's just legalising slavery via company towns and eventually, company scrip, which has been done before, and it doesn't work well for anyone but the company.

    Go read how company towns have worked in the past, it always ends in indentured servitude.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    Go read how company towns have worked in the past, it always ends in indentured servitude.

    Oh I'm aware of history, so let me correct some of your mistaken statements:

    This isn’t a solution to homelessness either though,

    Right, I already said that in the exact post you're responding to when I said "Am I suggesting that Walmart is the answer to homelessness? Hell no, but our society certainly isn’t doing enough to address it, and homelessness is going to get worse in the near future."

    it’s just legalising slavery via company towns

    Not a company town. A company town is where the employer owns the housing, the factory, and all the stores. Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri. Its not a huge city but even with that there are hundreds of other employers, stores, and tens of thousands of other houses not owned by Walmart. Not a company town

    and eventually, company scrip,

    Regardless of how shitty the USA is now, they're not going to allow companies to issue their own currency. The US government doesn't like the competition.

    Also, I'm kind of pissed at you for making me defend fucking Walmart, but facts are more important so here I am.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    It's still a company town if the company owns the factory, and the only housing that its employees can afford. The end result is exactly the same, the employees become indebted to the company. Will wallmart allow people living in its cubes to find work elsewhere? Or will they have to choose between homelessness and working at wallmart?

    As for scrip, all it takes is Wallmart to say "Your pay check now includes 7 cube tokens, valued at $X dollars, we'll reduce your pay by $X to make it fair".

    And as for the US not allowing company currencies, you haven't been paying attention, they already do. Robux is well on down that path, and most microtransactions tokens are scrip-lite.

    I'm sorry for upsetting you, but it's not me you should be mad at.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    Robux is well on down that path, and most microtransactions tokens are scrip-lite.

    In-game currency? Seriously? Let me know when you can pay for groceries, housing, or healthcare with Robux.

    Forgetting your slippery slope hyperbole, what is your alternate proposal? Bar Walmart for providing a form of affordable housing and kick those folks back out on the street?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    Roblox is paying third party developers in in-game currency. And that they can't use it to buy groceries is exactly the problem. Thats the problem with scrip, its worthless outside the "company town". They are doing real work, for not real money.

    The government (or another 3rd party) should be supplying the affordable housing. Having the employer house the employee just hands way too power to the employer. If wallmart wants to build these pods and sell them to a government entity to operate, then great, that's fine. But if wallmart operates them, then this is a terrible idea.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    Roblox is paying third party developers in in-game currency. And that they can’t use it to buy groceries is exactly the problem. Thats the problem with scrip, its worthless outside the “company town”. They are doing real work, for not real money.

    If what you're saying is true (I'm not going to research it myself), then contact the IRS. What Roblox would be doing is tax evasion and the government will come down on them hard.

    The government (or another 3rd party) should be supplying the affordable housing.

    I completely agree, but the government isn't nor is anyone else.

    Having the employer house the employee just hands way too power to the employer. If wallmart wants to build these pods and sell them to a government entity to operate, then great, that’s fine. But if wallmart operates them, then this is a terrible idea.

    So since the government isn't building the housing we both want, you'd tell the homeless person its better for them to be homeless than to be in company owned housing?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I don't know if it is tax evasion (I am not a US tax expert), as it would be up to the receiver of the Robux to declare it as income and pay tax? Correct me if I am wrong there, but from a cursory google, you can be taxed on all kinds of income, including bartering, so it should be possible to pay taxes on it. As for whether it is true, there was a long YT video, and a few news articles about it some time ago. Cant find the original, but here is some discussion, and the top comment links to the original video:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034

    TLDW: Mod/item developers are paid in Robux, which can theoretically be converted back to dollars, but it was quite difficult to do so. It is well down the path towards being a scrip, and despite the publicity, nothing happened to the company.

    I would at least be completely honest with the person, and tell them that the choice is either be homeless or effectively owned by Walmart. But I don't think its correct to frame this as a binary choice, there are other options. Homeless shelters do exist, even if there aren't enough, and Walmart could donate these cubes to a shelter organization to operate them independently.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    I don’t know if it is tax evasion (I am not a US tax expert), as it would be up to the receiver of the Robux to declare it as income and pay tax? Correct me if I am wrong there, but from a cursory google, you can be taxed on all kinds of income, including bartering, so it should be possible to pay taxes on it.

    You're mostly right, but missing a few key pieces of US tax law. Roblox can hire the developers you're referring to either as W-2 employees, which would require Roblox to withold taxes (and pay into our nation pension system called Social Security). The other way is to hire the developers as "independent contractors", but this means Roblox would be required to hire them as 1099, which means they Roblox doesn't have to withhold taxes, but does have to report the money they're paying to the contractor. The contractor would then be obligated to pay the taxes on all earnings themselves.

    If Roblox is neither 1099'ing these devs nor W-2'ing them, yet Roblox is employing them and paying them, then Roblox would be in violation of US tax law, and the IRS (Internal Revenue System) which handles individual and corporate taxation in the USA, would come in with enforcement resulting in potentially heavy fines and additional audit requirements to Roblox for years to come.

    I would at least be completely honest with the person, and tell them that the choice is either be homeless or effectively owned by Walmart. But I don’t think its correct to frame this as a binary choice, there are other options. Homeless shelters do exist,

    I would be surprised if a homeless person would not be aware of homeless shelters. If you look into homelessness, you'll find there are some very real concerns with shelters and some elect to not use them. Others are simply at capacity and more homeless remain unhoused.

    even if there aren’t enough, and Walmart could donate these cubes to a shelter organization to operate them independently.

    That assumes Walmart is trying so solve homelessness. Walmart isn't. Walmart is looking to increase its staffing pool. A reduction in homelessness is unintended side effect.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    The article said they don't even have access to a toilet unless they are on the clock, so No, no showering facilities.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    The article said they don’t even have access to a toilet unless they are on the clock, so No, no showering facilities.

    The context in the article where that line was taken was meaning: access to toilets after leaving the DC and accessing the new housing.

    An employer isn't going to stop you from relieving yourself immediately after you clock out.

    I'm not sure about your personal work experience, but for folks that work jobs that get you dirty many employers offer shower facilities on-site for employee use. The article says this housing pilot project is in a Walmart distribution center (warehouse). A quick google search shows that many Walmart DCs have employee shower facilities available. Here's evidence of that from an indeed poster:

    source

    Now, I don't know for sure that this DC where the pilot is taking place has showers. I also don't know if those using the housing are allowed to use the showers. However, the possibility exist, and I think Walmart would want its folks sleeping in company owned sleep pods to be bathed, so I think its highly likely that they chose a pilot location with showers, and I would guess they would allow the folks using these sleep pods to bath. It is not in Walmart's interest to have dirty/stinky workers showing up the next morning for work.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Maybe, but I also know that you'll never get far by counting on Walmart's respect for humanity, especially its own workers.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    In this case I'm not. If we take the most cynical view I don't think Walmart would be offering this for the benefit of its workers. That just happens to be a side effect.

    Human labor is expensive. The available workforce that is both housed and has their own bathing facilities have demands on short commute to work, consistently rising wages, preferential hours, and preferential tasks. Even with these demands, employee turnover is very high increasing repeated training costs for replacements. This new pilot would allow Walmart to access another pool of labor that would be willing to forgo those things. However, there are certain hygiene demands that Walmart has of all of its workers irrespective of where they source the labor. Being well slept and bathed are two of these. Walmart can provide the facilities for these two things at a low cost to Walmart. Showers already exist and DCs so just some operational costs there and the real estate for the housing is already company owned as its in an unused warehouse. The only new costs are the sleeping pods, which are likely not expensive in volume to Walmart should this pilot be expanded, and they are charging a small fee to their employees using them further offsetting the cost to Walmart corporate.

    The end result are additional workers that were not fit to work at Walmart before, but are now, and provide benefits to Walmart to increase the labor supply to its locations especially where acquiring required staffing has been difficult.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    And now they are slaves to Walmart, relying on Walmart for their pay, and housing. One wrong move, and their delicate house of cards collapses, and they are homeless.

    That makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation by supervisors, managers, and Walmart itself.

    Instead, Walmart and other Big Box retailers who have run countless small businesses out of operation, should be forced to fund and supplement low income independent housing for low income workers, no matter where they work. Those stores do a lot to suppress wages and the lives of hard-working Americans. At least 50% of their profits should be spent on funding and supplementing housing and transportation for the working poor.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)

    EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

    Instead, Walmart and other Big Box retailers who have run countless small businesses out of operation, should be forced to fund and supplement low income independent housing for low income workers, no matter where they work.

    I take a different view that minimum wage should be increased so workers could afford to buy their own housing.

    However, until either of our ideas for increasing working housing through legislation are passed, I'm not going to try to stop Walmart from providing housing to those that have none. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

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