At Walmart Academy, Training Better Managers. But With a Better Future?<br />“In contrast to only increasing wages,” Ms. McLaughlin said in an email, “we believe investing in people<br />and developing their skills gives them access to more choice of jobs that reflect their particular talents and passions.”<br />About a month ago, Ashley VanHorn was stocking shelves in the Fulton store when she overheard<br />two little girls tell their father they wanted to work at Walmart one day.<br />“I think what everyone misses most,” said Geoff Raponi, manager of the Fulton Walmart Supercenter, “is the smell.”<br />They also miss the jobs — more than 1,500 of them when the factory was booming in the mid-1980s, according to Mayor Woodward.<br />And even with more skills, many retail workers may never be able to earn what factory<br />workers made in places like Fulton, a faded manufacturing hub near Syracuse.<br />Walmart has spent $2.7 billion on training and raising wages for 1.2 million of its store workers over the past two years — an investment<br />that reflects the pressures the company faces in the retail industry.<br />“You could graduate from high school, work at a place like Nestlé, buy a car and send your kids to college,” Mr. Woodward said.<br />“But they aren’t all going to run the store.”<br />Mr. Woodward, a former maintenance supervisor at Nestlé who made $89,000 a year,<br />says he was one of the last two workers to leave the plant when it closed.
