Hello! I think I might be the only active IW worker! Whooo
Anyway to answer your questions, an IW is really just a glorified storage site. We have Inbound and Outbound and during the slow season (some) IW's run Decon. Unlike DC's our inbound and outbound teams work on both their respective docks as well as warehouse work, and when volumes demand it you can also end up working in the other departments dock (inbound to outbound's dock and vise versa). So work in an IW isn't quite as static as say an RDC but your still doing the same thing, moving a box from point a to point b. Also I know at least two of our IW's are HUGE, both the ones in WA and GA are very large, in-fact here is some interesting trivia for everyone...
Look at number 2 : O
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings_in_the_world
I'm quite positive pay is LARGELY dependent on the local pay of other warehouses in your area/state, however I will say, I get paid quite well in comparison to some of the other warehouses in my area. With that said, if you want to work overtime then RDC's is where it's at (at least for now). Also the jump from the store to the DC level was huge for me in terms of job satisfaction, you still have that odd Target fakeness from management but it's not nearly as bad.
If you have any more questions I normally check the boards once a week or so, but i'll try to check more often to reply back to ya.
I've been trying to find out for a while if the IW's act as FTZ's for tax reasons, I'm going to have to assume yes.
I can squash that one for ya, we don't. HOWEVER!, we do have a deconsolidator(s) who deals with alot of the freight right off the ports who then send it off to IW's or to the RDC's. But they are contracted out and not directly apart of Target per-se. Although we do receive containers right off the ports and when we have decon during the slow season we basically do the same job as them. Sooooo if Target dose have a FTZ it may not even be them and I know it's not us.