# Evilness of Wal-Mart versus other similar stores? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 30, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163 "2014-01-30T21:13:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/21 "2014-01-31T16:53:22Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > I know a couple of businesses who have been vendors to Walmart. Walmart is ruthless and strong-armed with vendors, beating them down to obtain cheaper and cheaper prices. There are examples of companies that foolishly cut prices to such an extent they lost profitability and went out of business trying to meet Walmart’s demands. Yes, you can sell a lot of product through Walmart, but you need to be extremely cautious to resist their unrealistic demands. Possibly worse are the little companies who manage to get into Wal Mart and see their futures all bright and shiny - but they have to put in infrastructure to meet the demand. A year later when their contract is up, WalMart finds another supplier of candles - and you are stuck with all that capacity - and a lot of bills from growing your capacity. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/22 "2014-01-31T16:53:50Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > … I don’t even view the fact that the Walton family now has more wealth than the bottom 40% of the US population as evil. But it does beg the question as to whether a system that allows that to occur is working as efficiently or as effectively as it should. If Walmart doesn’t provide healthcare for most of it’s 2 million employees and we as a society view that all people have a right to some minimum level of health care, who do those costs get passed along to?.. The answer to your question is in your statement right before it. The owners of Walmart can pay each employee a minimum $12.50 an hour and provide health insurance and keep prices low. They just have to make a little less profit. They won’t even feel it. I heard on the radio this morning that increasing all employee pay to a higher level (I forget what number they used, presumably $10.10 per hour) would add less than 1% to the operating cost of the corporation. If they passed that on to the customers completely, without taking a hit on their profit, a person who spends $1000 per month at Walmart would have to pay $10 more. Seems like a small price to pay for getting close to decent wages. (my preference, of course, would be for the shareholders to just eat the difference) ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/23 "2014-01-31T16:57:00Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Possibly worse are the little companies who manage to get into Wal Mart and see their futures all bright and shiny - but they have to put in infrastructure to meet the demand. A year later when their contract is up, WalMart finds another supplier of candles - and you are stuck with all that capacity - and a lot of bills from growing your capacity. Exactly right. Or Walmart demands a 5% decrease in the price of the goods, which eats away the profit. So, the business is faced with cutting their price and profit or losing all of the production demand. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/24 "2014-01-31T17:13:21Z")
And I probably should have multi quoted. Wal Mart has also had more than its share of ethics problems - foreign bribery scandal, wage discrimination, hiring illegal immigrants. Some of its been local - a bad manager or district manager. But it stinks enough that you wonder if they have a top down ethics problem. That often happens when management is pushed to get results. And WalMart store and divisional managers are pushed. My husband spent a number of years working for a competing retailer - it was always easy to hire WalMarts managers away, if you wanted them - WalMart was a pressure cooker environment that didn’t pay well for management. ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/25 "2014-01-31T17:34:03Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Costco and Sam’s Club have been compared in several previous threads and Costco still hand’s Walmart it’s ass. > Same number of stores, Costco has more employees, better pay/benefits higher and brings in far more revenue and higher profit than Sam’s. But does it have higher prices and membership dues that make it less of a value to its customers? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/26 "2014-01-31T18:04:21Z")
> [@runningdude](#): > > But does it have higher prices and membership dues that make it less of a value to its customers? It depends on what you buy. My wife and I are both on SSDI. We shop at a local pack-it-yourself type supermarket and Costco. Things like eggs, butter ,cheese are cheaper and higher quality than the supermarket. Where we have to be careful is on items that are cheaper per unit but come in a larger bulk amount. It’s a balancing act with limited funds. But we do save $15-40 per trip at Costco on what we buy there. ---
**Author:** ![Toastmaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Toastmaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toastmaker)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/27 "2014-01-31T18:05:22Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > My mother is one of those - and she is still making $12 an hour handing out samples. It isn’t a cakewalk job - at the store my mother is at its mostly older people looking to suppliment their social security - she was offered a “Costco job” and the person who asked her said “you’d get benefits” - she pointed out that she’s got Medicare. (The Costco job would have paid more, but come with more hours and less flexibility - my parents don’t NEED the money - my mother uses it to spoil her grandchildren without listening to my father gripe and uses the job to get out of the house - turns out, when your husband retires, getting out of the house is nice). Now this all seems to make perfect sense. Minimum wage jobs never were meant to be primary supportive employment. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/28 "2014-01-31T18:18:57Z")
> [@runningdude](#): > > But does it have higher prices and membership dues that make it less of a value to its customers? I’ve belonged to both - membership dues are about the same. Its hard to compare prices because their niche is a little different - they were very similar on milk and eggs and that sort of commodity stuff. But from there its hard to compare because what they carry is so different. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/29 "2014-01-31T21:23:42Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I work for a grocery store chain which competes with Wal-Mart, is pretty competitive with Wal-Mart when it comes to price, and was the subject of a Time magazine article called “Wal-Mart’s Worst Nightmare”. > > As a non-management floor employee, I’m paid union rates (without having to pay union dues), get two weeks of paid vacation per year, have paid sick leave, I get paid holidays _and_ time-and-a-half on top of holiday pay if I work on that day, I have really good healthcare for $26 a month, and a company-funded pension plan which is worth a pretty considerable amount considering that I’ve only been with the company for three years. > > Wal-Mart could treat its employees like human beings if it wanted to. It just chooses to go the easier route. Aha! This gives me a good feeling that I shop there. Yes, I saw that article. And yes, we have one in my town. And yes, I’ve shopped there rather regularly for several years. It’s one of those “Warehouse style” stores. Signs posted at the store proclaim that the chain is “employee-owned”. ( **Smapti** , what exactly does that mean?) Their prices are noticeably lower than most other supermarkets around. I think they’re even just a bit lower, generally, than the other warehouse style stores around. I keep wondering, then, why doesn’t _everybody_ shop there? (The Time article mentions they have a more limited selection, but I had never particularly noticed that.) **Smapti** , noting that he works there, modestly and discreetly doesn’t mention the name of the chain. But I can: It’s WinCo. They are a relatively smallish chain, with stores only in a few regions. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/30 "2014-01-31T21:34:54Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > I know a couple of businesses who have been vendors to Walmart. Walmart is ruthless and strong-armed with vendors, beating them down to obtain cheaper and cheaper prices. There are examples of companies that foolishly cut prices to such an extent they lost profitability and went out of business trying to meet Walmart’s demands. Yes, you can sell a lot of product through Walmart, but you need to be extremely cautious to resist their unrealistic demands. **Orwell** , do you mean you know the owners of those businesses, and have talked to them? Have those same businesses also supplied Target, K-Mart, or other similar stores? Have they told you anything about how those various retailers compare to Wal-Mart in their treatment of vendors? That’s part of the question in my original OP too. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/31 "2014-01-31T21:42:37Z")
So do Target employees get better pay or benefits than Walmart employees? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/32 "2014-01-31T21:46:06Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > So do Target employees get better pay or benefits than Walmart employees? [Target employee benefits.](https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits) ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/33 "2014-02-01T15:42:09Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > **Orwell** , do you mean you know the owners of those businesses, and have talked to them? Have those same businesses also supplied Target, K-Mart, or other similar stores? Have they told you anything about how those various retailers compare to Wal-Mart in their treatment of vendors? That’s part of the question in my original OP too. Yes, I do know the owners. I don’t think they supply to Target, Kmart or the like. They do supply to other regional grocery stores and convenience stores, and they said Walmart is much harder to deal with. But they didn’t say anything about other discount chains. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/34 "2014-02-01T16:26:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I work for a grocery store chain which competes with Wal-Mart, is pretty competitive with Wal-Mart when it comes to price, and was the subject of a Time magazine article called “Wal-Mart’s Worst Nightmare”. > > As a non-management floor employee, I’m paid union rates (without having to pay union dues), get two weeks of paid vacation per year, have paid sick leave, I get paid holidays _and_ time-and-a-half on top of holiday pay if I work on that day, I have really good healthcare for $26 a month, and a company-funded pension plan which is worth a pretty considerable amount considering that I’ve only been with the company for three years. > > Wal-Mart could treat its employees like human beings if it wanted to. It just chooses to go the easier route. I’m not sure why you’re being so shy. The name of the company is [WinCo Foods](http://wincofoods.com/). As you said, a big reason employees are treated better is that some [WinCo](https://www.facebook.com/winco.official.page) employees are members of a union, probably the [United Food & Commercial Workers Union](http://www.ufcw.org/). Again, the company is called [WinCo Foods](https://twitter.com/WinCoFoods). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/35 "2014-02-01T16:34:10Z")
> [@Toastmaker](#): > > Now this all seems to make perfect sense. Minimum wage jobs never were meant to be primary supportive employment. This implies there are employers who pay employees more than they have to, just because they want to provide primary supportive employment. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/36 "2014-02-01T17:09:22Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > This implies there are employers who pay employees more than they have to, just because they want to provide primary supportive employment. I don’t think it does. I think it implies that there are jobs that some people do where they don’t need to make a living wage - if my teenager takes a twenty hour a week job at McDonalds to pay for his cell phone and insurance - he can pay for both of those things, and have a little money left over, with a minimum wage job. When McDonalds is hiring, they want to keep their costs low so they can sell you a double cheeseburger for $1 and still make a profit. So they hire the 16 and 17 year old kids, the housewife who works while her kids are in school, the retired guy looking to suppliment his social security. They might be willing to hire the guy who needs to support his family of four on the job, but that isn’t a good deal for the guy. As long as there are enough sixteen year olds and retirees, McDonalds doesn’t need to pay a “living wage.” When a company hires me as a project manager, they pay me far more than the minimum wage, because you can get a bad PM for $40 an hour or a good one for $60-80 in my market (that’s hourly contract - not employee) You don’t find anyone for $7.35 (or whatever minimum wage is now). They aren’t paying me that because they want to pay enough for me to take a cruise with my family, but because that is what PMs cost. If they could get me for $9 an hour, they would. ETA: Back in the 1990s, when unemployment was almost non-existent, in the far and wealthy suburbs of the Twin Cities, McDonalds was paying $11.50 an hour. They needed to pay that because no one was driving out to Shakopee for $4.35. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/37 "2014-02-01T17:22:37Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I don’t think it does. > > I think it implies that there are jobs that some people do where they don’t need to make a living wage… I was responding to a claim that there were jobs that are intended to be life-supporting, and jobs that are not intended to be life supporting. Intended? By whom? Some jobs pay enough to support a person. Some jobs don’t. But that has nothing to do with the intentions of the employer, or the employee. It’s just economics. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/38 "2014-02-01T19:21:29Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > This implies there are employers who pay employees more than they have to, just because they want to provide primary supportive employment. Not necessarily. They might feel like having lower turnover and the ability to be more selective in their hiring enhances the shopping experience for their customers and creates brand loyalty and improves the bottom line. Not everything is philanthropic. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/39 "2014-02-01T19:37:42Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I was responding to a claim that there were jobs that are intended to be life-supporting, and jobs that are not intended to be life supporting. Intended? By whom? > > Some jobs pay enough to support a person. Some jobs don’t. But that has nothing to do with the intentions of the employer, or the employee. It’s just economics. Oh yeah, then we agree…its just economics. Jobs pay what they pay, unless you legislate that they pay more or less or have some sort of other artificial construct (like a union contract). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163/40 "2014-02-01T23:25:27Z")
For the record, **Dewey Finn** , _none_ of our chain’s employees are part of the UFCW. The only unionized employees in this company are some warehouse employees and truck drivers who are Teamsters. **Senegoid** - what employee-owned means in the context of this company is that 88% of the company’s stock is held by the Employee Association (which also functions as a collective bargaining group and is responsible for negotiating our bi-annual contract), and every year each employee receives in their name an amount of stock equal to 20% of their earnings for the year, which they can cash out at retirement or a few years after they leave the company. It’s sort of a pension fund, and it can be quite lucrative - there are a few people at my location who’ve worked for the company for 20+ years and have accounts worth over $1 million. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evilness-of-wal-mart-versus-other-similar-stores/680163.md?page=1)