Wal-Mart, et al

In My Humble Opinion
1

Ok, I just read an article aboutWal-Mart and whether or not it’s evil . That said, it would be interesting to hear what people think about Wal-Mart and the possible social and economic consequences of such. point and counterpoint, and so on.

More than that, i’d be interested to hear if anyone has any examples of companies that are, after a fashion, “getting it right”. Companies that are a boon to any particular area they engage themselves in, ones that might be able to serve as a counterpoint to some of the numbers that are apparently standing against Wal-Mart in this article. The main points seem to relate to its negative impact on

  1. industry wages and state health care programs,
  2. sprawl
  3. agriculture (size and sustainability of farms worldwide)
  4. international manufacturing plants and their environmental ramifications and
  5. small-business ownership

Once again: is Wal-mart as bad as many seem to believe? Is it just a result of free-enterprise at work? That said, are there any companies out there that don’t have all these negative effects, or that manage to act as positive forces in the communities they draw upon?

Thanks.
bamf

2

The cons of walmart as I know them are

They are a large customer of goods from manufacturers, so they dictate prices that are so low that the manufacturers are forced to move jobs overseas to save money

Their prices are low enough that other stores go out of business

Employee abuse, but they say they are trying to put a stop to this

Pros:

They keep inflation down

People get more for their money

As far as their wages, I don’t see how they are worse than any other service job. $8/hr is actually more than you’d make at alot of service jobs around here, and they don’t offer healthcare benefits like walmart does. I don’t know how true the idea that they run other companies out of business is, because in all the towns I’ve been in with a walmart still had a variety of stores selling the same things still in business.

3

I just read “Selling Women Short”. The book makes a pretty compelling case that keeping women out of managment is a WalMart policy. But I have to agree with the people that say that sex discrimination isn’t the biggest issue- the biggest issue is that WalMart just doesn’t pay enough.

$8.00 an hour may seem a lot in some parts of the country, but here rent on a single room in a shared household is $600.00. A studio apartment (probably the least you can get away with) is $900. You might be able to save a hundred dollars if you are willing to live in the boonies. But with only $400 leftover after rent (assuming you are one of the few actual full time workers- companies like WalMart tend to keep most people working part time for ease of scheduling- it doesn’t hurt them to have you work a sixteen hour week every once in a while, and they don’t care that a sixteen hour week means you don’t get to eat)- you probably can’t afford a car.

The part that got me was that it’s pretty common for WalMart workers to be on public assistance. There were even cases of WalMart publishing informational pamplets for employees about how to apply for food stamps. Here we have people working and they still can’t afford basic neccessities. As America’s largest employer, and a company that is making money hand over fist, they owe America and their workers a wage they can live on. More importantly, they can’t expect taxpayers to make up for the shortfall in their employee’s income. There is no excuse for a company to pay so little that their people are on welfare. It’s just not right.

There are other issues as well. Sprawl isn’t just unattractive- it’s killing our cities. It increases our dependence on oil. It fuels an ever-widening ring of ghettos. It isn’t a sustainable model for our communties.

It doesn’t just put local stores out of business, it takes money out of the local economy and replaces it with a bunch of poverty-line workers. And it isn’t just low prices that do it. I have a friend whos mother’s job is to drive around to local stores, buying out their stock of selected items (I remember Shrek DVDs were one of them). WalMart then destroys these items. When customers go to local stores and find the things they want arn’t there, they go to WalMart and stop going to their local stores at all. Bankrupting local businesses isn’t a side-effect of WalMart’s practices- it is a focus of WalMart’s business plan. This is contrary to the entrepenureal spirit of America, and more importantly it takes a lot of relatively wealthy small-business ownders and takes them out of the economy. The profits from WalMart don’t benefit a city like profits from local businesses do.

WalMart rips off cities by promising them all these tax revenues, but then only keeps the store open long enough to destablilize the local economy. Their goal is for WalMart to be the only place to shop for miles around. And in many places, they are winning.

I’m of mixed views on sweatshop labor. I’ve been to the third world, and frankly everything is sweatshop labor. It’s almost inescapable. What I am opposed to the indentured servitude and essential slavery that happens in some instances. Girls take out huge loans from unscrupulous people who promise to get them a job and out of the villages. They are then given sweatshop jobs where they cannot afford to pay back their loans and thus can never leave. I’m not sure if the companies that manufacture WalMarts goods are involved in that- but it is pretty likely. Anyway, I’d have to do more research before i can really get up in arms about it.

In short, WalMart is bad. It’s bad for it’s workers. It’s bad for our communities. It’s bad for America. It’s bad for all those folks outside of America that make it’s goods. The only people it’s good for is the upper managment.

4

I would be more than willing to chalk it up to free enterprise at work if WalMart didn’t use so many slimy, underhanded, borderline illegal business practices. For instance, WalMart pharmacies underprice their prescriptions; it’s often the lowest-priced place in town to get a 'scrip filled; but they take over an hour to fill it, thereby practically holding you hostage in the store where you, guess what, spend money! I live in one of those areas where WalMart has driven every other store of its kind out of business. Therefore, I’m virtually forced to do business with WalMart, even though I don’t like their business practices. If we were any more well-off, I’d do all my shopping online, and cut them out of the picture; but we’re not. We’re a rung above poor (at least for now), as are many of the families around here. Therefore, many of the families around here don’t have the resources to shop at anyplace but WalMart. I’d venture to say that a lot of them don’t have the education to even realize that shopping at WalMart is not necessarily a good idea. :frowning:

5

Is this just a FOAF kind of story of is this the God’s honest truth? Is this actual Walmart policy or strategy?

6

Walmart is evil.

Unless I had no choice at all I would never shop there.

7

I’ve never known any worker at Wal*mart that made $8 an hour. More like $6 or $6.50.

8

From the link:

From their first day on the job, Wal-Mart employees are advised to avoid unions and to report any organizing activities to their supervisors.

Yikes! :eek:

9

If that’s true, wouldn’t it violate U.S. labor laws?

10

Walmart also loses money on their optical department, and force their independent Optometrists to keep their prices low (but of course 16 patients a day makes up for this). This is good and bad - good because my wife actually has a job (Optometrist at Sam’s) and they are difficult to find in this area because her Optometry School is based here, but bad because they put local doctors out of business. But then, is this good because the people in the town can now pay for an eye exam for $45 instead of $90? I’m torn, and I know a doctor she worked for actually petitioned the city council and they prevented the local Walmart from even having an optical department. It protects one man’s business, but now the town is forced to pay double for eye exams. I’m not sure what is best for society.

Again, the same debate for me. These people more than likely can thank Walmart for even having a job, and they could have prevented working there by staying in school. But which is better for society, less high-paying jobs which forces more people out of work, or more low-paying $8/hr jobs that allows the rest of the community to buy products at low prices.

Maybe someone could do the math and let me know economically which is better for the economy (less jobs at higher pay, or more jobs at lower pay with reduced community prices)?

11

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with “advising” but firing organizing workers would be a crime. “Unionbusters” are also theoretically legal, so I can’t imagine why this isn’t.

A recent article in…damn travelling over Thanksgiving (too may newspapers to keep straight Detroit Free Press?) had a Wal-Mart exec talking about the salary issue and stated that Wal-Mart doesn’t intend or pretend to offer living wages for “first incomes.” That is, it’s solely meant for second-income earners, students, retirees, etc. Whether that’s good policy or not… Complaining about this point is like saying that McDonald’s has an obligation to their cashier to pay them a living wage. While reprehensible, I don’t think it’s their responsibility.

12

Actually, Wal Mart only theoretically offers health care benefits. You have to be a full time employee to be elgible. Well, they only schedule their employees for 34 hours or less, thus they do not qualify for full-time status, and they cannot get health benefits.

K-Mart pulled this shit too, so it’s not just a Wal-Mart thing…

13

Not only that, but the health care coverage is very minimal. No prescription coverage (except for the 10% discount they give to employees for anything they buy at Walmart, of course that means you have to buy the pills there), no dental or eye coverage, no mental health coverage. It’s expensive, too, for how little you get–I’m a single woman under 25 with no pre-existing conditions and the healthcare would have eaten up a quarter of my paycheck.

I have to go now but I’ll be back later to sling some more statistics at you. But trust me, Walmart is just as evil as they say it is, and possibly even more.

Sincerely,
disgruntled former Walmart employee

14

We had a similar, brief discussion of this issue at an adult education class at church. One woman pointed out that while Wal-mart threatens the mom-and-pop stores that are part of traditional American cities, towns and villages, those merchants have little if any employee turn-over. They also provide little free-market competition and thus set prices as they see fit. Wal-mart at least provides employment on a much larger scale, and creates competition. The issue of sustaining wages in not Wal-mart’s, K-mart’s, Target’s, Meijer’s or anyone else’s problem; it is our problem. Current federal wage laws made by congress set the minimum wage, and unless we are willing to sacrifice part of our multi-trillion dollar budget to raise the minimum wage to a sustenance level, those without college education or access to the thousands of dollars needed for a college education are SOL. We look at that as their problem, but it is really ours. The same can be said of health benefits. Few minimum wage empoyers offer any useful benefits, and 50 years or so ago, most employers didn’t offer any benefits. That practice was created as an enticement to prospective employees who were deciding between job offers. Again, if we could sacrifice part of our multi-trillion dollar federal budget toward subsidized health care, Wal-mart and other such employers could offer a useful health care benefit. Unless we are willing to embrace a small part of Socialism, pure free-market capitalism and our own attitudes lay the blame of poverty at the feet of the impoverished, without any compulsion to help them get started.

An admittedly dated example of how Wal-mart could help a community is Bedford, In. The last time I went through Bedford’s downtown 12 years ago, nearly every small store on the square had been boarded up for some time. The center of the town had died, and the residents had to make do with a few strip malls, or drive 20 miles north to Bloomington or 30 miles east to Seymore. A Super Wal-mart would have helped the community by providing goods at a reasonable price that were not otherwise available in useful quantities. In the 12 years since I’ve been there, Bedford may have had a renaissance, and I welcome any corrections to my dated observations.

Vlad/Igor

15

Found the article. It had been reprinted from the Wall Street Journal.

In other words, 25% of their employees are trying to live off their hourly wages, even though they’re not intended to.

16

Hm.

So the largest single employer in America doesn’t expect most of its employees to be able to make a living working there?

17

Says who, exactly?

18

Aside from the economics of Walmart is the fact that it is a horrible place to have to spend even a short amount of time. I’m really not sure how or why it has to be so unpleasant. I’ve only been to a couple, but they had poor maintenance and a terrible, annoying, pointless intercom system that never stopped. They also favour oversized carts and putting things in the aisles in order to guarantee the maximum animosity between strangers.

Walmart sums up everything dark about the free market system. Even if it were better for the economy, it’s doing it at the expense of quality of life. As often as I hear these anecdotes about Walmart giving eyecare to poor old ladies or cheap undershirts for babies, when I’m there all I see is people buying bullshit like junkfood, video games and thongs that will fall apart after two washes. I can’t even imagine how depressing it must be to work there.

I think that should matter.

19

I came in here to ask who the hell makes $8/hr at Wal Mart, but I see that’s already been covered. I made $6.50 there, but I did get a 42 cent raise at the end of three months; I put in my two week notice that day though, so I never actually saw it. No breaks/short breaks/having to wait 5 hours for the first break was pretty common. And I agree that the “health care plan”, if you’re eligible at all, is nothing to write home about.

And yeah, they cover Evil Unions during orientation; you must tell a supervisor if anyone approaches you in the store, and then they’ll be asked to leave. There’s a video and everything. In short, unions are bad. Or something. :rolleyes: The one in town here is going to be a supercenter soon. Hooray.

Sorry about the whole intercom thing (that was me, jewelry counter employee). They made me do it every half hour except during “peak hours” and holidays at which time we’d have to run them every 15 minutes. I had to keep a log and everything.

20

Let me tell you a Tale of Two Big-Box Stores. Within a mile or so of here, there once was a Wal-Mart and a Target. Both were older and out-dated. Both corporate offices wanted a new one. Wal-Mart built a new one across the road, had it up the day they closed the old one, hired all new employees and left a dead strip mall.

Target closed the store for seven months and remodeled. In fact they remodeled the whole dead mall they were in, creating new retail space for new, more vital businesses. All the employees kept their insurance and were guaranteed a job at the new one once they opened.

One store made the neighborhood worse, one store made the neighborhood better. Guess where I shop, even though it’s a little more expensive.