Why do the Wal-mart Watch people hate Wal-mart?

Maybe I’m naive or selfish, but I don’t see the logic behind blaming
Wal-Mart for every economic sin immaginable, like that vitriolist organization Wal-mart Watch. I live in a rural area and without Wal-Mart we would have no retail store. It has been a god-send to rural Maine as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t see jobs at Wal-mart as career jobs, unless you are in management. They are part-time jobs meant to be as a supplement to , or in addition to, other wages. Not meant to support a family or provide what a regular career job would. That’s how they keep prices down. If they start providing all the benefits that we have, unfortunately, come to expect from employers, then the prices would go way up and I wouldn’t like that. I’m not a Utilitarian so I don’t believe in actions that result in the best good for the most people; but, one could argue that low prices are the best good for the most people. What started this was an article on Drudge: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/04/051104175027.waok0hd4.html

I’m jaded in today’s world, but I suspect that Wal-Mart watch, by whipping up hate against Wal-Mart, gets a LOT of contributions and the people who run the organization can run around the country, yell about Wal-mart and have a house in the country and send their kids to private school. No way do I believe they understand the ethos of Wal-Mart and it’s place in the U.S. economic scheme of things. WM is an easy target and they have latched onto a good thing (for them).

Thet are the big kid on the block and that draws a lot of fire. They are an archetype of the good and bad of American style capitalism. Some people oppose them because it conflicts with their well thought out worldview. Others oppose them because they oppose weaknesses in everything that is successful and try to protest their way to “la-la” land based on nothing but denial and wishes.

I think Wal-Mart is great for the most part. So do most people. That is why they are the largest employer in America and control an economy bigger than many countries. Anything that high-profile is going to draw fire. You can count on that.

Some people just have too much time on their hands, and have to hate something; Walmart is big and influenential, so they point at that. I work at a Wallyworld right now, and honestly it isn’t that bad of a job. Fits my schedule very well (I am a part time college student during the day, work the night shift) and the pay is decent enough considering how easy my work is.

  1. Wages- it doesn’t matter that they weren’t “meant” to be a family supporting job. The are a family supporting job. Right now, Wal-Mart actually helps it’s workers figure out how to get social services (welfare, food stamps, etc.) because they don’t pay enough. So they are actually asking the government to supplement it’s stingy wages. Instead of paying their workers, they expect you too. Nice, huh? Wal-Mart workers top medicaid rolls in 16 states.

And no, a raise would not drive up prices. Wal-Mart is making money hand over fist. The only ones who aren’t seeing that are the people who actually make Wal-Mart work- the workers. Similar companies, like Costco, pay their workers a living wage (enough that they aren’t working full time and collecting food stamps) and still make big profits.

  1. Unions- They are aggressively anti-union. They have enacted special laws in congress to make it harder for unions to organize. They show anti-union videos to their workers. Workers looking to form a union often find themselves fired.

No matter what you feel about unions, most people would agree that they should at least get a fair chance to present their case.

  1. Predatory Business Practices- Wal-Mart will go out of it’s way to put local businesses out of business. If your local town has a bookseller, they will sell their books under cost just long enough to put the bookseller out of business. If you have a grocery store, they will build themselves right across the street from them. I actually know someone who worked for Sam’s Club (run by Wal-Mart) who’s job was to go to local businesses and buy out their entire stock of certain popular items (Shrek DVDs were on the list) so that when people came there, they’d get upset and go to Sam’s Club instead.

Wal-Mart will do everything in it’s power to undermine whatever economic base there is in your town. So now instead of a town of small business owners, you have a town of Wal-Mart employees who can now only afford to shop at WalMart. It routes out the economic core of a town. It makes the American Dream of owning a small business a million times harder.

And all that money doesn’t stay in your town. Most of it gets sent directly back to Wal-Mart headquarters. It doesn’t offer economic revival for small towns, it offers to turn small towns into vassal states.

  1. Strong-Arming Manufacturers- Wal-Mart has such a large customer base that many manufactures can’t survive without selling to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart knows this, and uses it’s power to dictate what gets made at what price. So instead of running one business, they have de facto control of many, many businesses. Often they will demand that companies sell products below cost. Or they will control content (most publicly of CDs and videos- some people put out a “Wal-Mart version”, but most just comply to Wal-Mart’s demands). They have way too much control of way too many industries.

  2. They are Right Wing- Every dollar you give to Wal-Mart is a dollar for the right wing. They use their massive profits to affect political causes. They are staunchly anti-abortion. They are the ones campaigning to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills and emergency contraceptive.

Do you really want the largest economy in your country to be a right-wing one that has a political agenda?

  1. Everything Else- They are currently dealing with a major sex-discrimination case where it came out that they regularly and systematically denied promotions to women. They have perpetuated some major labor violations like lcoking workers in the store and forcing them to work off-the-clock. All evidence points to these violations being a part of Wal-Mart policy, not freak occurances. They have a bad environmental track record. They buy from China as much as humanly possible.

Our dollar is the only way we can vote against their agenda.

Uh, what even sven said way better than I could have put it.

What liberty3701 said about what even sven said.

even sven, I enjoyed your points. However, I was a little confused. If I didn’t know better, I would think you were implying that those are bad things.

Even Sven, I could kiss you. I started reading the thread, was shocked at all the “they’re just big whiny babiez!” resposnes, and then you laid it out cleanly and elegantly.

So you think that even sven’s points are good things??

even sven said it. That and every Wal-Mart I’ve ever been in sucks. The merchandise is shitty, and the one closest to is like Mullet HQ.

I was kidding a little but I am pretty sure that I could spin most of them so they don’t sound quite so bad.

I don’t hate wal-mart with the fury of a thousand suns but I find it very unsettling that an unelected unaccountable entity has so much power over individuals and society, and so much political clout.

Hear, hear! :applause smiley:

Can you give some leading references to support this even sven? I’m not trying to challenge your point particularly - I’d be genuinely interested to know if this is the case. Wal-Mart has a low public profile here in the UK, but they do own Asda, a low-cost chain of supermarkets where I shop.

I was just having a discussion with my mother about this very topic. She’s one of those every growing number of people who shops at Wal-mart because they have the best prices and doesn’t understand how that could be bad.

I’m no expert in economics, nor do I have personal experience with Wal-mart’s business practices, so I had to rely on the web to help me explain to my mother that it isn’t just people reacting negatively to “big business” (though that is a part of it for some people), came up with this link. It’s a bit lengthy, but I think it does a good job of objectively reporting the facts. (Feel free to correct me if you have alternative knowledge, I’d hate to be spreading ignorance)

From all that I’ve heard and read, I think even sven is pretty much spot on, but I’d like to clarify a little on one part:

Wal-mart doesn’t go out of their way to buy from China, or any other country, so far as I know. What they do (and which is touched on in the link above) is place demands upon suppliers that put suppliers in a very rough predicament, i.e. do business with Wal-mart by Wal-mart’s rules, or don’t do business with them and lose shelf space in the largest retailer in the world.

What ends up happening is that companies will make concessions just for the right to do business with them, and, ironically, end up sacrificing profit in the long term. Which means they have to find ways to cut out production costs, which leads to closed factories and overseas outsourcing. There’s an example in that article where Huffy actually had to sell its competitors plans for new bicycles so they could afford to keep doing business with Wal-mart, per the agreement they made with them.

The problem a lot of people have is that by shopping in a Wal-mart and supporting overseas production, a lot of people are actually shopping themselves out of jobs.

It’s a catch-22… people can’t afford to pay the little extra for locally made things, so they buy overseas made things, which hurts the local companies until they have no choice but to fold or move overseas.

This is actually something I consider a positive. I have no particular desire to give my money to a manufacturer to fatten their wallets, I’d rather keep as much of it as I can, Wal-Mart is a ferocious negotiator and passes those savings along to me.

It is the manufacturers responsibility to set a price point that is profitable, not Wal-Mart’s. I know this because for the last 7 years, the job title under my name has been “Pricer”. You fight the fight every day to ensure you are selling products/services at prices that make money. If you can’t make money, you say no. If Vlasic (a well known case) can’t demand a price that is profitable, then they have no business being in business. Let them go bankrupt and sell their production line to a company that will be more responsible with it.

Every Wal-Mart I’ve ever been in was a total dump. Dirty, poorly stocked shelves (with merchandise often just lying on pallets in the aisles) and staffed with unhappy, unhelpful employees. I don’t blame them; they don’t get paid enough to be happy or helpful. Wal-Mart has a well-deserved reputation as being a very seedy, downscale establishment.

Given that, plus the unconscionable way they treat their employees, plus the way they damage the economy (as explained by soulmurk) I say that Wal-Mart needs to be hit with an anti-trust lawsuit.

All these claims and no cites. . .are we still on the SDMB?

I’m thrilled we’re getting a Target where I live, and from the looks of the building, it looks like it’s going to be one of those Mega Targets. I like this because I will no longer have to shop at Wal-Mart.

Robin

There are anti-monopoly laws in the US, aren’t there? Surely there must come a point where the Govt. says, “okay guys, you’ve had your fun. Now you’ve gotta sell off some of your empire.”

I’m sure they’d just set up their own shady companies, Standard Oil-style, but still, it’d be better than nothing.