Well, I have to agree with Shag, I live in a rural farming community that has both a Super Wal-Mart, 2 other grocery chains doing fine, and a decently lively downtown area.
The difference is the downtown stores are very high-end and cater to an upscale clientele (primarily horse people that show at a local high-end showgrounds). Wal-Mart caters to the low-end of the market.
Wal-Mart didn’t kill the “everyman” downtown shops. They died on their own – about 10 years ago the same downtown area was essentially shuttered. Wal-Mart arrived after that, very much to the delight of all concerned.
That said I’m not a fan of Wal-Mart’s business practices so I choose to limit my shopping there as much as possible. But there are times when my choice is to drive 30 minutes to the nearest larger town or stop in at Wal-Mart. My gas budget just doesn’t stretch to jaunting 60 miles for every errand, so I shop at Wal-Mart maybe a couple of times a year.
I do think that it is disingenuous to say the Wal-Mart “killed” america’s downtowns across the board. In many of the areas where Wal-Mart got its start (the South) the downtowns were dead already and Wal-mart came in and developed where no one else would. I believe this continues to be their philosophy overall as I heard recently they are proposing some Superstores in inner city Chicago.
I will agree that WalMarts didn’t kill most downtowns - those areas had generally already died. But most WalMarts aren’t being built in downtown areas. They’re being built in suburbs and rural areas - which did have active shopping centers and where WalMart did drive other stores out of business.
I’m not saying WalMart is evil. It’s a decent store and I shop there frequently. But it’s unhealthy for the economy when there’s only one business choice with no competition. This is true even if you have a few token alternatives that have no real impact on the market (internet grocery shopping - right). And that’s the direction WalMart is taking this country.
There’s a difference between being a real capitalist and being an apologist for big companies.
Yeah, bad business decisions from the top had nothing to do with that, huh?
So now you’re resorting to exageration for effect? I think you just lost some credibility points, sister. Ain’t no union grocery store employee in the world that pays $160 per month in dues. Hell, I’d wager very few, if any, auto workers pay $160 per month in dues. I seriously doubt your son was even paying $40 per month.
If there’s dishonesty in the leadership of the union, the workers have the ability (and duty) to get rid of it. File a complaint with the International Union, file charges with the NLRB, sue, or decertify. What was his union, by the way?
Ah, sweeping damnations. You do realize there are probably 100 different unions in the US, and thousands of locals? This is like trying to blame the federal government, or people in Ohio, for things enacted by the San Diego city council.
Who? What? What does this even mean?
So do you think that workers shouldn’t even have the right to decide if they want to organize a union? Without illegal corproate interference?
How is offering health care to employees “welfare?” Maybe if WalMArt paid a little more, and/or offered health benefits, so many of their employees wouldn’t need to be on public assistance. You do know where “public assistance” comes from, right? Taxes. So that means that this specific corporation might not be a welfare organization, but they sure are enabling our public welfare system.
Making assumptions for effect do nothing for your arguement.
No, spending money makes the economy run.
Paradise? I agree that there are plenty of worse-off countries than we have here, but I think you need to take a trip to Detroit or southside Chicago or Mississippi sometime. Millions of people would probably argue with your comapison to paradise. And no one’s trying to ruin anything. The activists are only trying to help the working poor, who are becoming increasingly prevelant in our country, thanks in part to WalMart.
What doesn’t make what right? Ad hominem attacks on the opposition’s maturity level sure doesn’t make you right.
Alright chew on this: Who put those images of material things so heavily into our homes? You mention tv (consisting of networks) and Blockbuster. These are examples of the almighty corporations you are so willing and happy to defend as just trying to make a buck for their stockholders. And all these material things (4x4s, furniture and designer clothes for example)-- who makes them and promotes them to us consumers so heavily? Again, the very corporations you love to defend.
So, I just want to get this right: You say, "Corporations are businesses, not welfare organizations," **“Corporations are in business to make money for their shareholders,” **, and “Corporations are what make this economy run.” But then you demonize them for making people too materialistic.
Therefore, may I conclude that you think corporations are okay for the people that they make rich, but they’re bad for the working poor who can’t afford the material goods the corporations promote? Then, I think we agree on something.
But the reason so many people are fighting corporations like WalMart isn’t to damage the corporation itself; it’s to hold the corporation accountable to the workers and consumers that the corporation so often hurts in its race to the top.
No kidding. Try raising a couple of kids on an $18,000 per year, or less, salary from WalMart.
What does this have to do with WalMart? And God help us when we start to think that the government should actually try and protect its citizens effectively. Is it really so much to ask that a FEMA director actually does his job? I mean, Lord knows our federal government is no well-oiled machine right now, but this country will really go shitward the day we don’t expect it to be, and hold it accountable when it isn’t.
Ah, yes, I love those movies which showcase our federal government as the well-oiled machine it isn’t.
Alright. I blame you. Hey, it makes as much sense as many of your arguements.
Try as I might, I can’t locate a single site talking about other pickle companies’ dealings with Wal-mart. In fact, I can’t even find out what brand or brands Wal-mart is currently carrying in their stores.
I don’t think anyone is blaming Wal-mart for the demise of Vlasic, per se. They certainly didn’t help their situation, but as you say, that was Vlasic management’s responsibility to avoid. However, it does bring up the question of whether or not Wal-mart singled out Vlasic at the time specifically because they were in trouble and knew they had them by the shorthairs. We’ll probably never know either way.
Personally, I don’t like Wal-mart’s practices, or what they do to communities and employees. I don’t shop there by choice, but I don’t blame them for all the world’s ills. What they do do to suppliers (Vlasic being the most famous, but not the best example of) is wrong, but they’ll continue to do it so long as people continue to support them by spending money there.
I think the reason some people get so angry about Wal-mart is that there are so many people blindly feeding the behemoth who are ignorant to what effects their support might have in the long term. It’s frustrating watching the proverbial lemmings running off the cliffs with their communities in a Wal-mart bag, defending their choice to shop there by reason of affordability.
Okay. When I was in college, backaways (11 years) I applied for a job at the local Kroeger to supplement my on-campus work-study and my lumberyard job. Come to find out, I was paying $28/wk in (mandatory) union dues. The way it worked out, I’d have been working the first 8-10 hours for the union and Uncle Sam before I ever saw a dime, and since they were only willing to schedule me ofr less than 16 hours, it wasn’t even close to worthwhile. Instead, I took a weekend roofing job working with a bunch of speed-freaks and ex-cons.
But I understand at the montly union meeting they gave out “free” beer. I dunno–$112 will buy you a lot of Bud Light. Not that I’d care to drink it…
Sven laid it out pretty well. To add onto the idea that raising wages would lead to ‘high prices’ that is faceous. Walmart has a budget of about $250 billion a year and about 1 million low wage employees. Giving them all a $3/hr raise would only increase prices by 2% or so. http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/
Wal-Mart can afford wage increases
Wal-Mart can cover the cost of a dollar an hour wage increase by raising prices a half penny per dollar. For instance, a $2.00 pair of socks would then cost $2.01. This minimal increase would annually add up to $1,800 for each employee. [Analysis of Wal-Mart Annual Report 2005]
However wal-mart does have some good sides that aren’t getting aired.
Wal-mart requires its Chinese suppliers meet certain workers rights.
They offer some healthcare. They get alot of flak for paying and average of $8/hr and only offering mediocre healthcare. But when I worked at village pantry (a subsidiary of Marsh supermarket) I only made $5.45 an hour and go no healthcare. Walmart is probably one of the better low wage jobs out there, most don’t even offer any healthcare and it pays $2-4 above the minimum wage. Alot of jobs pay the minimum and offer no healthcare.
Many jobs can be done with a little training, even the ones that pay more than $10/hr which is around the cutoff for a living wage. I can’t find the poll right now but I remember one being taken in Boston showing about 90% of people felt if you worked a 40 hour week you deserve better than to live in poverty. These are people that pay taxes and purchase supplies from providers, so their opinions count.
The public strongly supports the living wage.
Americans overwhelmingly support the living wage in public opinion polls. Seventy percent of Los Angeles voters surveyed, for example, said they favored that city’s living wage law. Moreover, according to a Lake Snell Perry & Associates poll, 84 percent of Americans support the idea that anyone who works full-time should not have to live in poverty.
The real question is how many people want to live in a world where many of the jobs aren’t paying enough to purchase transportation, healthcare, shelter and food? Even if it does make sense not to have a living wage under the ‘corporations have no responsibility except to their stockholders’ meme that is popular in the US, the vast majority of people don’t want to live in a world like that. A liveable world is more important than a world of idealogy.
Thanks for the response. That doesn’t answer the question though. You have high school and college students as well as single people in general who don’t own a house or need to support a family that are perfectly happy to take an $8 hour job. Does their wage get increased so that they could potentially support a family of four or do we just give people raises based on life circumstances?
A “living wage” in the Boston area is much higher than $10 hour. Should the Wal-Mart’s here pay everyone $15 an hour or more so that all employess can start a family safely while continuing to work there?
Should these rules also apply to fast food and mall jobs? There are people trying to support a family with those too.
I have to say, while I won’t dispute that Walmart is a bastion of corporate evil, they really don’t seem that bad to us employees. I’m on part time (my choice) and my pay, while low, is comparable to other retail jobs around here. And they offer SOME sort of insurance, even to part-timers (though not until after two years for us). An awful lot of retail jobs offer virtually no full-time hours or insurance whatsoever.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be getting more, only that they don’t seem any worse than anybody else, at least where I am. Raising a family on the money I’d get full-time on my salary would be horrible. But I’m not planning on making a career out of this, either. Those who are might well have a different viewpoint.
I know that, and I do curse many of those people. I shopped at a few WalMarts before I understood what they’re really like. Most of the people who work there know little or nothing about what they’re selling. The job requires little or no training, and WalMart has incredibly high turnover. Unlike the small business they destroy, Wal*Mart doesn’t provide trained staff that spend decades working in the same department getting to know the products.
Now I see people go into their beleaguered local bookstore or electronics store and talk to the knowledgeable people there, only to make their purchases at Wal*Mart later. The independent business can only survive by providing outstanding service from well-trained employees that know what they sell, and I have nothing but scorn for the customers who take advantage of those indy businesses and then rip their money from the local economy and ship it off to Bentonville.
I’ve always been the type that believes in supporting the community I live in. I volunteer for local organizations and schools, and shop local whenever I can. Sometimes people just don’t understand that every dollar they spend at Wal*Mart is hurting the community they live in. Shopping there is short-sighted, and it’s a terrible thing to do to your friends and neighbors.
I think “downtown” is being used here to mean “the corner of Main Street and State Route ___” Of course urban downtowns are still in bad shape, too, but Wal-Mart really doesn’t enter in to that discussion.
A retailer offering really inexpensive products? Some might argue that a store like WalMart that offers such low prices is a blessing for lower income people because it helps them save money on staple items, clothing, home furnishings, food, etc.
But on the contrary, WalMart is lowering community standards of employment. Therefore the above arguement is the equivalent to an unsterilized, undersized bandaid covering the economic blight of the working poor.
That was in response to a poster suggesting that Wal-mart was a boon to the poorest members of society. It isn’t their responsibility beyond being a business that contributes so society. However, they sure as hell aren’t a boon.
Well programs like food stamps and medicaid usually do not provide themselves to individuals who do not have children. I think I see your point. However we already have a minimum wage, but this wage isn’t enough to provide many people with medical problems or families the resources needed to get by, therefore it isn’t technically a ‘minimum’ wage, it is more sub-minimum.
the problem is is that you can’t eliminate all low wage jobs so that people who need to raise families can avoid taking them, and there will always be people who have families working low wage jobs. Roughly 1/4-1/3th of jobs in the US pay less than $10/hr and I think the average/median wage in the US is around 28k, which is $14/hr. You can’t avoid the fact that some people will have to raise families on those salaries, they can’t all find higher paying jobs as better jobs may be too hard to come by. A minimum wage increase to $7-9/hr combined with better social programs would provide those who have families with the resources needed to get by.
The idea of a living wage isn’t uncommon, most european countries provide higher base wages and better social programs than the US and they seem to have the public’s support.
Well, WalMart is one of those entities that many people hate. I don’t hate them, but anyone who argues against the WalMart = dirty cannot be speaking from experience. I’ve been in Wal*Marts is 6 states, and while they aren’t slum filthy, they certainly aren’t as clean as most comparable stores.
I occasionally go to Wal*Mart, I prefer Target though.
I have always assumed that the overall effort, in Wal-mart bashing, is to encourage people to shop elsewhere if they can afford to. There are people with no choice (because of geography or income). No use ripping on them. But there are many others who could readily eschew Wal-mart, and this bad PR is aimed at them.
I suppose the ultimate goal of Wal-Mart detractors is to let Wal-mart enjoy the natural end to its business practices–put enough people out of work (indirectly through suppliers, etc) that their own customer base cannot spend as much. It’s the only thing that could really force a change in business practices. However, that only works if they’re not luring in new and additional customers with deep pockets and few ties to the lower-end job market.
That’s also the only salvation of companies like Vlasic and Rubbermaid–having a core group of consumers who will look for and purchase their products at other retailers, and be willing to pay a somewhat higher price.
As for Suezeekay, maybe one day we’ll live in a society where everyone who needs to support a family will go to college and get a non-union, degree-requiring, well-paying service sector job with adequate benefits. They won’t be stuck as a “smuck.” However, that’s not going to be cheap, either. We do not have enough higher education in this country to support that kind of demand, and I suspect those government dollars you resent will have to play a role in paying for infrastructure as well as direct costs. We also don’t have an economy that could support that many educated people, but that’s another issue.