Posted on 02/27/2005 8:30:40 AM PST by COUNTrecount
SAM Walton, the legendary founder of the Wal-Mart chain of discount stores, had 10 rules for success in business.
They served him pretty well because when he died in 1992, only Bill Gates had more personal wealth and Wal-Mart – which began in 1962 as a single store in the backwoods of Arkansas – was well on the road to becoming the world's biggest retailer.
In the US today, Wal-Mart has more than 3600 retail outlets, employs more than 1.2 million people and is responsible for more than 2 per cent of US gross domestic product. In 2005, the company has forecast the creation of 100,000 new jobs, up from 83,000 last year.
When a company is that big and that labour-intensive, it almost always gets what it wants. That's why it was a huge surprise last week when the developer of a new shopping and residential precinct in the New York City burrough of Queens dumped Wal-Mart from the project.
The developer, Vornado Realty Trust, caved in after a concerted campaign by an alliance of little guys – resident actions groups, local small businesses and unions – who wanted the Wal-Mart octopus kept at bay.
For the small businesses involved – most of them family-run shops selling shoes, clothing, hardware and the like – it was do or die. Traditionally it has been businesses such as these that go under when Wal-Mart comes to town.
Extraordinary as it seems, the VRT decision means Wal-Mart still has no store in the free enterprise capital of the world and now, no immediate prospect of getting one.
This has the potential to damage the company, which has identified a need to achieve expansion in New York and the big urban centres of California.
In the past, the Wal-Mart money shot was always Sam Walton's rule No.9 which states: "Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation."
Over the years, Wal-Mart has turned this into an art form, ruthlessly cutting costs in the key areas of wages and purchasing. The wages methodology has been underpinned by a highly aggressive anti-union company philosophy which has managed to keep Wal-Mart's entire US workforce non-unionised.
The company has worn this as a badge of honour and is so determined to keep unions out of its operations that it recently decided to close a Wal-Mart store in Canada where the workforce had voted in favour of union coverage.
But the problem for Wal-Mart, as the New York decision indicates, is that it is a company starting to be seen as too ruthless.
Over the past 12 months, there have been scandals over child labour and the recruitment of illegal Mexican immigrants on miserly wages, along with concerns about the company's treatment of women and the disabled.
On the same day that VRT announced it was ditching Wal-Mart from its Queens project, a former employee with cerebral palsy won a $7.5 million payout in a federal court anti-discrimination suit.
The man had been hired to work in the pharmacy section of a Long Island Wal-Mart store but once his disability was known, he was sent to the carpark to empty bins and collect shopping trolleys.
Stories such as these make the news – and the brand name suffers, a cardinal sin in retailing. They also make it easier for activists in community groups and trade unions to build the kinds of political alliances that succeeded in keeping Wal-Mart out of Queens.
The future success of Wal-Mart may well depend on how quickly it learns that selling the cheapest shirt is no longer enough. Smart companies today go out of their way to understand their people and to treat them fairly.
That means paying fair wages and – as hard as it may be for the custodians of the Sam Walton legacy – allowing employees to be members of trade unions if they want to be.
Which of the charges is untrue?
I worked for Nordstrom for many years. Many mall "Anchors" would fight like crazy to keep us out. But Nordstrom's philosophy was, "the more competition, the better." So we would never complain when a Macy's, for example came into a Mall to compete with us. We just saw it as a way to get more people to come to the mall. Chances were, if they came to the Mall with Macy's in mind, they would pass through Nordstrom as well. Then, we would just have to make sure that we were better. New stores did not hurt us, they helped us.
Except that Wall-Mart has been sued in more than 38 states for these reasons. Wal-Mart has lost two cases and settled two out of court that I know of.
And if they lost the case, then there is even more evidence.
(look!...over there ... it's OJ Simpson......)
"Which of the charges is untrue?"
All of them. WalMart pays very well for unskilled, uneducated labor. There is no company policy to discriminate against women or handicapped. In fact, WalMart employs the aged and handicapped in all of their stores. The child labor thing is BS.
WalMart doesn't employ any child labor. They simply buy products from outside the US where cultures and laws are different. Every other big box store does the same thing. WalMart is singled out because they are non-union.
Have there been illegal or unethical practices at local stores from time-to-time? Of course. That is true with every business. It is not WalMart corporate policy and they don't approve. Every large corporation has occasional problems with local management. When it is found, it is stopped.
So, we have to ask ourselves, why is WalMart being singled out when other big-box retailers have not. Why do liberals hate WalMart but never say a thing about KMart or Kohl's or Target or Sears or BJs or Pennys or... (enter your favorite big-box store here)?
The answer is simple. The greedy unions hate WalMart because they are non-union. Good for WalMart.
Keep the greedy bastards out and keep hiring local unskilled labor. Keep paying them higher wages than the local standard and keep giving them a good benefit package. Keep promoting from within. Keep raising those unskilled workers out of poverty. Keep giving our kids a first job and helping them learn that hard work isn't a bad thing. Keep offering a wide range of decent products at good prices. Continue to locate your stores in areas that don't have any decent retailers nearby.
Go WalMart!
I work in a building owned by Vornado, and I can't even change a freakin' light bulb on my own under the building's union contract -- I have to call them to have a union electrician do it.
(P.S. I do it anyway, but you get the point.)
Workers in the U.S. have learned the hard way that unions are paracites who take money from workers to be enjoyed by the union leadership.
When the smake clears, the businesses are ruined, the bewildered workers have no jobs, and the union Fat Cats go on to destroy somewhere else.
A business getting unionized is like a person learning they have AIDS.....Its certain death.
This is pure junk news...
If anyone thinks this is a true story then I have a bridge for sale in California called the Golden Gate.
They just wil not give up even after this junk news has been shwn to be false and slanted...
Give it a rest Libs and Unions, your days are over...
I'm hoping the Sears/K-Mart merger will eventually give Wal-Mart a serious competitor.
I would certainly call NYC the free enterprise of the world. Wall Street is most certainly the very hub of this world's commerce.
Good people who own businesses pay their workers fairly and treat them well;bad owners do neither,and unions usually are known for use and threats of violence against people and equipment.
However, one must ask why hundreds of people are filing these cases, or joining these suits.
My objection to Wal-Mart has to do with its apparent "buy from China first" policy. Granted that does keep prices low. It also sends jobs overseas that could be here.
I will point out that I've read dozens of responses here on Free Republic stating that Michael Jackson is guilty because he settled a lawsuit.
Walmarts dream is to bring the Chicom Slaves to the U. S. and let them work the stores for 10 cents an hour. Walmart Sucks.
Another reason NYC sucks
Thankfully the vat was empty. ;)
Accidents happen and the less we know about them the better off the businesses are.
A while back there was a story about an employee putting glass in a police officers hamburger.
The cop was injured and they did a sting on the place.
Caught the guy on video.
I don't imagine the police go to these kind of places in uniform anymore, and it probably turned many others away from the place.
BTW ... The murdered cat reference was about the Walmart manager that supposedly ordered some employees to kill a cat that they couldn't get rid of.
And like Microsoft, Halliburton, etc. etc., they are the biggest at what they do.
Good job in rebuttal!
The Sears/KMart merger isn't intended to compete with Wal-Mart. The intention is to sell off assets.
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