Posted on 12/06/2005 5:45:51 AM PST by paudio
Because Wal-Mart is a behemoth, critics assume that it can change its wage and benefits policies on a whim. According to Furman, Wal-Mart earns $6,000 per employee. That’s below the national average of $9,000 per employee. Wal-Mart makes $288 billion of revenue on $277 billion of costs, a 3.7 percent profit margin on costs, which leaves little room for error. ¶
It is true, as the CEI paper notes, that Wal-Mart jobs are poorly paid compared to unionized jobs. Grocery clerks at unionized stores in California get paid nearly $18 an hour. But Wal-Mart passes its lower costs on to customers, who pay 17 percent to 39 percent less for groceries there. ¶
In this sense, the self-styled humanitarians who object to Wal-Mart are narrowed-minded defenders of a special interest. If they get their way, they might better the lot of retail employees, but at the cost of the community, including people who aren’t fortunate enough to have a retail job but who still have to buy clothes and food. And so the anti-Wal-Mart zealots oppose the general welfare and an innovation that has promoted it. Hasn’t it always been thus? ¶
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
These are usually the same type of socialist elitists who are angry because U.S. workers actually have money to spend, instead of being taxed into poverty, bankrupcy and eventual homelessness and starvation.
I see no problem here other than the unions demanding their cut.................
So true! And of course they compare "low wages" under Walmart to a hypothetical workers' paradise, not to reality. If Walmart were forced to raise wages, the first thing they would have to do to stay in business would be to close the marginal stores--which are, of course, mostly located in poor and minority areas. So the comparison is "low wages" at Walmart versus unemployment.
It's an interesting philosophical debate brewing over Wal-mart.
Is it better to have really cheap goods in the community and really low-paid workers without health benefits, or is it better to have more expensive goods and employees earning a better wage and with health benefits.
Clearly, if the cheap goods are available, people will always buy them. Many of the low-cost items produced in China are made by slaves, but there is not the slightest inclination among the Western consumer to cease buying Chinese-made clothes and goods when they can be gotten 40% cheaper than anywhere else.
The solution to the Wal-Mart situation is obvious enough: if Wal-Mart is using illegal aliens in its supply and distribution chain (it has been caught doing so on a large scale in the recent past), there is a law enforcement issue.
More broadly, if the employees are unhappy, they have the right to form a union, and should. If Wal-Mart wants to avoid unionization, it will have to pre-emptively give more benefits. This will raise the cost of goods. Otherwise, the workers will eventually unionize, and the benefits will be extracted rather than offered. Either way, prices will go up.
I've been to several small towns (my kin folk are there) in the south. Walmart is a blessing to those people--hugh variety and low prices. It's just like putting money in their pockets. Nobody is forced to work at Walmart, nobody is forced to shop there. I also marvel at people that pay $4 for a coffee at Starbucks, and pick out eggs one at a time at 33 cents each at Whole Foods and Fresh Market--I want to grab them and ask if they have fully funded their kids education and their retirement account.
I have a better idea. If these minimum wage earners want to take home more money allow them to opt out of social security, unemployment insurance and worker comp taxes. Sure, they are screwed if they ever need these programs but I wonder how many would jump at the chance.
And Wal-Mart offers health insurance to full-time and part-time employees, which is rare in retail. Eighty-six percent of Wal-Mart employees have health insurance; 48 percent through Wal-Mart’s plan.
I must have missed those articles completely. Could you please provide the sources. I know that some of their subcontractors have been caught employing illegals but have not seen any other references.
Wal Mart cheer leaders (greeters) will be here soon to defend.
So many fallacies, so little time...
Is it better to have entry-level jobs for the untrained (or untrainable), or is it better to have them on welfare?
Did you know that 70% of Wal-Mart executives got their start with the company as chaiers and stock-boys?
And where in your community do you find employers who pay health benefits?
Certainly not at the over-praised "mom & pop" stores thart Wal-Mart allegedly victimizes.
Who said Wal-Mart employees were unhappy? Many of those employees couldn't find work else where. An employer having to provide health care has increased the cost of living for all without really improving the low wage earners life style. The ‘unionization’ of America is pure socialism – the cost of being in a union has many pluses and minuses, with the minuses for some being very costly. The Government unions form special interest blocks which forms an interesting conundrum……………
They'd prefer to have us in a Soviet style bread line, awaiting a state employee's handout.
lost me on that one
"I have a better idea. If these minimum wage earners want to take home more money allow them to opt out of social security, unemployment insurance and worker comp taxes. Sure, they are screwed if they ever need these programs but I wonder how many would jump at the chance."
Most would jump at the chance. But that does not mean it's good for the country. Because what will happen is what happened before: you will end up with millions of people who either get hurt, become unemployed or retire without having any savings. And then they will be in danger of starving or dying on the streets unless something is done for them. You'll either end up having to fund straight out welfare, but without the regularized social security, workmen's comp, medicare and unemployment insurance taxes, or you won't do it and end up with an explosive, revolutionary situation just like there was in the 1930s. Going back to an uninsured society is not an option, and low wage earners, especially, are the ones who eventually benefit the most from the insurance that they would not pay for if they were not forced to by taxation.
FDR faced a choice: provide the social insurance, or watch a social explosion carry away American capitalistic democracy just like it carried away capitalistic democracy everywhere in Europe. Because people won't sit still and respect the law and starve and suffer. They start to break things and everything starts to fall apart. That was the history of the West before social insurance. FDR struck the right balance. The Europeans, paradoxically, were more conservative than the Americans about it. The net result was that the Communists ended up being far stronger there than in America, and their ideas pushed the protections much farther, eventually, than America went.
Abolishing unemployment insurance, welfare, social security, workmen's comp and medicare are all simply non-starters. The alternatives are all worse. What needs to be done is administering them more efficiently and fairly. But just outright stripping away social insurance will not end up in a capitalist paradise. It will merely set the country up for a socialist revanche of European proportions.
Everyone needs to pay into these systems. Like democracy, they are far from perfect, but they are better than all of the alternatives.
That's complete, and utter bullsh*t.
In English, that means - an outright lie.
Respondeat superior.
"Contract workers" is a subterfuge. They were working IN WalMart stores, on a daily basis. They worked for contractors, who were hired by Wal-Mart. This gives legal cover, to be sure, but nobody is fooled by it.
So if you had a house built and the builder used illegal laborers working IN the house while it was being built you are guilty of hiring illegals?
Unfortunately, where I work we hire temporaries through a temp worker agency. We depend on them to check the workers papers. Of course the agency gets paid by head count, so the agency has no real incentive to thourghly check the documents the temp worksers have.
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