[Non-Sequitur]

From the 1930s, GM--as one of only three major automakers--was able to pass along to consumers the high costs imposed by wages, pensions, and health benefits negotiated with the United Auto Workers. When emerging foreign competition started to make life tougher for Detroit executives in the 1970s, they tried to insulate themselves with government tariffs and domestic-content requirements.

As recently as 2003 GM's net income was in excess of $4 billion dollars. It had unions then. It had pension and health care costs then, too. It also had products which people wanted to buy. In the last three years as the cost of fuel has doubled the big honking SUVs that GM made so much money on and which it bet it's future on have lost a lot of their lusture, and GM management never positioned itself for the next round of new products. You have to blame the leadership for that more than the unions or the health care costs.

The Wal-Mart Model

The Wal-Mart model is based in no small part on what has become the corporate model for the entire country. Employees are not assets, they're liabilities. Keep salaries low, discourage long term employees, and never stop looking for ways to cut what benefits you do offer. Companies like Costco sell their products just as cheaply as Sam's Club, their stock price is doing a lot better that Wal-Mart, and they provide a much higher salary and quality of benefits to more of their employees than Wal-Mart does. They find that these costs are more than offset by reduced recruiting and training costs, the ability to attract a higher quality of employee thus needing fewer of them, and possibly through increased customer satisfaction.

[Nextrush]

Costco also fires employees for their moral convictions. In Canada a guy lost his job when his Knights of Columbus hall wouldn't rent out to another Costco employee for her gay "wedding reception."

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Employees are not assets, they're liabilities.

Wal-Mart treats its employees fairly. If they have a problem, they can talk to anyone in management. They don't need a union to hold their hand and nobody is holding a gun to their head demanding that they work there.

Keep salaries low, discourage long term employees, and never stop looking for ways to cut what benefits you do offer.

Most Wal-Mart employees are part-time (students or those using Wal-Mart as a second job) or semi-retirees. They either refuse to take the benefits, are ineligible for them because they're new hires or some other reason (not because of Wal-Mart) or already have benefits. As for long term employees, please - Wal-Mart is one of the few companies that strongly promotes from within. A lowly cart pusher can work his way up into assistant manager, for example.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Companies like Costco sell their products just as cheaply as Sam's Club, their stock price is doing a lot better that Wal-Mart, and they provide a much higher salary and quality of benefits to more of their employees than Wal-Mart does.

That's not germane to Wal-Mart being the pre-eminent employer in the nation and earning $10 billion in profit.

[Clemenza]

Tell that to my cousin who has health care and company stock after only a few years as a Wal Mart manager.

Costco is run by socialists and Democratic management. They are also unionized. They also just s-ck.

A business is a business. It is an amoral institution.