Wal-Mart, Driving Workers and Supermarkets Crazy

NYTIMES ^ | 10-19-03 | STEVEN GREENHOUSE

[Pikamax]

October 19, 2003 Wal-Mart, Driving Workers and Supermarkets Crazy By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

n February Wal-Mart will open its first grocery supercenter in California, offering everything from tires to prime meats, and that could be a blessing for middle-class consumers. The reason is simple: Wal-Mart's prices are 14 percent lower than its competitors', according to a study by the investment bank UBS Warburg.

But not everyone is rejoicing about Wal-Mart's five-year plan to open 40 supercenters in California, stores combining general merchandise and groceries that are expected to gobble up $3.2 billion in sales. California's three largest supermarket chains, Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons, are scared, and so are tens of thousands of supermarket workers whose union contracts have put them solidly in the middle class. The three grocers' fears of fierce competition from Wal-Mart and their related drive to cut costs are widely seen as the main reason behind the week-old strike by 70,000 workers at 859 supermarkets in Southern California.

Wal-Mart has already helped push more than two dozen national supermarket chains into bankruptcy over the past decade. That list includes names like Grand Union; Bruno's, once Alabama's largest supermarket chain; and Homeland Stores, formerly Oklahoma's largest. And unionized supermarket workers fear that Wal-Mart's invasion will oust them from the middle class by pulling down their wages and benefits, which, taken together, are more than 50 percent higher than those of Wal-Mart workers. At Wal-Mart, the average wage is about $8.50 an hour, compared with $13 at unionized supermarkets.

"Wal-Mart's superstores are going to have a devastating impact on California's supermarkets," said Burt Flickinger III, a retailing consultant, noting that union wages and prices are higher in California than in most of the country.

[Rebelbase]

[Modernman]

the wal-mart supercenterhas the best produce department around, here in virginia.

Harris Teeter or Whole Foods only, for me and mine. Wal-Mart is okay for toilet paper, but cheaper is not better when it comes to food.

[riri]

SuperTargets will bury Wal-Mart

I love Target, as far a discount stores go. There is something about the marketing, the packaging, the products--it just makes me want to buy, buy, buy. And I am not a shopper, in fact I really don't care for shopping.

But if I go into Target to buy a $10 item, I always end up spending $70 on stuff.

Now, when I go into Wal Mart, I feel like I have stepped into a third world piss pot. In fact, I can about sum it up, I was in Super Walmart yesterday, a 30ish Hispanic woman checked out in front of me paying with various forms of Federal assistance money and while I was waiting in line a transvestite walked by (no lie). That's my typical Wal mart experience.

[virgil]

Walmart is the race to the bottom in quality as well as standard of living. I guess an extra tumor on your liver is no big deal when there is so much money to be made. It's only a liver.

[Normal4me]

My Wal-Mart has a deli counter where they slice the meat and cheeses. The one thing I don't like about buying meat at Wal-Mart is that everything is in 'Family Packs'. I am single, I don't need six steaks or 12 pork chops or 4 chicken breasts...I buy cat food and paper products there and my food elsewhere.

[dirtydanusa]

The unions are destroying their own industries.

The real problem: a CEO is making millions of dollars and his hired bean counters sitting around trying to get him an even bigger piece of the pie. Move it to China, pay the workers a penny on the dollar and the CEO can afford anything his greedy heart can imagine.

[speekinout]

You pay higher prices at Gelsons,

I lived in CA in the 70's and 80's. Gelson's produce sections were worth every penny. I did buy paper products and cleaning supplies at the cheaper stores, usually a Price Club.
I think the grocery store workers on strike are just talking their way out of jobs. Stores like Ralph's don't have the best goods or the lowest prices. If they are forced to have the highest prices, they're doomed.

[The Chief]

Went shopping there just this afternoon.

I probably saved $10 to $15 compared to me getting the same items at the supermarket I usually go to.

I would go there all the time for most of my shopping needs but it isn't in the town I live in and sometimes it's just not practical for me to go there. Plus I don't like their meat department...

[Normal4me]

" Either way, you cannot make a living on a Wal*mart salary.

I assume people are making it on a Wal-Mart salary, the question is what kind of living? People work at convience stores, fast food joints, etc. It may not be our style of 'living' but....btw, I learned last night that China is responsible for only 12% of our imports, Canada is the highest. Go figure.

[Jet Jaguar]

I was in a Fry's in Phoenix two days ago and my checker mentioned they would be on strike in about two weeks. He said they were upset at Walmart as well.

[arjay]

Boy, when I worked in a supermarket in the late nineteen sixties, I made the princely sum of 50 cents and hour.

Absolutely nobody made decent wages in the supermarkets then.

[republicangel]

like i said in an earlier post, they have the best produce department around. they don't grow the stuff in the back of wal-mart. they keep it clean and fresh.

[republicangel]

if i could afford harris teeter i would probably not shop there anyway. they pi**ed me off pretty good during the hurricane mess.

[Modernman]

they pi**ed me off pretty good during the hurricane mess

How so?

[nmh]

PSSSST don't tell Willie Green, another liberal poster here that UNIONS do have an impact.

"At Wal-Mart, the average wage is about $8.50 an hour, compared with $13 at unionized supermarkets."

[republicangel]

if i'm wrong, i will apologize, however on the news when they were handing out ice after the storm- they would only let people from the city that the store was located in get any ice.
i work near a harris teeter and would have gladly bought ice to take home to my powerless home. since i'm from p-town, no ice for me.

[Chu Gary]

Oceanview,

"how do you know? are you testing the food?"

The price to be paid for not being in compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices as spelled out in the Federal Register is much, much too high for Walmart to risk. You can be assured that they have high standards for the handling and packaging of foods and for the cleanliness of their backroom and the people who work there.

[ridesthemiles]

Auto workers in South Bend, Indiana are still wondering when Studebaker will re-open the auro plant there. The unions drove Stude to Canada, then they folded. I have absolutely NO love for the unions of the last 40 years. Been in 5 of them, Got screwed in almost every one by the flash guys in their expensive garb, who never lost a nickle when we were pushed out on strike. I once sat in the audience when we voted NOT to go out on strike, and the union called one anyway. Where unions are concerned, the JDL and I share the same slogan: "Never Again".