Musings and Opinions #1
I returned from Washington DC last evening - I was videotaping a MS Excel class that I wrote - the government has bought it and wants it on tape so they can use it to train additional people. I previously presented it in person to about 180 people. I leave tomorrow evening for two more days of taping and should be done Friday afternoon
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Too big and too powerful is pretty obvious when the only store in town refuses to carry the new Sheryl Crow album you want to buy, which is a silly example. Far more outrageous is Wal-Mart's refusal to carry the morning after pill. Imagine you live in a town where Wal-Mart put all of the other pharmacies out of business. Well, Wal-Mart just decided you have to be pregnant. Gonna complain about government regulation now?
Wal-Mart's wages at its stores are much lower than the wages at unionized supermarkets, usually by at least two dollars an hour. That difference is being chipped away at because the supermarkets are winning concessions from the unions. We have to compete with Wal-Mart, they say.
Of course those unionized supermarkets at least offer real pensions and health care. Wal-Mart is notorious for helping its employees file for food stamps and Medicaid. Your tax dollars are subsidizing the labor costs of the richest corporation in the world.
But Wal-Mart's far worse abuse of labor takes place abroad. No, no supplier is going to take an order from Wal-Mart at a loss. They submit a bid and Wal-Mart arbitrarily demands a lower price - lower than they can afford, but they take it because they can't afford to lose out to a competitor. So, something's got to give, and that's the wages of their workers. The real problem is that globalization just threw 2 billion more workers into the global labor market without any corresponding rise in production. This leads inevitably to lower income for us all, but Wal-Mart speeds up the process for many.
Take the garment industry, in which Wal-Mart is a huge player. There used to be a thing called the Multi-Fiber Agreement that set quotas on how much garment imports could come from any given country. This is why some garment factories remained in the US (unionized, too). This is how Indian and Bangledeshi workers were able to form unions and raise wages from six cents an hour to twelve. Well, the MFA expired a year and a half ago, so when Wal-Mart demands "Cheaper!" 12 cents in India became too expensive, and six cents in China became the norm.
Your contention that the wages at these Wal-Mart supplying factories are decent is, I'm sorry, shockingly ignorant. These are subsistence wages, enough for a bed and one meal a day. For a twelve hour work day, six days a week. It is not a good living for you, and it is not a good living for them.
I'd encourage you to watch Robert Greenwald's documentary "Wal-Mart: the High Cost of the Low Price."
I think it's funny that I grew up in school reading how Teddy Roosevelt was a "trust-buster" and that was a good thing. Now, it's too much to ask the government to regulate the richest, most powerful corporation in the world (one which has no probleem regulating how we live our lives)? Well, keep in mind all those desperate masses out there. It might be a matter of regulating corporations now, or dealing with us commies later.
In any event, you could regulate them, to an extent, by not shopping there.
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As to what Wal-Mart inventories and what is doesn't, isn't that their decision? Be it CD's, morning after pills, juice boxes or lawn mowers?
And if Wal-Mart decides not to sell the morning after pill, how does that translate to them saying you have to be pregnant - aren't they saying that you either have to act a little more responsibly or buy your get-out-of-jail free card elsewhere? If I owned a mom&pop pharmacy, I'm not sure that I'd sell them either.
Are Wal-Mart's wages low or are unionized supermarket wages artificially higher? Have attempts been made to organize the Wal-Mart employees? It seems to me that if they wanted a union, they'd get one despite pressure from the company. I've been on both sides of that issue personally and if a union is wanted or needed, it happens.
As far as clothing being manufactured overseas (as well as many other products formerly manufactured here), isn't it because Americans won't pay the higher price that unionized wages cause in products? Some of this discussion is going to be: "my research and experience says this" so yours is wrong and vice-versa. I know people who work for American companies that have facilities in China, Mexico, Taiwan, and others who attest to my point about the $90 a month example I cited and I'm sure you have your sources - equally as trusted. So I think we have a draw there.
So what is the answer? Should the government be so involved that they limit the Wal-Marts, Microsofts, General Motors (bad example - they are limiting themselves with their lousy products and crummy designs)? Who decides how big is too big? And how do you convince a consumer to pay a higher price for goods by not buying them at Wal-Mart? How does the governmment tell a company that it can only grow so big? Wal-Mart and all the others started out small and figure out a way to grow to be as big as they are today. Where is the point at which they have to stop getting bigger - number of stores, number of employees, gross sales dollars, profits?
I"ll look for the documentary you suggested - they are so much more interesting to watch than the drivel that the networks are pumping out these days.
It seems to me that it is going to take about 20 years for the global economy to stabilize - reach a pont where wages and the standard of living in China, Mexico, and other countries are on an even keel with what we have here now. And I think there is going to be change on both sides of the oceans - American workers may be earning now what they will in another 20 years - consumers just won't pay higher prices to support higher wages for products that can be gotten cheaper using foreign labor. If and when there is some measure of equilibrium, it'll be interesting to see what happens to the Wal-Marts - will they be able to stay as big as they are?
I'll partially regulate them by shopping there only periodically. I find the Wal-Mart stores around her to be too crowded, too unkempt and lacking the quality in many of the products I want to buy anyway. We do go to Sam's Club though. I have found that buying from smaller locally owned businesses is often better even though prices are a bit higher because the service is better and the employees know their jobs and products better. Those companies have adapted to the Wal-Marts and are competing with them.
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I'm sorry. I'm not going to agree to disagree about what these slave wages mean to the workers who earn them. Your facts are coming from liars. Ronnie Reagan inspired them all by saying, "Facts are stupid things." Chinese workers make pennies an hour and it's a subsistence wage. You could double that wage, give them nickels and dimes, and substantially improve their lives with a very minor price increase of a buck or two for each formerly $5 pack of underwear you buy. Survey after survey has indicated that American consumers are willing to pay more for clothing that's not made in sweatshops. That's impossible if Wal-Mart insists on sweatshop labor.
And that is not, necessarily, a call for government intervention. Your whole post was inspired by me saying something like, "Wal-Mart? Phooey!" I'm not calling on the government to change Wal-Mart (most of Congress has taken campaign donations from them). I'm calling on you to stop giving your money to the devil. We do have the power to change Wal-Mart. The last two years, since campaigning took off, their profits have sagged and their stock price has stagnated. They've noticed, and they're panicking. But they're not changing policy yet.
Have Wal-Mart employees attempted to form unions? Yes. Wal-Mart has a multi-million dollar union-busting department of dozens. They harass, intimidate and fire union supporters. If the workers make it through that gauntlet and vote in a union, as they have here and there (in a deli department in Texas, and a couple of stores in Quebec), then Wal-Mart simple shutters the operation and lays off all the workers. Nothing puts a chilling effect on a union organizing campaign like the employer effectively threatening its employees that if they sign a union card, they will lose their jobs. Wal-Mart has very effectively accomplished that. We're trying to get Wal-Mart to change its ways, but we're going to have to cost them a lot more money and customers. In the meantime, if you continue to shop there, you are supporting all of their abhorrent policies.
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