What do you think of Wal-Mart?

[Bill McBlueState]

I started a thread yesterday about how economic security is an important component of "homeland security." Since I used Wal-Mart as a specific example, the thread quickly turned into a low-level flame fest about the merits or lack thereof of Wal-Mart.

It surprises me that this seems to be such a controversial topic on DU; I would have thought people on a progressive message board would be overwhelmingly opposed to Wal-Mart's business practices. On the other hand, some argue that Wal-Mart's low prices are a good thing for people with low-paying jobs.

So, what do you think....

[RummyTheDummy]

1. The root of all evil in the known universe

And when I'm occassionally forced to shop there (when Super Target is closed)I feel dirty.

[Castro]

14. If they are moving using the government to take land

from people then they are bad....but I do like to go there...the movies are cheap...

[SemperEadem]

21. Walmart is dirty, nasty, picked over

like a bunch of malaysian monkeys ran roughshod through the store.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bif]

2. I've only been in one.

Not only was it a dump, when I found out they didn't sell beer, I vowed I'd never set foot in one again. And that was about 10 years ago.

[mike_c]

3. luckily, I live in a community that denied Wal-mart a foothold...

...in a voter referendum (Wal-mart wanted a zoning variance which quickly became a debate about whether we wanted Wal-mart at all). The nearest Wal-mart is about 3 hours away. I like it that way.

[bryant69]

4. The problem is the term "within reason"

If we are going to stay within reason than that means Walmart should pay their employees a fair wage, with adaquete benefits.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Bill McBlueState]

6. the point of that phrase

was that I didn't think anyone would agree that Wal-Mart should be given absolutely free reign to keep prices low. For example, even the most pro-Wal-Mart people think the chain should still have to abide by the minimum wage law. Well-- except the Waltons, maybe.

But yeah, I'd say most of what it does now is pretty unreasonable.

[HEyHEY]

5. Hate them, they are out to destroy the country

Their whole ideal is to shut down mom and pop operations, and have everyone working for them at shit wages.

[dr.strangelove]

7. I love Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart follows the minimum requirements that we put before them. Wal-Mart is the perfect example of why I am liberal. They don't hate their employees, they do the minimum they have to do. We should never expect a business to do anything else but the minimum. Thats why the government needs a liberal and house to force business to raise minimum wage, provide reasonable health care and improve working conditions.

People, this is why we are liberal/progressive. We can't trust business to do good at their expense. We need to force them to do it.

I'm sorry, but I can't hate Wal-Mart for pushing the system to the letter of the law. I can hate the freeping repubes who vote to take back workplace restrictions.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. maybe you've got a point there

We deserve a lot of blame ourselves for allowing our country to evolve to the point where Wal-Mart can do what it does.

If the law required that people everywhere were paid fairly, nobody would have to shop there.

[Pithlet]

33. We do need to force them

and they fight it at every turn. I may not expect them to to do the right thing, but I can still hate them for refusing to do so. Just because they can, doesn't give them an excuse for doing so.

Sorry, but I see nothing to love about Wal-Mart. Companies will be companies doesn't cut it for me.

[Zinfandel]

8. Wal-Mart--- what every republican believes in...extremely low wages,

longer hours, under staffed, and shitty (if any) medical insurance.

What ALL corporations are out to achieve...Wal-Mart is their wet dream for ALL of us peasants.

FUCK the republicans!!!

[giant_robot]

9. Did anyone else see

the PBS show about Wal-Mart last night? I tuned in in the middle, so I don't know the title. They showed the sneaky tactics they use to get into a community, and a couple economists showed that even the initial boost in tax revenues reverses itself over time. A pretty damning show.

on edit: typo

[Nikia]

10. Bigger picture:They drive others wages down

They demand that their suppliers give them lower priced items each year. Most items are getting more expensive to make, not cheaper. A company realizes eventually that they cannot afford to do business with Walmart. Unfortaunately, most of the time, they cannot afford not to do business with Walmart either once they've been working with them for a while. This encourages stagnant wages, layoffs, outsourcing, and plant closing in manufacturing facilities. Wages become lower for everyone.

[MattNC]

11. I hate going there

but it's the only decent place near me to shop if I'm ever in a rush and need to quickly pick up a couple of things.

[Nadienne]

13. It's like this:

I read somewhere that, on average, people (or perhaps only people with families to support) who work at WalMart aren't paid enough to buy all their goods there unless they get outside financial help. They must live with family members, or get government help, or get a second job, or rely heavily on someone else.

So, obviously, WalMart's prices are, right now, either not low enough... or they don't pay their workers enough.

But then again, in order for any corporation to make profits, its income must be greater than its expenses... or its expenses must be lower than its income. Income is what people pay to them; expenses are what they pay to others (employees, etc). In other words, in order for a corporation to make profits, it must get more than it gives.

WalMart makes pretty good profits.

And this, IMO, is at the very root of the problem.

[swag]

15. I have never set foot in one

Perhaps I never will

[Mr_Spock]

16. Mmmmm, China Mart. I like the nice friendly people I meet in Walmart

:eyes: I like that animated video where Walmart is dictating prices to Santa and you see Chinese workers slaving away in massive sweatshops.

[sinkingfeeling]

17. Between 1968 and 2000 retail profits were up 158% and yet,

wages have failed to keep up. In wages had kept pace with productivity gains, the average US hourly worker would have been making $24.56 an hour, adjusted for inflation, instead of $13.74. The buying power or 'real' value of wages was at its highest point in 1968.

We're in a race to the bottom for cheap labor, so the Wal-Marts of the world can rake in even more profit.

Haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in about 3 years (although my adult son still goes there). It's a real task...because I'm about 25 miles from their 'Home Office' and they absolutely rule Arkansas!

[tnlefty]

18. I haven't set foot in a Wally World in approx. 6 yrs. and I'm glad....

I remember seeing Bernie Sanders addressing the house on c-span and his comments should have enraged every thinking person, IMHO.

While the Walton heirs are some of the richest people in America, we as taxpayers have to subsidize through food stamps, medicare, etc. what Wal-Mart doesn't provide - decent pay and benefits.

This doesn't even address their compliance of doing business with sweatshops, nor the fact that when they move in a lot of smaller businesses are forced to close. If every one of the damned stores closed tomorrow it wouldn't be soon enough for me.

[nini]

19. arent the walton family members among the richest in the world/country?

when they quit showing up on that list I'll believe they're sharing some of the profit with those doing the hard work for them.


Until then there's no decent reason why the employees should be paid like slaves.

[Bridget Burke]

20. I walked into one once & walked right out again.

Just because it was a depressing dump. Even K-Mart is nicer. This is before I knew any other reasons to avoid WalMart.

I live in a big city with many other options, so I have no reason to shop there.

[CaTeacher]

22. The only big-box retailer that I shop at occasionally is

Target---I dislike the concept of big-box retailers--but it is convenient and inexpensive. (They are probably just as bad as Walmart--but I haven't heard as many bad things about them--and I only go there occasionally).

Compared to Walmart, shopping at Target is high class! Target is clean, well organized, and the employees are helpful (at least in my community).

[Bill McBlueState]

23. target

Same here about Target being clean and well-organized. We've had a Wal-Mart for a long time, but a Target opened only recently. Target's always more crowded.

Are Target employees unionized? I sort of doubt it, but I wonder whether any attempts have been made.

[americanwomanone]

28. Target Unionized?

I worked for Target from September 1989 to April of 1999 and there was no talk of a union. It seems that one time there were union reps in the parking lot but not for long. I know the Target where I worked owned the building and the property so it seems they had the right to order the people off the property. It was a great place to work and I was always proud to say that I did. Walmart is a mess and after trying twice to shop in there I gave up. If I am spending my money I would like to do it in a pleasant atmosphere and Walmart is not pleasant!

[Bill McBlueState]

29. welcome to DU!

The thing that keeps me away from Wal-Mart the most -- as far as the quality of the shopping experience -- is their "pet" section.

There's a wall full of fish tanks, and I'd say typically three quarters of the tanks have at least one dead fish floating in them. Pretty disgusting.

[GoneOffShore]

43. One good thing about Target

they donate a percentage of their profits to educational foundations and arts organizations.

Despite some of their labor practices, this marks them as 'semi good' guys in my book.

[Toucano]

25. Low ethics, everyday! n/t

[TrustingDog]

27. wait for the year end No Ethics sale... that's the really good one. n/t

[TrustingDog]

26. sharks are not a good community asset.

at what low prices of crap we probably don't really need, are we willing to sell ourselves for?

[Solon]

30. They need their Charter revoked...

nothing less than that, they engage in so many illegal and unethical practices that to allow them to countinue to conduct business at all is a travesty of justice.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

31. You mean Bush-Mart?

[louis c]

32. You have to be kidding

How, in heaven's name, can there be 11 DUers who believe wal-mart can give shit jobs with no benefits to workers?

I guess within reason is subjective, but Wal-mart must be unionized, and it will under a Kerry Administration.

[CaTeacher]

34. That sounds fantastic!

All of them should have union (workers at Walmart, Kmart, Target etc) protection, a LIVING minimum wage, and health care!

[Keirsey]

35. Wal-Mart and Sweatshops

Wal-Mart and Sweatshops

Many Americans believe the clothing purchased in U.S. Wal-Mart stores is manufactured in America. In fact, the majority of its private label clothing is manufactured in at least 48 countries around the world, but not in the U.S.

In his autobiography, Made in America: My Story founding Wal-Mart President, Sam Walton, proselytized "Buy American." USA Today, August 14, 2001, reported that, "Wal-Mart has more than 1,107 international operations." The newspaper also reports that, "Bangladesh workers earn as little as nine cents an hour making shirts for Wal-Mart.

Hypocritically, Wal-Mart ran a "Buy American" and "Buy Mexican" marketing campaigns simultaneously, all the while reinvesting its all-American dollars overseas.

Wal-Mart is the largest importer of Chinese goods. 10% of all Chinese imports are imported by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart even established its own global procurement division this year, abandoning the pretense to its traditional "buy American" campaign. This team searches the globe for the cheapest raw materials, manufacturers and shipping routes. They allow Wal-Mart to relocate factories from one country to the next in its endless quest to squeeze countries for lower wages and cheaper goods. (LA Times 12/03)

U.S. manufactures have been forced to cut good jobs and eliminate entire operations when Wal-Mart shifts to contractors with poverty-level wages. At Master Lock, 250 union workers lost their jobs when Wal-Mart dropped the company's products and switched to an offshore competitor. (4/00)

Wal-Mart has such a strong command over the retail market that it alone affects the wages of many workers and the fate of many factories around the world. In a recent series the LA Times described how Wal-Mart's demands dictate lower wages, harder work, and longer hours, while eliminating jobs in factories from Honduras to China. No longer is this humongous corporation putting only America's factories out of business, it has now turned to pitting factories in countries around the world against each other in an impossible race to the bottom.

Wal-Mart was removed from KLD & Co.’s Domini 400 Social Index because of what it called ‘sweatshop conditions’ at its overseas vendors’ factories. KLD, which provides social research for institutional investors, said Wal-Mart hasn’t done enough to ensure that its vendors meet ‘adequate labor and human rights standards,’ according to a statement distributed by PR Newswire. KLD also cited charges that the company hasn’t been forthright about its involvement with a Chinese handbag manufacturer alleged to have subjected workers to 90-hour weeks, exceptionally low wages, and prison-like conditions. The Domini 400 is a benchmark index for measuring the effect of social screening on financial performance. (1/03)

Some of the abuses in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include:

* Forced overtime

* Locked bathrooms

* Starvation wages

* Pregnancy tests

* Denial of access to health care

* Workers fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights


The National Labor Committee reported in September 1999 that the Kathie Lee clothing label (made for Wal-Mart by Caribbean Apparel, Santa Ana, El Salvador) conducted sweatshop conditions of forced overtime. Workers hours were Monday to Friday from 6:50 a.m. to 6:10 p.m., and Saturday from 6:50 a.m. to 5:40 p.m. There are occasional shifts to 9:40 p.m. It is common for the cutting and packing departments to work 20-hour shifts from 6:50 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Anyone unable or refusing to work the overtime hours will be suspended and fined, and upon repeat "offenses" they will be fired. This factory is in an American Free Trade Zone. (http://www.nlcnet.org/KATHLEE/elsalvinfo.html)

Wal-Mart regularly says it does not tolerate child labor or forced or prison labor, but when it comes to walking the walk the company refuses to reveal its Chinese contractors and will not allow independent, unannounced inspections of its contractors’ facilities.

Clothing sewn in China is usually done by young women, 17 to 25 year old (at 25 they are fired as ‘too old’) forced to work seven days a week, often past midnight for 12 to 28 cents an hour, with no benefits. Or that the women are housed in crowded, dirty dormitories, 15 to a room, and fed a thin rice gruel. The workers are kept under 24-hour-a-day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory conditions. The factories in China operate under a veil of secrecy, behind locked metal gates, with no factory names posted and no visitors allowed. China’s authorities do not allow independent human rights, religious or women’s groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions have been crushed. (http://www.nlcnet.org, 10/22/02)

The rest of the article...

http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/fact_sheets_and_backgrounder/walmart/sweat_shops.cfm

[Keirsey]

36. Wal-Mart Dungeon in China

These are the statistics of the Qin Shi Handbag Factory in Sanxiang Town, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, China. This information was provided through the National Labor Committee for Worker and Human Rights.
http://www.nlcnet.org/

There are 1000 workers at the Qin Shi Handbag Factory in Zhongshan City. 90% of them are young men 16 to 23 years of age; almost all migrants are from rural areas...

Qin Shi Factory/Wal-Mart: Indentured Servants held under prison-like conditions
The daily work shift at the Qin Shi Factory is 12 to 14 hours, seven days a week, 30 days a month.At the end of the day the workers return “home” to a cramped dorm room sharing metal bunk beds with 16 other people. At most, workers are allowed outside of the factory for just one and one half hours a day. Otherwise they are locked in.

Working up to 98 hours a week, it is not easy to find the time to go out. But the workers have another fear as well. Before entering the Qin Shi factory, management confiscates the identification documents of each worker.When someone goes outside, the company also takes away their factory I.D. tag, leaving them with no identification at all. If you are stopped by the local security police you could be detained and deported back to your rural province as an illegal migrant.

When you need to use the bathroom the company again confiscates your factory I.D. and monitors the time you spend. If you are away from your workstation for more than eight minutes you will receive a severe fine.

All new employees are illegally charged a deposit of 80 rmb ($9.64 U.S.) for a three year work contract, along with another 32 rmb ($3.86) for the first 10 days living expenses, which includes two dismal meals a day.

Further deductions from the workers’ wages are made for the temporary residency and work permits the workers need, which the factory management intentionally delays applying for for several months. This also leaves the workers trapped and afraid to leave the factory grounds, since without these legal permits they can be deported at any minute.

Qin Shi management also illegally withholds the workers first month’s wages, so it is only at the end of the second month that the workers receive, or may receive, their first pay. Because of all of the deductions and fines, many workers earn nothing at all after two months work, and instead, are actually in debt to the company.

Fines for violating any of the strict company rules are severe, a practice made even worse by the fact that armed company security guards can keep 30 percent of any fines they levy against the workers.

The workers making Wal-Mart Kathie Lee handbags report being subjected to body searches, as well as physical and verbal abuse by security guards and quality control supervisors.

The workers are charged 560 rmb ($67.47 U.S.) for dorm and living expenses, which is an enormous amount given that the highest take home wage our researchers found in the factory was just 10 cents an hour. There were others who earned just 36 cents for more than a month’s work, earning just 8/100th of a cent an hour. Many workers earned nothing at all and owed money to the company.

Seventy percent of the workers said they lacked money for even the most basic expenses, and were forced, for example, to go without even bread and tea for breakfast.

Lacking money and with constraints on their freedom of movement the Qin Shi workers making Kathie Lee handbags were being held in conditions resembling indentured servitude.

In a vicious trap, they did not even have enough money to travel to look for other work.

Rest of the article...

http://www.lizmichael.com/qinshi.htm

[Keirsey]

37. Greg Palast on Wal-Mart

Praise Uncle Sam and pass the 18p an hour

Cardboard eagles shriek 'Buy America!' But one independent group sampled 105,000 store items and found only 17 per cent of them made in the USA. Indeed some items in trolleys marked Made in America came from elsewhere. So just where does all this stuff come from? Ask avid Wal-Mart shopper Wu Hongda.

'Harry' Wu is famous in the States. He escaped from China after 19 years in a prison camp for holding 'counter-revolutionary' views, then conned his way back into the prisons to document the misery of forced labour. In 1995, Wu was jailed once more, but not before he had reported the appalling tale of slave labour...

And outside China? Who makes the dirt-cheap clothes that fill Wal-Mart's shelves? Are the factories that supply the company staffed by properly rewarded adults? This has long been a sensitive topic for Wal-Mart. In 1994, former Wall Street Journal reporter Bob Ortega, author of the fearsome expose, In Sam We Trust, was taken round Guatemalan factories which supplied Wal-Mart. They were filled with smiling adult workers.

But Ortega had arrived secretly two weeks earlier, and managed to speak to the child seamstresses hidden from the official tour. (When the scandal was exposed, Wal-Mart cancelled its contract with the plant.) Furthermore, in 1996, Wendy Diaz of Honduras testified before Congress about the sweatshop where, as a 13-year-old, she earned 18p an hour making Wal-Mart label clothes.

Regarding American employees:

The multi-billionaire took time to go into his shops and warehouses and chat with employees over doughnuts. In 1982, on his way to becoming America's richest man, he dropped into an Arkansas distribution centre and told the loaders, as one regular guy to another, that if they voted to join a union in a representation ballot, he would fire them all and shut down the centre...

Wal-Mart offers a pension plan and there is profit-sharing. But remember, Sam Walton invented the disposable workforce. About a third of Wal-Mart's workers are temporary; working hours are expanded, shifted, contracted at whim. The workforce turns over like the shoe inventory. And the shorter time someone is with the company, of course, the more difficult it is to build up a full pension or qualify for profit shares.

With 780,000 workers, Wal-Mart has the nation's largest payroll. Many are among the country's worst-paid employees. But it could have been worse: Walton asked for the company to be exempted from US minimum wage legislation. Courts refused.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3876621,00.html


After Bush is defeated, Wal-Mart would be a good target.

[tnliberaldemocrat]

38. Have to disagree somewhat...

My wife works for Wal-Mart and I have to disagree with some of what I see on here.

Yes, their wages could/should be better but they aren't as horrible as some on here make them out to be. She began as an hourly associate seven years ago and was promoted to assistant manager last year. After bonuses, she now makes considerably more than I do.

Their insurance, at least in my experience, has been pretty good. The only complaints I would make were no drug benefit for 1 year and preferring to fill prescriptions at WM. Now, this doesn't mean I can't take it elsewhere, just that I pay a higher co-pay if I do than if I fill it at WM.

I know of WM's reputation as to how female employees are treated and to a point, the critics have been right. But I see an effort on the company's part to change that. Don't know how successful they'll ultimately be, but at least they're trying.

I gladly shop at Wal-Mart and will continue to do so.

OK, have at me...

[Mr_Spock]

39. China mart promotes outsourcing by having most products made in China

using slave labor and NO workers rights. Evil as evil can be.

[donco6]

40. Won't go there

Even on a dare.

Personally, I do believe in such a thing as prices being TOO low. If you can't generate enough revenue from sales to pay people a decent wage, then you're not charging enough.

[ScreamingMeemie]

41. It appears to me that when Sam Walton died, WalMart lost any

shred of dignity it might have had by dumping American made products, plastering the American flag on Asian products...and treating women like dirt. Yeah, that about sums it up for me.

My next door neighbor worked for Wal-Mart and has some pretty horrid tales of her treatment as a college educated woman looking for ladders up at that place.

[GoneOffShore]

42. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER

SHOP AT WALMART.
I don't care if your aged, crippled mother works there. Walmart is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!!
Not to mention that many of the people who shop there (Well in South Philly at least) are exceedingly odd looking.
(Yes, I'm a looksist - comes with my job):evilfrown:

[theHandpuppet]

44. Pure Evil At Everyday Prices

WalMart is the mascot for insatiable corporate greed and inhumanity. These kinds of business practices are not what I call doing what is "within reason" to maintain low prices!

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=160-06012004
http://www.now.org/issues/wfw/wm-facts.html
http://www.sweatshops.org/
http://www.geocities.com/iconostar/kernaghan.htm
http://theearthcenter.com/ffarchivessweatshops1.html
http://www.nypirg.org/sweatshops/aboutsweatshops.html