:) Wal-Mart-Low Prices...Always Better?

I've always liked individually owned shops, always will. I am sort of a product snob, so that is one reason. Another is I like the competence that comes with some individually owned stores, such as some good old fashioned hardware stores, where the employees have been there for a long time and are very savvy. Mar Vista Lumber in Los Angeles used to be one of those, to give a specific example.

I don't like the big box affect on the urban or more correctly suburban landscape, big boxes are generally relatively inexpensively built, fairly homely to my eye, and their surroundings are generally poor in terms of pedestrian orientation. Drive in and load up. One of my peeves, in a larger sense not directed entirely at WalMart, is the diminution of pedestrian life, pedestrian culture. I tend to write whole swaths of commentary on this, so will cut it short.

Wal MArts corp development is to have a store evry 100 sq mi or so. for this they will kill any town that gets in their way. They only sell commodity based stuff most of which is foreign and directly competes with the town they conquer. In Maine, which for the most part, is a 3rd world state, wal Mart comes in and any similar stores close leaving empty buildings and no m oney returning to the local economy. Have you noticed any really well informed people providing service at a Wal Mart.

There is nothing in a WalMart that I consider necessary. I try to shop in my town mostly, and for specialty goods, I use specialty stores in other towns. I like service wherein the provider understands the product and isnt some un informed register watcher who has no clue of tools or sport goods or cameras.
As Ive found with cameras, Wal Mart isnt usually the best price and feature available. They just sort of sell the most available and least complicated thing.

Hmmmm..any of you folks have WMT in your portfolios?

Wal-Mart employs more people than any other company in the United States outside of the Federal government, yet the majority of its employees with children live below the poverty line. "Buy American" banners are prominently placed throughout its stores; however, the majority of its goods are made outside the U.S. and often in sweatshops. Critics believe that Wal-Mart opens stores to saturate the marketplace and clear out the competition, then closes the stores and leaves them sitting empty. Freedom of speech issues also come into play. Musicians are at the mercy of Wal-Mart's stringent content rules, forcing many to create "sanitized" versions of their albums specifically for the discount chain.

The sentiment behind Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton's promise of a "better life for all" belies questionable business practices - many that have been challenged by employees, unions, environmentalists, recording artists and human rights organizations.

Forbes magazine, polling business executives (not employees) has ranked Wal-Mart among the best 100 corporations to work for. Yet the employees on average take home pay of under $250 a week. The salary for full-time employees (called "associates") is $6 to $7.50 an hour for 28-40 hours a week, which is typical in the discount retail industry. This pay scale places employees with families below the poverty line, with the majority of employees' children qualifying for free lunch at school. When closely examined, this amounts to a form of corporate welfare, as the taxpayer subsidizes the low salaries. One-third are part-time employees - limited to less than 28 hours of work per week - and are not eligible for benefits.

The company is staunchly anti-union. New employees are shown videotapes explaining that instead of unionizing, they benefit from the open door policy, allowing them to take their complaints beyond the supervisors to higher management. When the United Food and Commercial Workers tried to organize workers across the country, labor experts were brought in for "coaching sessions" with personnel who support unionization. Employees complained that these were intimidation sessions. Many such complaints are currently on file with the National Labor Relations Board.

Whereas Wal-Mart employees start at the same salary as unionized employees in similar lines of work, they make 25 percent less than their unionized counterparts after two years at the job. The rapid turnover - 70 percent of employees leave within the first year - is attributed to a lack of recognition and inadequate pay, according to a survey Wal-Mart conducted. Yet this can work to the company's advantage, since it is more difficult for unions to organize when there is constant employee turnover.

Wal-Mart's statement on unions:
At Wal-Mart, we respect the individual rights of our associates and encourage them to express their ideas, comments and concerns. Because we believe in maintaining an environment of open communications, we do not believe there is a need for third-party representation.

The open door policy is supposed to be so that you can complain to higher managers if you have a problem with one of the lower managers. The associates joke sometimes that the open door policy is really the "open your mouth and they'll show you the door policy." For example, this guy who worked in the parking lot at our store, when it got hot in the summer, he wanted to transfer inside and when he used the open door policy, they showed him the door. They fired him.

- from an exclusive interview with a Wal-Mart employee


Wal-Mart is the leading employer of people of color in the United States. More than 125,000 African Americans and more than 74,000 Latinos work at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club store's nationwide. Two Latinos sit on the board of directors along with two women out of 15 board members. Only one woman serves as an executive officer of the company.

Full-time employees are eligible for benefits, but the health insurance package is so expensive (employees pay 35 percent - almost double the national average) that less than half opt to buy it. Another benefit for employees is the option to buy company stock at a discount. Wal-Mart matches 15 percent of the first $1800 in stocks purchased. Yet most workers can't afford to buy the stock. In fact, not one in 50 workers has amassed as much as $50,000 through the stock-ownership pension plan. Voting power for these stocks remains with Wal-Mart management.

Made in the U.S.A?
Despite a well-publicized "Made in the U.S.A." campaign, 85 percent of the stores' items are made overseas, often in Third World sweatshops. In fact, only after Wal-Mart's "Buy American" ad campaign was in full swing did the company become the country's largest importer of Chinese goods in any industry. By taking its orders abroad, Wal-Mart has forced many U.S. manufacturers out of business. The chain was broadly criticized for being the primary distributor of many goods attracting controversy, including Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line, Disney's Haitian-made pajamas, child-produced clothing from Bangladesh and sweatshop-produced toys and sports gear from Asia. Difficult working conditions also exist in the United States: In 1991, labor inspectors found labels for Wal-Mart brands being made in Manhattan's Chinatown. There, 16 and 17 year-old Chinese immigrants without permits had been working for one month without being paid.


Wal-Mart's statement on sweatshop allegations:
Wal-Mart strives to do business only with factories run legally and ethically. We continue to commit extensive resources to making the Wal-Mart system one of the very best. We require suppliers to ensure that every factory conforms to local workplace laws and that there is no illegal child labor or forced labor. Wal-Mart also works with independent monitoring firms to randomly inspect these factories to help ensure compliance. In fact, we conduct more than 200 factory inspections each week to ensure these facilities are being run legally and ethically.

People are surprised that Wal-Mart would even want to locate a store at Ashland, with another one 10 miles away. But that's part of the Wal-Mart saturation strategy. They place their stores so close together that they become their own competition. Once everybody else is wiped out, then they're free to thin out their stores. Wal-Mart has 390 empty stores on the market today. This is a company that has changed stores as casually as you and I change shoes.

- Al Norman, Sprawl-Busters

Empty Boxes
Wal-Mart stores are often the size of four or five football fields - huge in scale compared to many of the small communities that they neighbor. Criticized for deserting stores that under-perform, Wal-Mart has left behind more than 25 million square feet of unoccupied space across the country (May, 2000). The company claims it tries to sell these properties, but the only potential buyers are other big retailers, and Wal-Mart will not sell real estate to its competitors. In one Kentucky town, an empty Wal-Mart was torn down at the taxpayers' expense.

Censorship

With its roots in the Southern Christian heartland, Wal-Mart believes that being a "family" store is the key to their mass appeal. They refuse to carry CDs with cover art or lyrics deemed overtly sexual or dealing with topics such as abortion, homosexuality or Satanism. While Wal-Mart is the world's largest CD retailer, and in some regions the only place in town to purchase music entertainment products represent only a fraction of their business. However, it is a different story for recording artists. Because Wal-Mart reaps about 10 percent of the total domestic music CD sales, most musicians and record companies will agree to create a "sanitized" version specifically for the megastores. Sometimes this entails altering the cover art, as John Cougar Mellencamp did when asked to airbrush out an angel and devil on one of his album covers. Other times, musicians change their lyrics and song titles. Nirvana, for example, changed its song title from "Rape Me" to "Waif Me" for the Wal-Mart version. They also changed the back-cover artwork for the album In Utero, which Wal-Mart objected to because it portrayed fetuses. And when Sheryl Crow released her self-titled album, Wal-Mart objected to the lyric, "Watch our children as they kill each other with a gun they bought at Wal-Mart discount stores." When Crow would not change the verse, the retailer refused to carry the album. This type of censorship has become so common that it is often regarded as simply another stage of editing. Record labels are now acting preemptively, issuing two versions of the same album for their big name artists. Less well-known bands, however, are forced to offer "sanitized" albums out of the gate.

Wal-Mart's statement on stickered music:
Wal-Mart will not stock music with parental guidance stickers. While Wal-Mart sets high standards, it would not be possible to eliminate every image, word or topic that an individual might find objectionable. And the goal is not to eliminate the need for parents to review the merchandise their children buy. The policy simply helps eliminate the most objectionable material from Wal-Mart's shelves.

Magazines don't escape Wal-Mart's "family values" rule, either. Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Vibe and others have been pulled off the shelves because the retailer deemed the covers too provocative. Some magazines willingly send advance copies to big retailers like Wal-Mart for their approval, and will even alter cover artwork to avoid losing sales.

In Maine, which for the most part, is a 3rd world state, wal Mart comes in and any similar stores close leaving empty buildings and no money returning to the local economy. Have you noticed any really well informed people providing service at a Wal Mart.