Wal-Mart uses it's purchasing power to force it's suppliers price down to the point where they close their American plants and move manufacturing off shore, mostly to China. Levi-strass and Creative Arts are two examples. The New York Times recently published a series of articles on this, you might look it in the library as you are a student.
Wal-Mart pays under the market standard for wages, does not provide its employees with health and other benefits, thus has a lower operating cost. A recent 3 month labor conflict over this issue in California is illustrative of this problem as grocers tried, partly successfully to strip their employees of benefits to compete. This has been widely covered in the print media, so while you're at it might look that up also.
Acquiunk, you've sparked my interest! I'm going to look those articles up... maybe I won't be shopping there soon.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12962
http://www.walmartwatch.com/
Although I'm not a pro-union individual, I think that employees shouldn't have a reason to join a union. Wal-Mart seems to be a reason that so many bad-mouth capitalism. Belive it or not, there are capitalists out there who have morals, ethics and integrity.
I also dislike companies who manufacture overseas.
I'm definately rethinking my shopping preference now.
Re: Each Wal-Mart Store Cost Taxpayers $400,000
sss2333 wrote: Every wal-mart supercenter store cost the American taxpayers $400,000 dollars a year. You say no way, how is that possible.
The average wal-mart employee makes $8.30 an hour, that's about $13,000 a year. That is below the poverty level, so that employee qualifies for food stamps, and since they can not afford health care on that wage the taxpayers cover most all their medical bills too.
There's an important part of reality which your calculation neglects. What if the Wal-Mart outlet in question did *not* open? How many people would remain jobless? Would the joblessness insurance claims be higher than the cost of the foodstamps saved on the non-jobless? Moreover, how many people would end up in jobs that pay just as little as a Wal-Mart job, so qualify for the same amount of food stamps?
From an economic point of view, the cost of something is whatever you give up to get it. If you are claiming that the American tax payer gives up $400,000 per Wak-Mart super store, your evidence for this claim looks very weak so far.
8.30 isn't that bad. many jobs offer much less that that.
why don't people work 70 hours a week? don't they get overtime too?
Federal minimum wage is still a lot less than $8.30/hr. Bearing in mind that one needs no special skills nor experience to get a Walmart job, it seems like a fair wage. The only thing that bothers me is that, from what I've heard and read, Walmart makes every eefort to hire these people as part-time help, thus getting around any requirements that the company contribute to medical care or offer any other perks e.g. paid vacations, sick-leave etc. That's despicable, I would agree. That is, I would agree if that's what the original post had complained about. But this $400,000 deficit per store nonsense is...well, nonsense.
Its always good to shop around, no matter how you feel about a particular store.
Phoenix32890 wrote:I never knew that people were FORCED to work at Wal-Mart! 
They aren't forced to work at wal mart phoenix they can work for burger king, or McDonalds or Wendy's or any of the other American shithole firms that pay third world level wages.
The american people have been soundly brainwashed into believing that to work "two" full time jobs to pay the rent is somehow honourable, it isn't, it simply means they are slave labour, who are being exploited, like waiters/waitresses who get paid $2 dollars an hour and have to rely on handouts from customers.
sss2333 is 100% right
Phoenix32890 wrote:Sure you have to work two jobs. That is, if you want an SUV, a big screen TV, a razzle dazzle computer, and all the various and sundry toys that many American young people consider as "necessities".
Today, the young people in America want everything "NOW", and I see that as a big part of the problem.
That is very true from all that I have seen. I don't know many people who don't have a mountain of debt. Its sad. Ive had a few friends ask me for help with their budget, and I really tried, but they were usually unwilling to downsize their spending.
WalMart hires a lot of people, sure.
They could hire even more if they didn't have everything made by sweatshop labor in less developed countries, though.
but then the prices would be higher.
There's the catch 22.
Walmart is also one of those companies, I believe, who, until recent public outcrys, took out million dollar life insurance policies on their employees, so they make more money when the employee dies.
sure, it's good business sense for them, but it's sleazy. Walmart does not care for it's employees or for Americans in general. It's the bottom line:
profits. I try not to support any companies that put the money factor that far out in front of the human factor. It's just not right.
So you grow your own food, milk your own cows, grow your own cotton, make your own clothes, build your own home? You must be Amish, but you are using a computer...hmmm...
That's about what I'd expect from you.
We've done better in the past, before profit was God. We should do so again.
As Phoenix said, if people weren't such greedy sheep, this wouldn't be a problem.
But we gotta have more more more, so we get greedy pigs giving it to us. We'll pay down the road...
suzy wrote:They could hire even more if they didn't have everything made by sweatshop labor in less developed countries, though.
On the other hand, that would lead to less sweatshop workers being hired in the Third World. Why should the interests of of American workers have more ethical weight than the interests of Third World workers, as you appear to be implying?
suzy wrote:Walmart is also one of those companies, I believe, who, until recent public outcrys, took out million dollar life insurance policies on their employees, so they make more money when the employee dies.
I don't know if this is true, but if it is, so what? People preferred to work for them, with their lack of life insurance and all, over working for somebody else. Did you consider the possibility that not all employees care about employer-provided life insurance as much as you do?
Hi Thomas,
You're the one who used the word "ethical". That's pretty much my point; Walmart has very little by way of ethics.
What's wrong with it is that, whoever they hire should be making a decent wage. They're not, and as I'm sure you know, our labor laws don't apply in those LDCs, meaning that WalMart is perpetuating their horrible living standards while making billions on their labor. No, those people aren't as poor as they could be, but WalMart CAN afford to pay and treat them better. I care about things like that. The insurance thing, as I said, may be good business sense, but again, I think it's unethical. I'm talking about life insurance policies where WalMart is the SOLE beneficiary. Families get nothing.
And yes, if Walmart didn't use cheap overseas labor, their prices would be higher, and God forbid we pay more for all the crap we don't need in the first place. Yes, WalMart is great for giving those people jobs. I'm sure that's the real reason they send thousands of jobs overseas; the kindness of their hearts, not the tax benefits or cost savings! All I'm saying is WalMart could be doing a lot better by their employees, and should; and we should probably care that they don't.
suzy wrote:You're the one who used the word "ethical". That's pretty much my point; Walmart has very little by way of ethics.
And my intended point was that third world workers
benefit from American sweatshops, so it's unethical for American social reformers to withhold these jobs from them. I admit that working in these sweatshops looks unattractive to Americans. But they look much better to Third World workers, whose alternative are backbreaking drudgery in subsistence farming, dying of AIDS as a 30 year old prostitute, or even getting killed as a child soldier. Take the sweatshops out of the Third World, and you throw the sweatshop workers from something bad into something horrible.
I'm not denying your intentions are good. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this issue is an excellent case in point.
ok I get it - a FAT TAX on FATCAT shareholders?
kind of like the FAT TAX on fat people?
social reform can start on the fat people
"third world workers benefit from American sweatshops, so it's unethical for American social reformers to withhold these jobs from them."
Who's talking about witholding jobs? I'm saying that WalMart CAN and should do better by those people. Children work long hours in those shops, too. WalMart can help, not just profit from, these people, if they chose to.
Are we really blaming Walmart for this? Why not blame nike, or adidas, or Kathy lee? they are the ones running the sweatshops, not Walmart.
