Analysis: Wal-Mart's growing pains
>
>
> By Al Swanson
> United Press International
>
>
> Chicago, IL, Jul. 6 (UPI) -- With more than 4,800 stores, Wal-Mart,
> the world's largest retailer, continues to expand -- but not without
> growing pains and controversy.
>
> Wal-Mart made more than $8 billion on revenues of $246 billion in
> 2002, an average $7,300 per employee, but its hourly workers or
> "associates" averaged $8.23 per hour in 2001, less than the national
> average hourly wage of retail or grocery workers, union and non-union.
>
> Wal-Mart last month became the target of the largest
> sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history and its low-wage, non-union
> policies and allegations of gender bias have drawn criticism from even
> ordinary Americans who like the low everyday prices.
>
> Every week, some 138 million people shop at Wal-Mart. The company has
> stores in every state and more than 80 percent of U.S. households have
> made at least one purchase at a Wal-Mart store.
>
> The landmark civil-rights suit filed by six women in 2001 accuses the
> largest private U.S. employer of paying female workers less than men
> in every region, in most job categories, and failing to promote women
> into management positions.
>
> U.S. District Court Judge Martin Jenkins granted class-action status
> in California and the suit includes more than 1.6 million women who
> have worked for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer since 1998.
>
> About 65 percent of hourly employees are female. Ninety percent of
> store managers are men.
>
> "They're exploiting women working on the inside while women are coming
> through the front door to do the shopping," Bill McDonough, organizing
> director of the 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers
> union, told a forum on "The Wal-Mart Factor." "Women will let Wal-Mart
> know what they are doing is wrong."
>
> McDonough calls Wal-Mart's advertising that presents a friendly
> smiley-face to consumers "corporate arrogance." His arguments are less
> about political correctness than public interest. Labor fears the
> "Wal-Martization" of the economy.
>
> McDonough says women are not going to support a company that
> discriminates against women the way Wal-Mart has at the dawn of the
> 21st century. "Women will make educated decisions with choices as to
> where they can go and where they can do shopping. ...
>
> "It should be an affront to all the consumers in this country that the
> largest company, the largest company in the history of the universe,
> with those kind of sales and $9 billion in profits, that with five of
> the richest 10 people in the world (heirs to Wal-Mart founder Sam
> Walton), got there in the last decade by women doing more of the
> shopping."
>
> Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is worried about Wal-Mart's impact on the
> global economy.
>
> "The Wal-Mart phenomenon is really not new," Gephardt said. "It's a
> big example, but what you see has been seen many times before. This is
> an old story. There's always been companies that have seen their role
> or responsibility as making all the profit they can make."
>
> Gephardt said free-market capitalism without protection of workers'
> rights leaves the needs of the individual worker-citizen of the
> country out of the equation and it becomes "a race to the bottom."
>
> Wal-Mart imports 50 percent to 60 percent of its products and buys
> billions in imports directly from China annually.
>
> "The whole idea that low wages and bringing in low-price products from
> other countries and denying people healthcare is a good thing -- it's
> not a good thing," Gephardt said at the 33rd Rainbow/Push Coalition
> convention. "Low wages lead to not having enough consumers to buy the
> products at whatever price."
>
> Wal-Mart faces lawsuits in 30 states for allegedly forcing hourly
> employees to work overtime with no pay.
>
> Most Wal-Mart employees don't have company healthcare because of
> eligibility limitations, affordability and the company's high employee
> turnover of up to 70 percent a year. Full-time employees are eligible
> for healthcare after six months; part-timers must work two years.
>
> McDonough said Wal-Mart workers are told to use public hospitals and
> clinics.
>
> "At Wal-Mart orientation meetings, it's not just something where
> somebody says to you, 'Hey, maybe you can get coverage if you don't
> have it.' In many of the orientation meetings they hand you a piece of
> paper with an 800-number to call that tells you about your state,
> county or city options for you to get health insurance or welfare to
> help support your family. That's a Wal-Mart practice. It doesn't
> happen by accident."
>
> "The estimate in this country is that 30 cents of every dollar that
> you pay for health insurance is a subsidy for the people that don't
> have health insurance," said McDonough. "And many have become the
> working poor, working at the largest company in the history of the
> universe, who don't have that health insurance."
>
> A study done in California showed the state provided more than
> $200,000 a year in subsidies for every Wal-Mart store with
> approximately 200 employees, he said.
>
> "Over $35 million is going out and you know who's paying for that. The
> taxpayers are paying certainly, but also all the state employees of
> the state of California, who may not get raises in the future, are
> paying for that. The teachers in the state of California where things
> have been cut back tremendously are paying for that. Everyone else is
> paying for that except for the largest company in the history of the
> universe."
>
> In April, voters in Inglewood, Calif., a predominately
> African-American and Hispanic city, rejected by a 65-percent margin a
> referendum to permit a Supercenter that would have been as large as 17
> football fields.
>
> McDonough said communities fighting each other with subsidies to get
> Wal-Mart to come to town have misplaced priorities by putting tax
> revenue over a healthy local economy.
>
> "Since when did the prize shift from good, decent jobs in this country
> with health insurance to getting sales-tax revenue and the cheapest
> price on a good you possibly can, because after all people aren't
> making as much money anymore. When did that happen?" he asked.
>
> A study by Good Jobs First, a public-interest group, released in May
> found Wal-Mart received millions in direct subsides in Illinois.
>
> The Chicago City Council last month approved zoning changes to permit
> a Wal-Mart on the economically distressed West Side, but another store
> that would anchor a new shopping mall in a middle-class South Side
> neighborhood failed by one vote.
>
> Community opposition is growing to the project, which aldermen will
> vote on again.
>
> "This is a moral issue," said Rev. Reginald Williams, associate pastor
> for justice ministries at Trinity United Church of Christ.
>
> Alderman Freddrenna Lyle, who represents 50,000 people in Chicago's
> predominately black 6th Ward, said while the debate was framed as "the
> unions vs. Wal-Mart," it's about more.
>
> "I have a community on the South Side of Chicago, one of the oldest,
> most continuously middle-class African-American communities in the
> United States. And I've got businesses. I don't have a whole lot. It
> doesn't look like Beverly Hills, but if I have 10 today I want to have
> 10 after Wal-Mart comes in, or Target, or anybody else. I need
> businesses in my community and I need for them to survive. You cannot
> have a successful and healthy and vibrant community without
> businesses. Ninety-two percent of the jobs in this country are
> produced by small businesses. So why would I stand up and vote for
> someone or some entity that's going to close up all the small
> businesses?"
>
> The Rev. Jesse Jackson told the forum he viewed the issue in
> theological and philosophical terms.
>
> "Desperate people make desperate decisions," said Jackson. "People who
> are down often are more easily deceived. So in the short run, if you
> are unemployed and if you don't have much money you make the choice
> between food and medicine, you get cheap prices. But if you look at
> cheap prices, and then cheap wages, and then cheap or no healthcare
> then you begin to count the cost.
>
> "My issue is not with Wal-Mart frankly, my issue is with the ideology
> of Wal-Mart. If workers at Wal-Mart had the right to organize without
> intimidation, if Wal-Mart didn't have these sex and race suits, if
> workers at Wal-Mart had a comprehensive healthcare plan, if they
> didn't exploit temporary or less-than-full-time workers, if they
> allied with local business people as opposed to putting them out of
> business, it would be a big deal. But their ideology is the opposite.
> This is a 'Confederate Economic Trojan Horse.'"
>
>
>
> By Al Swanson
> United Press International
>
>
> Chicago, IL, Jul. 6 (UPI) -- With more than 4,800 stores, Wal-Mart,
> the world's largest retailer, continues to expand -- but not without
> growing pains and controversy.
>
> Wal-Mart made more than $8 billion on revenues of $246 billion in
> 2002, an average $7,300 per employee, but its hourly workers or
> "associates" averaged $8.23 per hour in 2001, less than the national
> average hourly wage of retail or grocery workers, union and non-union.
>
> Wal-Mart last month became the target of the largest
> sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history and its low-wage, non-union
> policies and allegations of gender bias have drawn criticism from even
> ordinary Americans who like the low everyday prices.
>
> Every week, some 138 million people shop at Wal-Mart. The company has
> stores in every state and more than 80 percent of U.S. households have
> made at least one purchase at a Wal-Mart store.
>
> The landmark civil-rights suit filed by six women in 2001 accuses the
> largest private U.S. employer of paying female workers less than men
> in every region, in most job categories, and failing to promote women
> into management positions.
>
> U.S. District Court Judge Martin Jenkins granted class-action status
> in California and the suit includes more than 1.6 million women who
> have worked for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer since 1998.
>
> About 65 percent of hourly employees are female. Ninety percent of
> store managers are men.
>
> "They're exploiting women working on the inside while women are coming
> through the front door to do the shopping," Bill McDonough, organizing
> director of the 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers
> union, told a forum on "The Wal-Mart Factor." "Women will let Wal-Mart
> know what they are doing is wrong."
>
> McDonough calls Wal-Mart's advertising that presents a friendly
> smiley-face to consumers "corporate arrogance." His arguments are less
> about political correctness than public interest. Labor fears the
> "Wal-Martization" of the economy.
>
> McDonough says women are not going to support a company that
> discriminates against women the way Wal-Mart has at the dawn of the
> 21st century. "Women will make educated decisions with choices as to
> where they can go and where they can do shopping. ...
>
> "It should be an affront to all the consumers in this country that the
> largest company, the largest company in the history of the universe,
> with those kind of sales and $9 billion in profits, that with five of
> the richest 10 people in the world (heirs to Wal-Mart founder Sam
> Walton), got there in the last decade by women doing more of the
> shopping."
>
> Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is worried about Wal-Mart's impact on the
> global economy.
>
> "The Wal-Mart phenomenon is really not new," Gephardt said. "It's a
> big example, but what you see has been seen many times before. This is
> an old story. There's always been companies that have seen their role
> or responsibility as making all the profit they can make."
>
> Gephardt said free-market capitalism without protection of workers'
> rights leaves the needs of the individual worker-citizen of the
> country out of the equation and it becomes "a race to the bottom."
>
> Wal-Mart imports 50 percent to 60 percent of its products and buys
> billions in imports directly from China annually.
>
> "The whole idea that low wages and bringing in low-price products from
> other countries and denying people healthcare is a good thing -- it's
> not a good thing," Gephardt said at the 33rd Rainbow/Push Coalition
> convention. "Low wages lead to not having enough consumers to buy the
> products at whatever price."
>
> Wal-Mart faces lawsuits in 30 states for allegedly forcing hourly
> employees to work overtime with no pay.
>
> Most Wal-Mart employees don't have company healthcare because of
> eligibility limitations, affordability and the company's high employee
> turnover of up to 70 percent a year. Full-time employees are eligible
> for healthcare after six months; part-timers must work two years.
>
> McDonough said Wal-Mart workers are told to use public hospitals and
> clinics.
>
> "At Wal-Mart orientation meetings, it's not just something where
> somebody says to you, 'Hey, maybe you can get coverage if you don't
> have it.' In many of the orientation meetings they hand you a piece of
> paper with an 800-number to call that tells you about your state,
> county or city options for you to get health insurance or welfare to
> help support your family. That's a Wal-Mart practice. It doesn't
> happen by accident."
>
> "The estimate in this country is that 30 cents of every dollar that
> you pay for health insurance is a subsidy for the people that don't
> have health insurance," said McDonough. "And many have become the
> working poor, working at the largest company in the history of the
> universe, who don't have that health insurance."
>
> A study done in California showed the state provided more than
> $200,000 a year in subsidies for every Wal-Mart store with
> approximately 200 employees, he said.
>
> "Over $35 million is going out and you know who's paying for that. The
> taxpayers are paying certainly, but also all the state employees of
> the state of California, who may not get raises in the future, are
> paying for that. The teachers in the state of California where things
> have been cut back tremendously are paying for that. Everyone else is
> paying for that except for the largest company in the history of the
> universe."
>
> In April, voters in Inglewood, Calif., a predominately
> African-American and Hispanic city, rejected by a 65-percent margin a
> referendum to permit a Supercenter that would have been as large as 17
> football fields.
>
> McDonough said communities fighting each other with subsidies to get
> Wal-Mart to come to town have misplaced priorities by putting tax
> revenue over a healthy local economy.
>
> "Since when did the prize shift from good, decent jobs in this country
> with health insurance to getting sales-tax revenue and the cheapest
> price on a good you possibly can, because after all people aren't
> making as much money anymore. When did that happen?" he asked.
>
> A study by Good Jobs First, a public-interest group, released in May
> found Wal-Mart received millions in direct subsides in Illinois.
>
> The Chicago City Council last month approved zoning changes to permit
> a Wal-Mart on the economically distressed West Side, but another store
> that would anchor a new shopping mall in a middle-class South Side
> neighborhood failed by one vote.
>
> Community opposition is growing to the project, which aldermen will
> vote on again.
>
> "This is a moral issue," said Rev. Reginald Williams, associate pastor
> for justice ministries at Trinity United Church of Christ.
>
> Alderman Freddrenna Lyle, who represents 50,000 people in Chicago's
> predominately black 6th Ward, said while the debate was framed as "the
> unions vs. Wal-Mart," it's about more.
>
> "I have a community on the South Side of Chicago, one of the oldest,
> most continuously middle-class African-American communities in the
> United States. And I've got businesses. I don't have a whole lot. It
> doesn't look like Beverly Hills, but if I have 10 today I want to have
> 10 after Wal-Mart comes in, or Target, or anybody else. I need
> businesses in my community and I need for them to survive. You cannot
> have a successful and healthy and vibrant community without
> businesses. Ninety-two percent of the jobs in this country are
> produced by small businesses. So why would I stand up and vote for
> someone or some entity that's going to close up all the small
> businesses?"
>
> The Rev. Jesse Jackson told the forum he viewed the issue in
> theological and philosophical terms.
>
> "Desperate people make desperate decisions," said Jackson. "People who
> are down often are more easily deceived. So in the short run, if you
> are unemployed and if you don't have much money you make the choice
> between food and medicine, you get cheap prices. But if you look at
> cheap prices, and then cheap wages, and then cheap or no healthcare
> then you begin to count the cost.
>
> "My issue is not with Wal-Mart frankly, my issue is with the ideology
> of Wal-Mart. If workers at Wal-Mart had the right to organize without
> intimidation, if Wal-Mart didn't have these sex and race suits, if
> workers at Wal-Mart had a comprehensive healthcare plan, if they
> didn't exploit temporary or less-than-full-time workers, if they
> allied with local business people as opposed to putting them out of
> business, it would be a big deal. But their ideology is the opposite.
> This is a 'Confederate Economic Trojan Horse.'"
>
