How do you feel about Wal-Mart?
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| Wed, 11-26-2008 - 6:23pm |
I read this op/ed (it's tied in with the automotive industry issues) http://www.indystar.com/article/20081119/OPINION12/811190304/1301/ARCHIVE the other day and it got me thinking. I've always heard about the lousy way they treat their employees but...it's their prices that keep me going back. Since I've moved to the South it's been even worse. They have Super Wal-Marts here where there is a grocery store in the Wal-Mart.
Now, there was an article the other day in my local newspaper with the mayor asking people to do their Christmas shopping downtown and buy local to support our mom & pop stores. Now, I'd love to do that but I have three kids and you know where I'm going.
Part of me really doesn't like what Wal-Mart stands for but the other part of me feels like "why should I pay more when I know I can get it cheaper there?"
Any thoughts?

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"I wonder if this is indicative of the kind of people so gung-ho on Wal-Mart?"
"Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish."
Costco has a business plan that pays employees more and has less turnover. They are entitled to their plan. Wal-Mart has a different plan, where unskilled workers are paid a fair wage and turnover is higher.
Under the Costco plan, consumer costs are higher, productivity is less, and job opportunities are few.
Under the Wal-Mart plan, consumer costs are lower, productivity is greater, and job opportunities are great.
Which plan you like, depends on how wealthy you are. The richer you are, the more you will like Costco.
See more about it here - http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/walmart_progressive.pdf
In the spring of 2004, a new Wal-Mart opened up in Glendale, Arizona. The store received 8,000 applications for 525 jobs with wages starting as low as $6.75 per hour.10 A Harvard applicant has a higher chance of being accepted than a person applying for a job at that Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart experiences similarly high application ratios at other jobs. These anecdotes strongly suggest that jobs at Wal-Mart are better than the opportunities these workers would have in the absence of Wal-Mart, either other jobs or unemployment.
Workers in the retail sector tend to have below-average skills and experience and, consequently, tend to be paid below-average wages. The median hourly wage for a retail worker in the United States is about 25 percent below the average hourly wage. This differential has been roughly stable for the last two decades and is consistent with the earnings differential in other industrial economies and in parts of the United States that do not have any Wal-Marts.
While retail jobs are great for some people at some times, they are by no stretch of the imagination the best jobs in the economy.
The key questions are how jobs at Wal-Mart compare to other jobs in terms of wages and benefits and how Wal-Mart affects the local job market. The following subsections address these questions.
The mere fact that more than 1.3 million Americans work at Wal-Mart demonstrates that its compensation is at least as good as the alternatives, which could mean similar jobs in the retail sector, jobs in other sectors or unemployment. One might want to know how jobs at Wal-Mart compare to similar jobs in the retail sector. Ideally these estimates would compare similar occupations and levels of experience in the same geographical location and incorporate factors like the quality of the work experience and the prospects for advancement. Nothing resembling these ideal data are available.
Nevertheless, the available data is consistent with the premise that Wal-Mart pays wages that are comparable to the retail sector. Global Insight used a new data set provided by Wal-Mart to compare wages for seven positions at Wal-Mart to similar occupations in the same geographical area in 2004. It found that Wal-Mart paid an average wage of $9.17 for these positions, compared to $8.46 for a sample from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) weighted to match the geographic distribution of Wal-Mart jobs. Global Insight, however, did not publish results for a full set of occupations or wages.
The Global Insight story is consistent with other data. Arindrajit Dube and Ken Jacobs estimate that Wal-Mart’s median hourly wage was just below $9 in 2001.11 This is similar to the national median wage for jobs in general merchandise (Wal-Mart’s category of retailing) which paid $8.34 per hour, and in retail more broadly which paid about $9.24 per hour.12 Note that these national medians are not adjusted to reflect the fact that Wal-Mart jobs are more concentrated in low-wage states and thus overstate the relevant comparison wage.
Wal-Mart itself reports mean hourly wages of $9.68. These are somewhat below the 2004 national average of $10.29 for general merchandise and $12.58 for retail as a whole. Dube and Steve Wertheim adjust retail wages to match Wal-Mart’s geography and find that Wal-Mart’s mean wages are 12.4 percent lower than the retail sector.13 Dube and Wertheim do not attempt to control for occupation, experience or other job-related factors that are standard in labor economics studies and thus their data do not prove that Wal-Mart pays similar employees less. In addition, they did not analyze median wages which appear to behave differently form mean wages.
Wal-Mart does, however, pay significantly lower wages than those earned by one group of employees: unionized grocery workers in major cities. These unionized workers make an estimated 20-40 percent more than Wal-Mart workers, a fact that is reflected in a similar magnitude mark-up of prices at unionized grocery stores.
In addition to wages, Wal-Mart reports that 76 percent of its store management started in hourly positions, although a comparison to other companies is not available. Wal-Mart also reports that that 74 percent of its hourly workers are full-time, compared to 20-40 percent in the retail industry as a whole. Finally, Wal-Mart reports that only 7 percent of its workers are raising a family with children on only one salary.14
Wal-Mart’s health benefits are similar to or better than benefits at comparable employers.
Edited 12/1/2008 2:31 am ET by postreply
Edited 12/1/2008 2:34 am ET by postreply
Our Elementary does. It's not considered school sponsored. The kids come early, before school to practice, and the teachers that are sponsoring it don't get paid extra for coming an hour early to school.
We had until recently a teacher that gave out religious worksheets to kids too. She retired. No one ever called her on it. It came up with a Jewish parent in a conversation one day, she didn't seem to mind.
"I have highlighted where Walmart has hired undocumented immigrants, "
Your own article clearly states these were not Walmart employees.
"Of course, but we know how lobbies work in this country, and this corporation is working against the safety of the American people."
Your own article clearly states these were not Walmart employees.
The law was passed in 2006 by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president 2 months before the election.
"Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store. It said it tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police."
I've set up celebrity autograph signings at Wal-Mart stores that had better security and crowd control than this store did and have had thousands of fans turn up without incident.
Wal-Mart should be held responsible. Let's face it - a 2000 strong crowd for a sale is a "best-case scenario" for a retailer, especially in a down retail market. I'm sure they've had huge Black Friday turnouts before, they should have and could have been better prepared.
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