Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Watching CNN this afternoon I saw a piece on Wal-Mart. Union and political leaders are finally waking up and realizing just how destructive Wal-Mart is to our society.
For many years my complaint was the big ugly store they built on the edges of small towns — closing main street. Then my issue was how they’d close several small town stores to open a super center — forcing many to drive even further from their old main street. Then we get the stories of employees being forced to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime compensation. The hiring of illegal aliens to clean stores was next. Now are all the reports of Wal-Mart price squeezing manufacturers to the point they either go bankrupt for move jobs to China.
Lower prices are usually a good thing. But at what point do we stop and realize that it is these low prices that is cutting into our way of life. What good will low prices be when all local jobs are exported to China? This is what is happening.
I’m certainly not a major fan of unions. Sometimes I think union leaders fight for wages and benefits that can make it hard to compete. An autoworker attaching a bumper on a car doesn’t need to earn twice as much as a school teacher. When they do it shows how messed up our priorities are. But what happens when the company is forced to outsource to China? The union, workers and community all lose out.
If you buy a Chinese-made low price item from Wal-Mart, or other big national chains, you are not saving money. Oh you may think you are saving money but really you are taking away work from a fellow American. You are also putting a business owner out of business. In the end that $3.99 item will cost each of us much more as we deal with an increasing number of poor and many more middle-class folks finding themselves out of work.
Wal-Mart says their average worker makes almost $10/hr – far greater than the minimum wage. I don’t doubt this at all. Still, a community cannot survive on a workforce making $20,000 per year. Who will buy houses? Who will support restaurants?
But people want to work for Wal-Mart claims the company. They cited a recent case of 12,000 applicants for 400 jobs in California. Does this represent high demand or high desperation? I think it shows how messed up our economy is. People should not be driving an hour to work at a $10/hr job. These 12,000 people applying for work at Wal-Mart stores should be manufacturing products to sell in stores owned by their neighbors.
This weekend I shopped at Soulard Market, Globe Drug on Cherokee and City Grocers. At Soulard Market I bought locally made soap from the Brende family as well as farmer-grown fruit and veggies. I also got a brownie from local employee owned baker, Black Bear Bakery. Admittedly, I bought a few magazines from Border’s in Brentwood on Tuesday.
Money talks and we must accept the consequences of how and where we shop. Places you will not see me are Wal-Mart, Sam’s, QuikTrip and local grocery chain and historic building demolisher Schnuck’s. I’m looking at local pharmacies so I can move my prescription from Shop-N-Save.
For more information check out WalmartWatch and a new film, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.
– Steve
Here in New York On Friday, September 16, (Republican) Mayor Mike Bloomberg vetoed a City Council bill that would require large stores to provide a minimum level of health care to their workers. The bill was largely aimed at non-union big-box stores like Wal-Mart. Happily, the bill’s sponsors say they have more than enough votes to override Bloomberg’s veto. So much for all the nonsense about how Mayor Mike is “really” a liberal who’s just posing as a Republican for expediency’s sake. Mayor Mike is “really” a millionnaire who is protecting the interests of his–pardon the expression–class.
Unlike my friend Steve, I AM a fan of unions. Which is to say, I’m a fan of collective bargaining and of living wages and a social safety net–for which unions, among others, fought and won for ALL of us, the teacher and the auto worker both.
We have seen, since Reagan, where worrying about corporate competitiveness rather than social and economic stability leads. it justifies outsourcing jobs, lowering wages, eliminating benefits and abandoning pension commitments. Most significantly, it justifies draining government of the resources, expertise and regulatory powers it needs to prevent disasters like Katrina; or, if prevention fails, to mount a timely and effective response.
I wouldn’t say that the unions are just waking up to this problem. Wal-Mart is notoriously anti-union, and so likely the case is that the unions are just now making some headway on this one.
When you talk about Wal-Mart, don’t forget that Wal-Mart has had an INCREDIBLE amount of allegations and litigations against it over management’s treatment of female employees. And don’t forget that Wal-Mart is NOTORIOUS for its use of sweatshops. And don’t forget how terribly de-humanizing working for Wal-Mart can be.
A relative of mine worked for Wal-Mart when he was unable to find any other work, and he found it to be excruciatingly depressing. His wife would come visit him, and she said the break room there was full of zoned-out, miserable-looking people, many of whom simply laid their heads down on the table. The thing that struck me the most is that she said people would always tell her that they knew she didn’t work there, because she looked happy. (For those who don’t know anyone who’s worked at Wal-Mart, Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed features a thoughtful firsthand account.)
…Still, despite his miserable experience there, this guy STILL SHOPS AT WAL-MART. Not even for anything he needs, just soda and useless tchotchkes. He’ll tell you how horrible Wal-Mart was to him, but when you ask him why he shops there, he shouts that “YOU CAN’T BEAT THOSE PRICES!” …uh, do you really need another keychain or plastic photo envelope? How much of this stuff do you really need, just like that huge empty lawn all around your home, and that gas-guzzler of a car?
As you wrote, I wish people would consider the cost of all these “savings.”
When I’m at work at City Grocers and people look me in the eye and say, “(dollar amount) for this (product)? That’s too much!” I certainly wish our prices were lower, too, but still…. I tell people who say that, “Well, thanks for helping make sure I have a job I enjoy in a place that treats me like a human being. I appreciate it.” Out of the job opportunities I had when I was looking, not surprisingly, the local business was the one that seemed by far the most humane.
I prefer Target …. but anyway, the teacher in me just loves this post but I’m a bit uncomfortable with the comparison between auto workers and teachers. I couldn’t fix a car if I tried — I am not mechanically inclined at all — I can spout mass comm theory ad nauseum — but I’m not sure we need either. I think wal-mart is a symptom of a consumption society. If the throw away society and the demand for lots of cheap shit would go away, so would Wal-Mart.
I saw that segment on CNN, too. My partner and I are always noting how cheap America is becoming. We don’t mean cost of living, we mean a rejection of quality. We mean crappy new houses, lazy real estate development, short-changing transit, short-changing of good public spaces, short-changing education, hostility towards intellectualism & science, etc. America is becoming cheap (not frugal). It is amazing that as we become extremely cheap, we are becoming even more wasteful. It is scary to think where this cheapening of our society is taking us. What happens to a society that takes the cheap, lazy, quick-fix, mind-numbing way at every opportunity?
There was a good frontline episode about this a while back. The quote I remember was how walmart is creating a ‘race to the bottom’. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/
I suppose there are many who would want to rip out my tongue for this statement, but $6/gallon gas could be one of the best things that ever happened to this country. ‘Hummers’ would become museum relics, and fuel efficiency would become our biggest focus. Wal-Mart would have to stop building super stores in the sub- and ex-urbs, as it will no longer be affordable to drive there. And the $1 Wal-Mart toilet brush from China would have to contend with much higher freight costs, which would help bring back competitiveness with local and national products. As Steve has preached repeatedly, go find the movie “End of Suburbia”…..very enlightening.
I agree with you Richard! Definitely would make us “greener” and would get our priorities back in line. Now, where did I put my bicycle?
There is only one thing in my mind that could truly change Walmart in a significant enough way to make it a “good corporate citizen”.
Us.
People who buy things. Not buying from Walmart is the only real way to fight them. No amount of pointless, vague, easily-circumvented, non-enforced legilation or public “shame on you” mentality will change Walmart. Why? Because they still make more money doing things their way.
The free-market economy (which I know is still oppossed by some) gives us the buyers the power to effect the market is ways that we often don’t even imagine. However our failure to do so is indeed OUR failure.
I personally haven’t been in a Walmart in years. Primarily for aestetic and “shopper experience” reasons moreso than politcal ones. I could care less about the plight of unions or the growth of international outsourcing. But Walmart is a horrible store and I let Walmart know that by NOT GOING THERE. Even though I know the prices are lower.
People need to learn to speak with their wallets.
Steve, do you know if there are any screenings of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price planned in St. Louis?
Paul,
I don’t know if any screenings of that film are planned but you can watch the PBS Frontline documentary “Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/
Local activist David Sladky has a new monthly progressive film series at the Carpeneter Branch Library. Anyone who wants to suggest that he screen the Wal-Mart documentary can e-mail him at: tanstl at hotmail.com