← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Blond Knight
Thread ID: 20796 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2005-10-29
2005-10-29 04:27 | User Profile
You don't suppose that there is a link between all the imported junk @ Walmart, and the rapidly disappearing middle class?
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[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4377344.stm[/url]
Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 October 2005, 06:03 GMT 07:03 UK
Wal-Mart calls for higher wages
Wal-Mart acknowledges many of its staff cannot afford healthcare Retail giant Wal-Mart is calling for the minimum wage in the US to be raised - but it is not planning to lift the salaries it pays its own staff.
The firm's chief executive, Lee Scott, told analysts that the rate - stuck at $5.15 for almost a decade - was "out of date with the times".
Customers were struggling to make ends meet, so a rising minimum wage would be good for business, he said.
But he resisted calls for Wal-Mart to raise its own wages.
At the same time, Mr Scott called for the firm to become more energy-efficient.
It would aim for a 30% cut in energy use at stores and better fuel efficiency in its delivery fleet.
Profit problems
[B]We can see first-hand at Wal-Mart how many of our customers are struggling to get by Lee Scott, Wal-Mart chief executive[/B]
Mr Scott, speaking a week after the US Senate voted down a minimum wage rise to $6.25, said he normally would not take a position in public on this kind of issue.
But he said the hard-pressed status of many of his firm's customers changed the rules.
"We simply believe it is time for Congress to take a responsible look at the minimum wage and other legislation that may help working families," he said.
"We can see first-hand at Wal-Mart how many of our customers are struggling to get by."
[B]Despite his call for a general rise in wages, Mr Scott said the firm would not be raising its own pay rates for "associates", as it calls its shopfloor staff, saying it would hammer the firm's $10bn a year profits.[/B]
Wal-Mart pays an average of $9.37 an hour.
"We almost always pay better" than competing firms, he said, both to analysts and in a speech to staff.
"But that is often overlooked or ignored in the public debate about Wal-Mart."
Still, the group - the biggest retailer in the world - acknowledged that healthcare in particular was a burden for its employees, promising to introduce a cheaper healthcare package.
Less than half its staff are covered by its health plan - with the rest either uninsured or reliant on the US's Medicaid system, designed to provide coverage for those left without health insurance by unemployment or low incomes.
'Do more'
The speech was met with a mixture of scepticism and appreciation by critics.
Pressure group Wal-Mart Watch said the company's "(recognition) that their employee health plan is inadequate for their employees and unfair to taxpayers forced to support their use of Medicaid" was to be appreciated.
But it said the group could easily afford to do more.
And another group, Wake-Up Wal-Mart - backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union - said the firm was simply engaging in a publicity stunt "meant to repair a faltering public image".
2005-10-29 13:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Blond Knight]You don't suppose that there is a link between all the imported junk @ Walmart, and the rapidly disappearing middle class?[/QUOTE]
Walmart stores pay above minimum wage, so raising minimum wage would only harm Walmart's competition which often pays less.
And, no, I don't think Walmart is to blame for the hardship of the middle-class. The worst Walmart does is make the middle-class feel better because Walmart sells stuff so cheap. People can fill their homes with junk and not feel so poor. But, to pay the mortgage, pay for the children's education, pay for medical insurance, fill their SUVs with gas, pay high taxes, and pay the monthly charges for for internet/cell phone/phone/electric/sewage/cable TV/on-line gaming/XM radio/Etc., the wife still feels like she has to work to instead of raise children.
2005-10-29 15:55 | User Profile
I am a Wall Mart addicted junkie and I admit it....... last month and last week I bought a 42" flat monitor for $1,800 (elsewhere $2,150) and a leather recliner that feels like a glove on my body for $400.00 (elswhere $750.00) so if you find foult on any of the above then shoot me, that would be only because I know a good price when I see it. :whstl:
By the way I am sitting about fifteen feet away from my monitor and you don't know how good it feels, watching the Red Sox winn the championship on my screen was almost like being there in person.
2005-11-02 19:23 | User Profile
Ponce -- Surely you mean the White Sox!
2005-11-02 20:11 | User Profile
[quote=Happy Hacker] And, no, I don't think Walmart is to blame for the hardship of the middle-class. The worst Walmart does is make the middle-class feel better because Walmart sells stuff so cheap. Wal-mart's 'cheap' prices are an illusion, as they are a practitioner of what I call temporal arbitrage. They are borrowing from the future (by decimating both the manufacturing sector and the small proprietors in this country) in order to provide 'cheap' prices today. If Wal-mart were forced to internalize all its true costs (lost jobs, lost manufacturing capacity, destruction of local communities, environmental degradation, bolstering of a hostile foreign regime), then its prices would not be cheap at all.