This week’s Wal-Mart admiration post
Wal-Mart is the sort of company for which superlatives were invented. Just named the number-one corporation on the Fortune 500 list for the fourth year in a row, the country’s largest private employer pulled down roughly $288 billion in revenue last year – and over $10 billion in pure profit.That’s larger than the annual GDP of Saudi Arabia. Five of the top 10 richest Americans hail from the Walton family. And yet Wal-Mart is what former President Ronald Reagan might refer to as, well, a welfare queen… (Read the rest of the story)
I’d like to add something to this, but all I can say is I completely agree with the columnist… No, wait, I can say more: for all the slamming that unions get in this country, many of the other large employers in the U.S. have significant union presence within their workforces. Do you really think it’s a coincidence that the employer most known for squashing union organizing drives to facilitate not only low prices and wages, but also record profits, is also the employer that puts the biggest drain on the public welfare system? Do you think Wal-Mart’s anti-labor policies have to do with anything but greed?
I know some people have a bad view of the labor movement in this country, and maybe they even have good reasons for those negative feelings (beyond simple greed). But Wal-Mart’s operation is soaked in greed, not some highly principled ethic to protect their workers from the “evil” unions. Add to that the simple fact that most communities that welcome Wal-Mart into the neighborhood only see the local economy worsen in its wake. Then consider the tax money that all of us end up contributing to the welfare drain created by that shiny new super center down the street. For the negative view some have of organized labor, let me offer this: The guy who retires with a good union pension takes less of your tax money for his social security. The family supported by a good job with good medical benefits, similar to what most union workers have, isn’t likely to be joining the welfare or medicaid rolls; the family supported by a Wal-Mart employee, under current conditions, is.
Factor that into your “everyday low prices.”
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