Wal-Mart: is this the worst company in the world?

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=a0ff8d151167ea29&cat=c08dd24cec417021

It is the biggest private employer in America with a turnover equivalent to that of a medium-sized country, but churches, unions, and an innovative film-maker are set on holding Wal-Mart to account
By Andrew Gumbel
Published: 02 November 2005
There can be few chief executives in corporate America more uncomfortable at the moment than Lee Scott of Wal-Mart. Not that he should necessarily have our sympathy: his company, known unaffectionately as the Beast of Bentonville, after its corporate home, is the biggest single private employer in the United States. Its network of more than 3,500 discount retail stores has been lambasted repeatedly in recent years for its rock-bottom wages, which oblige thousands of its lower-end employees to resort to government subsistence, including food stamps, to make ends meet.

It has faced down critics for its reliance on overseas sweatshop labour, especially in China, to produce the goods with which it stocks its shelves. It has met community resistance to new store openings in many parts of the country because of its tendency to empty town centres of traditional family-owned businesses and foster suburban sprawl. It has been accused, in fact, of being the very emblem of everything that assails the modern American economy, as old-style industrial manufacturing jobs are outsourced overseas and are replaced with low-wage, low-security service-sector work.

All that, though, is only one of the multiple headaches confronting Mr Scott. His biggest problem is that he has been making energetic efforts to improve his company's lousy reputation, only to have his efforts undermined by embarrassing new information unearthed about the company and by a spirited organising effort by churches, small businesses, unions, environmentalists and rich coastal liberals to stop the Wal-Martisation of America dead in its tracks.

Things were looking distinctly promising a little over a month ago, when Wal-Mart threw considerable energy into volunteer efforts in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi. In stark contrast to both the federal and state governments, Wal-Mart was present with containers full of fresh water, food and medical supplies.

That was followed in mid-October by a flurry of touchy-feely proposals by Mr Scott - to make Wal-Mart stores more energy-efficient, to make health care at least ostensibly more accessible to his employees, and to lobby politicians for an increase in America's minimum wage, which has glaringly failed to keep up with inflation for more than 20 years.




more...
Now this movie I gotta see!!!

[marmar]

1. Monsanto, Enron, Exxon, Newscorp.....

There's lots of competition in this category.

[lovuian]

2. Halliburton!!!

thats another one!!!

[marmar]

3. Forgot about that one....

They are the embodiment of evil and corruption right now.

:evilfrown:

[ret5hd]

4. depends on the benchmark:

worst as far as an individual employee is concerned? probably not..."Tyler Pipe" of texas would probably beat mall-wart by a mile. worst as far as economy? probably...at least in the run for the money.

[_dynamicdems]

5. Probably the most dangerous if not the worst...

Wal-Mart is so "W." This is a red company folks. They are anti-union. They have union alerts that pass from store to store when someone is in the store talking to employees about unions. They donate to Republicans. They even promote Sean Hannity on their TV network, which is propaganda broadcast throughout the stores. They cut workers hours when sales are down so the store manager can get his (more often than not, the manager is male) bonus.

One example of Wal-Mart employement: in an area where a cheap one-bedroom apartment goes for $800., most Wal-Mart employees make between $9. and $11. per hour. This is times an average of 34 hours. Take about $300. per month from this for health insurance (single plan HMO) and you begin to see the math does not add up. And they schedule people so it is very difficult to work another job around the Wal-Mart job.

This is the same company that is always soliciting donations from employees for local charities. This is good PR for them. The irony is that most employees are themselves candidates for charity because they are underpaid and are constantly having their hours cut. They never lay people off when times are hard, just cut back the employees hours. They telephone people at home before the beginning of their shift and tell them not to come in.

If you think Wal-Mart workers are primarily college students and retirees, you are wrong. Many are single parents and many are college graduates that our job market can't sustain. Many are employees of other industries whose jobs have been outsourced or eliminated due to the new * economy.

Wal-Mart is dangerous because of the way they operate. This is the typical scenario.

1. The company moves into an area creating jobs but resulting (in most cases) in a net loss of total community jobs within a 5 year period.

2. They have a steady flow of employees because there are fewer jobs for employees to find.

3. The employees are kept so poor that they have to shop at Wal-Mart. They might want to support local business, but if it comes down to being able to afford only one pair of shoes for two children, people are going to shop at Wal-Mart where they can afford to buy both pair.

4. Wal-Mart becomes a self-sustaining TRAP that is a form of institutionalized situational poverty. Remember the coal mines? Remember the sweat shops with shed row housing? That is logically the next step for Wal-Mart: affordable tenement housing for employees.

Maybe they are not idealistically the worst company in the world, but they just might be the most dangerous.

[Demeter]

6. BushCo, the BFEE company, has to be the worst

no retirement plan (save murder or jail) and not even funeral benefits.