Send Those UAW Workers Over to Wal-Mart!
Wal-Mart Makes Empty Claim of 22,000 Jobs
Don't pity the laid off United Auto Workers in Michigan. They're not facing a bleak economic future at all. They can always find a good job waiting for them at Wal-Mart.
The giant retailer put out a press release late last week that focused on job creation and Michigan. It's all part of Wal-Mart's expensive campaign to brand itself as the 'live better' company.
In fiscal year 2009, Wal-Mart spent $2.3 billion on advertising. That's about $6.3 million every day spent on image. One of the key myths that Wal-Mart creates is a form of mathematics not taught in any school in Michigan. It's called Wal-Math, and it works this way:
1 job created by Wal-Mart, minus 1 job killed at a smaller retailer = 1 job.
The most recent example of Wal-Math can be found in a Bentonville, Arkansas press release that the retailer issued to the media during its Annual Shareholder's Meeting in Arkansas late last week. The release was picked up and run by mainstream media across the nation, and each version contained the inaccurate depiction of Wal-Mart's impact on our economy.
The headline on the Wal-Mart press release read: "Wal-Mart U.S. To Create More Than 22,000 Jobs In 2009." "Wal-Mart U.S. announced today that it will create more than 22,000 jobs in 2009 to staff new or expanded stores in the United States," the company said. "'During this difficult economic time, we're proud to be able to create quality jobs for thousands of Americans this year," said Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. "At Wal-Mart, we offer competitive pay and benefits and real opportunities for our associates to advance and build careers. Job creation is just one way in which we're working hard every day to help people across this country live better."
Last October, Wal-Mart told analysts it planned to open 142 to 157 new or expanded stores during the 2010 fiscal year in the United States -- a drop of almost 50% from its pre-2007 new store pace. Based on the Wal-Math formula, the retailer is going to "create" more than 1,000 jobs in states like Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Utah, Virginia and South Carolina. That gives you a sense of which states will see the most local site fights this coming year.
Given the bankruptcy of General Motors, it was more than coincidental that Wal-Mart chose to quote the CEO of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce in its national press release: "We are excited that during these economically challenging times Wal-Mart is investing in Michigan by creating good paying jobs and offering benefits to their employees. The positive impact that these jobs will have on the families of the new employees and their communities cannot be overstated." All those auto workers cast off by General Motors and Chrysler can drive across town and apply for work at Wal-Mart. They will notice a slight pay differential -- but other than that -- a job is a job.
Wal-Mart implies that the net impact of their new stores will be 22,000 jobs. But this is a gross figure, not net. The net change to employment in the United States due to Wal-Mart expansions in fiscal year 2010 will be negligible, because of the offset from jobs lost at smaller merchants. Most media outlets just ran with that headline of 22,000 jobs -- but one NBC affiliate didn't buy it.
The NBC station in tiny Carolina Forest, South Carolina, WMBF, saw through Wal-Mart's phony jobs rhetoric. A Wal-Mart superstore is coming to Carolina Forest. "Not everyone is excited about it," the station admitted this week. The TV station quoted Wal-Mart's Assistant Manager in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina as saying that Wal-Mart is hiring people in tough times. "A lot of people were laid off for different, various reasons, and we're able to hire them and give them a stable job," the Wal-Mart spokeswoman said.
But WMBF countered with an economist, Don Shunk, who explained how Wal-Mart really works. Shunk said that Wal-Mart jobs come at a price. "In reality, those jobs are in a large part coming at the expense of other retailers that are laying off people and are simply going out of business," he said. Shunk noted that the quality of jobs found at Wal-Mart are often not on par with the quality of jobs people are losing.
The Carolina Forest Wal-Mart is going to eventually have 350 employees, but many of their jobs will not be stable, their wages will barely keep them out of poverty, depending on their family size, and their health care coverage will either come from their employed spouse or from state and federal taxpayers. That's how 'live better' translates into everyday practice.
It would be more honest to tell people what the net impact of store expansions will be this year, instead of trying to present Wal-Mart as a job creator. Just as convincing a case can be made that Wal-Mart, in fact, is a job destroyer, and that store expansions this year will cost many people currently in the retail business to lose their employment in tough times. In reality, Wal-Mart helps create unemployment in this recession. Its gains are usually someone else's losses. As one of Wal-Mart executive told his employees: "At Wal-Mart we make dust, our competitors east dust."
Let the laid off workers at the UAW to apply for work at Wal-Mart, where they can be retrained to learn how to make dust.
Al Norman is the founder of Sprawl-Busters, and author of the book "The Case Against Wal-Mart." He has been helping communities fight big box sprawl for the past 16 years. His website is http://www.sprawl-busters.com
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Anyone who lives in a community that is under siege from Walmart, knows all about Wal-Math. It manifests itself in all aspects of the permitting process, as highly-paid lawyers, "experts" and PR teams descend upon project opponents, gaming the legal system with manipulated data and often succeeding in suppressing the truth.
A job at Walmart is not a viable substitute for a job at the plant.
For one, Walmart does not offer health insurance to the majority of its employees.
The union ensured a livable wage, an hourly job at Walmart cannot support a family in the Detroit area.
The retail market in Detroit is bleak, are they even hiring?
Also, Walmarts are not as popular, therefore not as prevalent in the Detroit area.
Did you do any research on this topic? Your ignorance is stunning.
Remember the walmart employee who set himself on fire?
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/news/article.html?article=1929
Chinese products KILL PEOPLE AND PETS regularly. they have no labor standard and they have no environmental standards. Do you want everyone in the world to be poor, no health benefits and on welfare? Why is it wrong for someone to work for a living and earn a liveable wage? Why can't we have a safe work environment? why can't workers share in the success of the product they are making? Why is it ok for CEO's to make multi milions yet the average worker gets pennies? Are you a corporate exec. who lost 55% of your companies value yet still took a bonus? Why is that OK? WAKE UP. IF WE KILL THE MIDDLE CLASS WE KILL AMERICA.
How is your rant an indictment of Wal-mart? Are you suggesting they should not employ the Chinese and lay them off? Do you have the statistics to compare the relative product safety of Chinese products v. other nation's products? Is their work environment more or less safe than the alternatives e.g. coal mining? Are they not sharing in the success of product they are making, when they are getting better compensation than the jobs they left behind?
just some of the many well publicized product safety problems from China
lead based toys
bisphenol baby bottles
melamine pet food
melamine babyformula
anti freeze toothpaste
radioactive metals
I can go on 'nuff said
your "two wrongs make it right" argument doesn't cut it
Well, I live in Michigan. My husband is a UAW member. WE WOULD NOT STEP FOOT IN WAL-MART MUCH LESS WORK FOR THEM!!!!!! That's like working in an extension of Communist China. No thanks, we will starve first. We don't shop at Wal-Mart and never will. Also, how do they think they can be successful in a state that has no money and know where all of their jobs have gone? People can't shop when they have no money. Yes, they might buy a few groceries here and there, but nothing else. I guess someone could work there just to use their entire paycheck to pay for half of their groceries. A person would be better off living on food stamps, they would get more money for food that way than they would getting a Wal_Mart paycheck.
Most Wal_marts in my area are losing business. The parking lots use to be full, but no longer. Smaller retailers and grocery stores have picked up business. People are now starting to realize why they are all losing their jobs. Can you say A-S-I-A, M-E-X-I-C-O and S-O-U-T-H A-M-E-R-I-C-A......
As the saying goes "like chickens working for Col Sanders"
Imagine if wallymart had a union.
They might have to pay a living wage and offer health care.
It's a small dream.
Well hooray for Kroger...but do you see where the majority of their produce comes from...that's right not the good ole USA, even when it's in season ...also their meat is now marked as Product of Mexico, Product of Canada, and or Product of US, but you have to really watch those labels carefully if you are not too keen on eating foreign meat and vegetables at Kroger. I don't like WalMarts produce or meat either, but boy do I love their pantry supply prices. I'm glad WalMart has successfully kept the unions out of their stores, which keeps their prices low.
I agree that it is 100% the unions that have ruined many American jobs. Also the guy above who is questioning the $55.00 per hour rate - probably accurate when you takebenefits package price, add to hourly salary, and time and a half overtime...It would be about $55.00 per hour in total compensation they get paid.
Lastly, the person who was talking about WalMart supporting sweatshops in India - get over yourself. It is providing money to that poor woman to buy the bare necessities for her family. Working 16 hours a day beats starving in a small third world region in India. And don't you even think it's just WalMart - where do you think many of those designer label clothing is made...right again India, Swasiland, Romania, Thailand, Vietnam - again providing jobs to people that allow them to eek out a living.
And walmart gets their produce from exactly where?
Oh thats right, South and central america and China!
this is more of a symptom of the corporate farming than the stores - we are now importing, yes importing here in the worlds bread basket, more than 20% of our food - not that we can't produce our own, but big box stores such as walmart in their quest for ever cheaper prices have driven not just mfg but agriculture offshore
Why you think its ok for the Walton's (worth 9 billion each) to deprive their workers of a liveable wage while ceo's RAPE their shareholders with multi-million dollar salaries followed by multi-million dollar bonuses evades me. Our country was fine with workers making a liveable wage until reagan came along. Now its all the Union guys fault. You have been LIED TO for 25 years. In light of the 250 million dollar retirement pkg. of Scrusshy from Health South that $55.00 per hour seems VERY reasonable. Are you a bank president or just a greedy rethug? GM spent 4 times more than anyother public company on their PRIVATE JET. I bet they weren't flying union guys to their vacation homes.
"I agree that it is 100% the unions that have ruined many American jobs."
That's what your owners want you to believe.
The bottom line is that Kroger is vastly better than Wal-Mart for purchasing food, at least my local Kroger is.
The only thing I bought at Wal-Mart are Brazil nuts, because Kroger doesn't carry them. But, I don't even buy those now because they're not fresh. I get them at a small grocer now.
In answer to the title, why? So they can kill Wal Mart like they killed GM and Chrysler?
Sure, blame the guys who screw on the bolts and do the welding for 8 mind-numbing hours a day.
Yeah, they hold all the cards.
The far right hates working men and women.
Just like serving in the military, when it comes to working, the far right has "other priorities".
good thinking-now your tax dollars will go to paying health care for the WalMart employee instead of a good union job doing it, Oh-and also don't look for many WalMart employees to buy homes or cars or anything other than gas and food
Huh?
The article neglected to mention the negative effect on US mfg jobs that Walmarts mexican and chinese made products have played a role in displacing over and above the small business and indepenedent reatiler jobs the articel mentions
every 1 new walmart job not only displaces one small retailer job, but also 2 manufacturing jobs according the walmart watchdog groups stats
check out any small midwestern town where walmart opens a superstore - mainstreet boards up and the facotries close
"Let the laid off workers at the UAW to apply for work at Wal-Mart..."
One little problem with that scenario:
Rabidly anti-union WalMart will not knowingly hire anyone who belonged to a union. They consider them likely 'subversives'.
That leaves out most of the blue-collar auto workers, some of the white-collar ones, guess that leaves the low to mid-management types. Wonder how the 'lucky ones' will feel about the large pay cut?
But Walmart had to unionize to get into China. GO FIGURE?
In china unfortunately - the unions aren't much more than social clubs with no real teeth.
go figure in a so called communist "workers paradise"
I heard the Ford UAW guys were willing to take a pay cut to $55 an hour in order to help the economy. We're talking about uneducated, unskilled (in some cases) labor taking a "cut" to $55 an hour. I've got to ask, cut from what? And unions are wondering why company's are closing or moving out of the country. Tha's $114,400 a year after their cut. Wow!
You need to stop taking those right-wingnut brain deadeners. No UAW member at any auto plant makes $55 dollars an hour. Listen to Rushbo much?
And todays autoworkers are not the one man one bolt jobs anymore either most are skilled or semi skilled postions operating, maintaining, programming and setting up complex robotics, cnc machining and automated assembly equipment
the starting wage for a UAW worker is 14 dollars an hour. no one will get rich on that.
those wildly outrageous wage claims have been thorughly debunked by MANY credible sources. I have been in arund the industry most f my life and can assure you no one is making that kind of money
factory work can be hard, dirty and dangerous. most folks lke democrab here wouldn't last a day on the factory floor these guys earn every penny tthey make
In Canada a few years ago I saw a documentary about walmart. They went into the store and found a track suit priced at $7.00. They followed the trail back to its origin to a sweatshop in India whereby the workers were working 16 hour days without break, and took home $.70 a day. The cameras filmed her sewing countless suits a day and she was almost blind from being bent over her machine in poor lighting, and was probably in her late 20s. They followed her home to where she lived in the slums in room the size of a half bath where she lived with 5 other women in her family. She was the only one working in her family so her wage was able to buy candles and rice only for her family. And she was grateful to be working because her relatives depended on her for their survival, and she at least had a job. I've never been back to walmart. Take a look at the Forbes list of the richest in America and all the Waltons are at the top in record income year after year. Please folks, take care of your brethren and use your consumer dollars to support businesses that take care of people, not exploit them.
The Walton family is constantly on the Forbes list because they sold the majority of the company to Chineese interests.
As they say, the sweatshop is a step up from backbreaking labor in the fields or scavenging trash to recycle from a dump. I am guessing that those workers were happier in that factory than they were starving on their small farm plots.
When the President can satisfactorially explain how his stimulus program is 'saving' jobs, but Bureau of Labor Statistics only show 2.923 Million known jobs lost, I'll take more seriously your claim that it is Wal-Mart with the 'splainin to do.
I get ya a union button
You won't be unionized as a Greeter at Wal-Mart. But thanks old-timer.
Greeters don't get buttons...they get paper name tags.
you had to make the misses remark,so hear we go
MISSES, not missus--pay attention.
This idea won't work, because Wal-Mart would never put up the the Unions shenanigans. Whats more, one would hate to see the unions ruin another American company like they did with the auto industry.
As a careful shopper, I've found Kroger, which has unionized workers, to be vastly superior to Wal-Mart for food.
Not only does Kroger list the price per ounce and similar data on all its price tags, so shoppers can see what they're really getting for their money (unlike at Wal-Mart), Kroger has a better selection with healthier choices, better quality produce, and much better prices for most items because Kroger has a lot of sales.
The union = bad company notion is false.
Kroger usually has in-house butchers that process their meats on a daily basis, Mall-Wart has their meat processed in Mexico and after they put it in the styrofoam containers and plastic wrap it they inject carbon monoxide into the package to keep the meat 'pink' so that it looks fresh, even though it's been in the package for 2-5 days before it arrives in local stores.
People like you will only be happy when they bring slavery back.
CEO'S DESTROYED GM. BANKERS DESTROYED THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY AND WALMART IS DESTROYING AMERICA. UNIONS RULE.
ruined the auto industry? what are you smokin?
never mind years of bad management, bad govt policy favoring finacial sector over the productive mfg sector, bad trade deals favoring foreing producers over domestics, and of course the real killer - wall streets greed and corruption causing the finacial meltdown - hurting ALL car makers now
Walmart produces jobs by being the most efficient retailer. They cannot be held responsible for jobs lost at inefficient retailers. That would be akin to promoting GM and Chrysler who produces inferior cars but then again that is what Obama is doing with my money. Also Target and Costco has shown that it is possible to compete and beat Walmart.
They produce jobs while not paying a living wage thus pushing costs such as health care onto either other employers or the state. Thus you subsidise their profits.
Efficiency is a matter of perspective. Sweatshops and tax shelters may seem efficient, for instance, but when one comes down to it, a large impoverished serf class with a few wealthy lords -- that system doesn't promote social progress.
Environmental destruction due to manufacturing in countries with poor regulation and the selling of shoddy products is efficient in one way (short term profits) and inefficient in the long term.
Walmart has a very good supply chain management and only they can extract the best price from suppliers. why blame them for that?
I avoid Wal-mart at any cost! Go to Walmartwatch.com to learn more about this company that is ruining our country by buying goods from sweatshops in china!!!!
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