Wal-Mart Moms Could Vote to Change Wal-Mart

"Wal-Mart Moms" or "Wal-Mart Women" are the new "it" demographic this election cycle. That may be good news for Wal-Mart shoppers, but it is not good news for Wal-Mart.

Like soccer moms and security moms in prior elections, pollsters believe that Wal-Mart Moms will play a key role in choosing the next President. Wal-Mart executives have promoted this idea, even releasing their own poll about "Wal-Mart Moms." Led by Leslie Dach, executive vice president for corporate affairs and government relations and a former Democratic strategist, the company wants to believe that the courting of Wal-Mart Moms by the presidential candidates places Wal-Mart on an untouchable political pedestal. This is foolish thinking on Wal-Mart's part.

The values of an average Wal-Mart Mom are not Wal-Mart's values. In fact, their values are in direct conflict. The more Wal-Mart encourages Wal-Mart Moms to vote, the more it endangers the "values" that the company depends on for its business model to succeed. An organized voting bloc of Wal-Mart Women may very well demand change, but it will not be the change that Wal-Mart wants.

Wal-Mart Moms have already been defined in a multitude of ways. Wal-Mart Moms or Wal-Mart Women tend to be more suburban and rural, typically white, less formally educated, lower income and shop at Wal-Mart because they are feeling financially squeezed. These women have basic economic concerns - adequate income to support their families and pay equity in the workplace, affordable health care to take care of their children and ailing parents; and accessible education to provide future opportunities for their children.

Since 2005, Wal-Mart's wages (using their own figures) have gone down when accounted for inflation. As the nation's largest private employer (1.4 million U.S. workers), Wal-Mart has a disproportionately large impact on hourly wages overall in the low-wage workforce.

The UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education issued a report last year, which found that between 1992 and 2000, the opening of a single Wal-Mart store in a county lowered average retail wages in that county by between .5 and .9 percent. In the general merchandise sector, wages fell by 1 percent for each new Wal-Mart. And for grocery store employees the effect of a single new Wal-Mart was a 1.5 percent reduction in earnings. Many Wal-Mart Women are low-wage workers themselves and are suffering because of Wal-Mart's downward push on wages.

Naturally, the wage concern is an even bigger issue for women given the gender gap. Wal-Mart has particular problems in that area. For years, the company has been fighting the largest gender-based workplace discrimination lawsuit in the country, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart.

In 2003, Dr. Richard Drogin, professor emeritus at California State University-Hayward, conducted a study on wages for female employees at Wal-Mart and found that female hourly workers earn up to 37 cents less per hour than their male counterparts; women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart's total workforce, but only 33 percent of its managers; and women make up 92 percent of Wal-Mart's cashiers, but only 14 percent of Wal-Mart store managers. [Wal-Mart Class, Plaintiff's Expert Dr. Richard Drogin's Statistical Report; New York Times, 12/30/04.]

Another important concern for Wal-Mart Moms is affordable access to quality health care. As the largest U.S. employer, Wal-Mart sets a standard for health care benefits, particularly in the retail sector. Unfortunately, the plan the company offers focuses on high deductibles and low benefits. The plan is so poor that half of Wal-Mart's workers do not use it and thousands of them choose to take Medicaid instead. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart does little to nothing to support national reform.

Wal-Mart Moms need quality, affordable health care for themselves and for their families. If Wal-Mart Moms swing this election, health care will have to be a priority for the next Administration, and Wal-Mart will be forced to do better.

Of course, Wal-Mart Moms are also interested in their children's education. According to a study conducted by the House Education and Workforce Committee's Democratic staff, a typical Wal-Mart store employing 200 people costs the American taxpayer $420,750 a year - about $2,103 per employee in public assistance costs due to Wal-Mart's low wages. In addition, Wal-Mart is notorious for not paying its fair share of income or property taxes so when a Wal-Mart moves in, costs to the community go up and Wal-Mart does not provide the tax revenue it promised. That means either less money for schools or higher property taxes for the average homeowner - both are serious concerns for Wal-Mart Moms.

For a Wal-Mart Mom, all of these things need to change. But for Wal-Mart, all of these issues are key components of the company's business model. As any political strategist knows, the more people mobilize, the more likely they are to organize and demand to be heard. Wal-Mart may enjoy being in the political limelight right now, using Wal-Mart Moms as the shiny object to distract from the company's dismal business practices. But, if Wal-Mart Moms swing this election, it will not be good news for Wal-Mart.

Comments

[seedyrum]

THE WORLD IS WATCHING

I think of what WALMART gains by suppressing its workers salaries??

ok so they save money to give to the execs and the shareholders and keep the employees subservient> well in the short term>

However in long term> after awhile the workers wont be able to afford what even WALMART sells>

Will the rich buy anything from WALMART? I THINK NOT> THE RICH WILL CANNIBALIZE EACH OTHER>

THEN the "stuff" that WALMART SELLS IS REALLY GARBAGE>

They are either poisonous>shoddily made> or smaller sized with a same price tag(effectively a rise in price)

Funny< how WALMART TOUTS itself as SAVING customers money as its calling card for good business practice while depressing wages and poisoning the customers it needs for its survival>

WALMART PREY ON THE LOW WAGE EARNER SUSCEPTIBILITY TO THIS BAIT AND SWITCH>

THE WORLD IS WATCHING

[racom]

"The values of an average Wal-Mart Mom are not Wal-Mart's values. In fact, their values are in direct conflict. The more Wal-Mart encourages Wal-Mart Moms to vote, the more it endangers the "values" that the company depends on for its business model to succeed. An organized voting bloc of Wal-Mart Women may very well demand change, but it will not be the change that Wal-Mart wants. "
We can only hope that the walmart shoppers will vote for their own interest this time. Past experience has been disappointing as working, lower income folks have been suckered by the false promises of the repuglicans. If 8 years of reagan and now 12 years of bushes hasn't convinced working people that they are not getting any help from conservatives in office they will be suckered yet again.

[Moose49]

"if Wal-Mart Moms swing this election, it will not be good news for Wal-Mart."

Right on the money. In fact, if Obama wins and the Democrats gain enough seats in the Senate, the Employee Free Choice Act will become law and all of a sudden, Wal-Mart employees will be able to gain union representation when a majority sign union cards. The company's low-wage, no-benefit, anti-union business model will go up in smoke. That's why Wal-Mart has been violating election law by holding mandatory meetings to tell employees to vote for McCain and the Republicans.

American Wal-Mart employees can look to the model of the Quebec Wal-Mart workers who gained union membership (thanks to Canada's more balanced labor laws) and won a 30 percent wage increase with their first contract. That's the kind of difference union membership makes -- between poverty wages and a living wage. And as soon as that happens here in the U.S. and on a broader scale, Wal-Mart will be forced to become a more responsible corporate citizen.

[DuganS1]

If workers unionize Walmart, they may get higher wages and better benefits, but you'll also see higher prices and the closing of a lot of stores and the slower growth in the opening of others. This will result in slower job growth in the US, higher unemployment , wage-consumer price inflation, and a lot of Walmarts closed because the workers are on strike. Just be careful of what you wish for.

[Moose49]

First of all, Costco shows you can run a low-price operation without treating your employees like dirt, paying them poverty wages, and relying on taxpayer funds (Medicaid) for their health care. If Costco can do it, there's no reason Wal-Mart can't.

Second, if I'm wrong and what you say actually does transpire, the main impact will be reduce our trade deficit with China since something like 70 percent of the products Wal-Mart sells are imported from there. That would be a good thing for America.

Third, it ought to be a matter of simple morality that people who work in America ought to be able to earn enough to lift themselves out of poverty and have decent health benefits. But it's also a matter of practicality. Because when lower-income people's wages are raised, that money gets spent in the marketplace and that fuels our economy. When tens of millions of Americans can barely afford to make ends meet, consumption declines and we go into recession.

[DuganS1]

Real wages have gone down at Walmart because of inflation in gas and food prices and not because they're getting smaller wage increases. Real wages will almost certainly go up going foward as gas and food prices are coming down significantly. Also note that the drop in real wages trend has been an ongoing trend since the mid-70s and is not a new development. Simply put, real wage numbers are not a good reflection of well being. Also note that the study may have shown wages go down a tad (less than 1%) in a county when Walmart comes in, but it doesn't mention that the entry of Walmart in a community creates many more jobs on net, directly and indirectly, and pushes prices of consumer goods down and increases the number of consumer goods available to a community to a significant degree. Walmart is a tremendously more productive company than mom and pop retail stores. The Japanese economy has suffered for decades from a very unproductive retail sector.

[glitzqueen]

Baloney. Americans are making less in real terms than they did in 1970, because wages have been deliberately suppressed. All the gains from our whopping productivity increases have gone to corporations and the ultra-rich. They got away with this because women wanted to work. Now most families require two incomes to survive decently and most singles are out of luck.

The picture of what we"ve lost becomes much more vivid than the usual generalities, when you run a few calculations at Measuring Worth. http://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/, Using their economic reality check machine, I found my parents' modest 1968 income (under $20,000) represented more than $100,000 in today"s dollars. Neither had a college degree and they lived in a small town without much opportunity, but they were comfortably in the middle class. A comparable couple earns half that much today and works harder and longer to get it.

Further illumination comes from the work of Elizabeth Warren. Do yourself a huge favor and see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A .

The destruction of middle class prosperity and security didn't happen by accident. Pandering to the greed of enormous transnational corporations like Wal-Mart, our government made choices that urgently need to be reversed. We can help reverse them now, both by how we vote and by staying out of places like Wal-Mart. With every dollar you spend there, you're hurting yourself.

[DuganS1]

People have a much higher standard of living now than in the late 60s. People on average have bigger houses, often have multiple houses, have cell-phones for every family member rather than one rotary dial landline, have bigger TVs, way more TV channels, video consoles, more clothes (especially athletic-wear), better cars, more cars, have microwaves, ipods, have more boats on average, fly to places far away on vacation more often, have DVDs of any movie you want, have washers and dryers, have air conditioning, have computers and high speed internet, etc. etc. There is simply no comparison between how peope live today relative to 40 years ago.