RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Is WALMART what's wrong with America?

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Originally posted by Captain Sammitch:


I wonder if horse breeders and trainers and the manufacturers of carriages had similar objections when Henry Ford was building his industry.

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Originally Posted by Dave the Wonder Boy
I first got the idea to post this, after seeing one of Whomod's posts (one of those rare occasions the two of us are in agreement).

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I just read this. Thanks for the acknowledgement. :) I was also pleasantly surprised to see we're pretty much on the same page on this. As a news junkie, you've undobtedly seen CNN's series "Exporting America" on Lou Dobbs' show. THAT, I think is more of what we need to see from news on a network as well as local level as I think America's economic future is more pertinet than the weather, car chases, sports or Michael Jackson or Kobe's legal troubles.
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Pig Iron, great points in your 1st post. Especially with the doing away with NAFTA bit.

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KrazyXXXDJ. I actually love Target. Or at least their Advertising company. It's incredible how much the Target target has embraced the MOD target. What with the moddish looking models in the print and TV ads, the early 60's retro furniture and the scooter giveaway! My wife even found this killer fishtail parka a few weeks ago there! It's mod culture subversiveness that can only bring a smile to my clued in face.

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Originally posted by myself

Never mind the economic damage done at home by Wal-Mart, making Medicare forms and food stamps a part of employee orientation in the place of what should be health coverage and a living wage.

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Originally posted by Batwoman:
To Jim Jackson and any one else that has nothing better to do than to single me out and try to draw me into a flame war over using the term white trash....[qb]

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[qb]I'm not the only person on this thread to use that term, nor am I the only one on these boards to use that term! I did not use it in a derogitory manor! It was an observation, nothing else!

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You can nitpick about it all you want, so get over it! I know plenty of people that use that term, white, black, whatever. It is no where near similar to calling someone the N word, I refuse to even type it out!

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With that said, you can waste your time trying to suck me into a flame war, but I wont waste my time falling for it. Nor will I post to this thread again. I have nothing else to say since things I've said have been taken out of context.

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originally posted by batwomanamy:

I'm not sure if I think it's what's wrong with America, but I both like and dislike it. I like that I can go in and buy stuff like toiletries, music, and DVDs cheeper than at SuperK or Target, but at the same time, the one by my house is over flowing with white trash. My sister makes cracks about them from time to time, but it's true. Another thing I don't like about them is their clothes, I think they use the cheepest material, and you can get a better quality at Kmart, or better yet, Target...

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Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:


I don't want this to derail the topic, I think it's already been given more attention than it warrants. Hopefully we can move on.

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I agree. But please, just one final shot across thew bow. The website actually had me in stiches when I saw the home page. :lol:

http://www.whitetrashworld.com/

For the record, I see nothing inherintly wrong with the phrase considering I was introduced to it by a girlfreind who happened to be a poor drifter with an drug addicted mom. She would use it quite often and with no malice even though it could have applied to her.

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ROTFLMAO!!! Right now i'm listening to the Rodney on the Rock show on KROQ. He usually does a (Phil Spector) Christmas show this christmas week and it's on now. What I found funny is that he just played a song called "white trash Christmas" by Zish and Tisco (sp?) and there's a lyric talking about Wal-Mart Gift certificates in their stockings.

one more...



so really, chill.

Now back to Wal-Mart and their unpatriotic buisness practices.

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Originally posted by Jim Jackson:
"What the heck is a "frog"?"

"Frog" is a derogatory term for French or French-speaking people.

JJ

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December 23, 2003


Patt Morrison:
Shopping at Wal-Mart Like Nightmarish Trip Overseas

I got to Wal-Mart about an hour after it opened yesterday, which was fine by me, because I'd heard all about that woman in Florida who said she got trampled at a Wal-Mart last month when the siren sounded at 6 a.m. for the early-bird special, and everybody made a mad rush for the $29.87 DVD players, stampeding right over her.

It was already plenty crowded at what I believe to be the only Wal-Mart in Los Angeles proper, the one in Crenshaw Plaza. The aisles were freeway-packed with carts, and the carts were packhorse-piled with goods — some of them, in this season, the kind of pointless ornamentalia that people exchange at the holidays for no other reason than gift-for-gift parity. My grandmother called these fussy dust-catchers "tissy-boos."

I was terrified someone would recognize me. I'd rather be caught at a peep show than shopping at Wal-Mart. The Times' recent series by Abigail Goldman and Nancy Cleeland validated all my worst suspicions, detailing the world's biggest retailer's full-throated race to the bottom — bottom dollar and bottom line, the corporate nation that runs at the front of the pack in pushing jobs offshore, pushing prices low and wages lower. It's the Wal-Mart limbo dance: Whether it's price or public responsibility, how low can you go?

Sam Walton's autobiography is subtitled "Made in America." Sam's been dead about a dozen years, but I'd still like to take him shopping with me to find out just what there is in Wal-Mart, besides Mr. Sam, that's made in America. The grail of free trade — Greenbacks Sans Frontieres — has made it not only old-fashioned to "Buy American," but damned near impossible.

All right, Mr. Sam, just inside the door, Jordache low-rise jeans, $17.94 — from the Philippines. That floaty pink rayon blouse on sale for $9 — India. Ah, here we go, L'Eggs panty hose, nude, sheer-toe, three pairs for $5, made in USA — of imported and domestic fibers. And oh, Sam, oh, Walt — a Disney Winnie-the-Pooh anniversary clock for $19.86 … made in China?

I tell you, who needs an exotic overseas vacation? Let Wal-Mart take you on a tour of the far-flung souks and sweatshops of the world, brought right here to your own hometown:

Little girls' Fruit of the Loom boy-leg briefs, two pairs, pink and blue, $4.66, made in Egypt. Scooby-Doo men's sleep pants, trademark Cartoon Network, $11.93, made in Cambodia. A Vassarette silken heather underwire bra, $9.66, size thirty- … no, you don't … made in Thailand. On the clearance rack, a Kathie Lee jacket from Bangladesh, a White Stag striped shirt from Honduras, a fake-leather-trimmed coat from Korea, another jacket from Guatemala.

Don't I need a visa for this? No, just a Visa.

Faded Glory shirts with the stars-and-stripes label — "established 1972," and made in China 2003. Vicks Vaporub cream, $4.32, made in Mexico. A dozen candy canes, made in Brazil. An Austrian crystal choker and earring set, $6.84, made in China. A Char-Broil Quickset barbecue grill is stamped "made in USA," but the one-liter size of charcoal starter comes from South Africa. And … et tu, Timex? America's wristwatch, now manufactured in the Philippines.

And I loved this one: The Spanish-language Christmas cards, $2 for a box of 32, were made in the USA.

They say 2004 will be the year of the NASCAR dad vote, so here's a boxed gift set, four NASCAR helmet-mugs and tins filled with cocoa and cookies, made in Singapore and China.

There must still be some kind of cachet to made-in-America labeling, because the front of a Booda dog-chew package reads "handcrafted with USA hides since 1963," but turn it over and it says, "made in Mexico and Paraguay."

Finally, I wandered into a cardboard display of DVDs. "It's a Wonderful Life" was front and center, its packaging "printed in the USA." The holiday classic that proves the difference that one good-hearted little guy can make by standing up to power and wealth.

Yeah, and tomorrow night a fat guy in a red suit will shimmy down my chimney to bring me Viggo Mortensen and an aquamarine necklace.


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Wal-Mart's mascot is that simpering yellow happy face tricked out in a Robin Hood hat. I guess it's meant to prove that Wal-Mart, whose founders' heirs are five of the 15 richest people in the country, robs from the rich and gives to the poor.

I didn't talk to the shoppers. They were busy, and what's the point? Just as the bus strikes pitted the working class against the working poor, Wal-Mart sucks them all up: foreign workers desperate for jobs, American workers whose real wages have dropped and left them desperate for cheap goods, and Americans who would rather work at Wal-Mart's non-union jobs, with poor benefits and lower wages, than have no work at all. It's a circle of falling dominoes: Because decent-paying working- and middle-class American jobs are harder to come by, shoppers can't afford to go elsewhere, so they buy goods made overseas for pennies an hour, which encourages manufacturers to shut factories here to send work overseas, which means that more decent-paying jobs … you see where this goes.

This is why the striking grocery workers have held out for 10 weeks, and it's why it's in their interest and the supermarket chains' interest to join forces and hang together or, as Ben Franklin warned, they all hang separately. It's also the reason that in cities like Inglewood, Bakersfield and Oakland, unions and small shop owners and some homeowner groups and even city officials are standing at the city limits and declaring, "They shall not pass." Otherwise, it'll be Wal-Mart's world, and we'll just live in it.

I walked out past a bank of vending machines. Two sold soft drinks I recognized; the other two sold drinks I'd never heard of, Wal-Mart's version of popular brands.

"Sam's American Choice purified drinking water" at 25 cents was sold out, so I thought I'd take a chance on "Dr. Thunder," the Wal-Mart answer to Dr. Pepper, at 35 cents. That was sold out, too.

The machine gave me back my dime, but kept my quarter. I wasn't surprised. Wal-Mart owes me two bits. It's not much, but it's a good start.

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We hear about bomb threats all the time. More often than not they turn out to be just that, a threat, with no real bomb involved. But federal authorities say the incident last Wednesday in Ithaca wasn't a joke.

"This was a device that was not a hoax. That word has been used in the last few days. That this was a device intended to secede as a explosive device," said Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson.

On May 25th the bomb was discovered by a Wal-Mart worker. The Endicott bomb squad was called in and Wal-Mart and neighboring stores were evacuated. The authorities, who say it included a battery on the bottom and a kitchen timer on top, were able to destroy the device by shooting it. Although everyone walked away from this incident okay, people who work in the area wonder could this happen again.

"You don't want to have to come to work everyday and worry about what's going to happen and if something is going to happen you don't want to have to worry if they find it in time," said Jen Robinson, Wendy's General Manager.

Efforts to control this situation were extensive and came at a cost.

"My feeling is that this will come up fairly high because of the amount of resources we had and the number of officers and the number of vehicles. And when you see officer and firefighters down at the scene that means other people will have to be called in to do the normal coverage of what is happening in the city at the same time. So I am sure it will be in the tens of thousands of dollars," Peterson said.

"I definitely think that whoever did it needs to be prosecuted for it. Because that is something that is not, I mean that is terrorism, basically in my opinion. Not only that but it takes away from businesses in the area. People lose money we lose money. Everybody loses money," Robinson said.

Police continue to investigate the incident.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has become the rallying point for criticism of labor practices, but even some critics acknowledge the company has been singled out for being the largest retailer, not necessarily the worst.

Organized labor is the admitted architect of ongoing anti-Wal-Mart campaigns, which have come to encompass advertising, public canvassing, online blogs, media outreach, development battles and legislative initiatives.

Union representatives say they have consciously focused on the Bentonville, Ark.-based company because, as the world's biggest retailer and certainly among the lower paying, it applies downward pressure on compensation throughout the industry. Thus, any success in forcing the retailer to increase its wages and benefits would ripple throughout the industry.

Wal-Mart and business advocates, however, see a more self-serving motive for the focused offensive.

"Union membership is declining and Wal-Mart, as the nation's largest private employer, is a natural target," spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said.

Given the countless variables, lack of data and tangle of conflicting studies, it's impossible to say definitively whether Wal-Mart or another retailer is the "worst" employer in its treatment of workers. But it is clear that the most commonly voiced criticisms of Wal-Mart -- substandard wages and health care coverage -- could easily be directed toward other retailers as well.

Even Minneapolis-based Target Corp., whose public image could hardly be more contrary to Wal-Mart, is comparable in terms of compensation, according to a recent survey by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789.

In addition, several large retailers ranked slightly below Wal-Mart in terms of how much they contribute to employees' health care, including The Home Depot, J.C. Penney Co. and Macy's, according to the premium assistance program of the state's Office of Medicaid.

So why focus on Wal-Mart to the exclusion of other retailers?

"Because Wal-Mart was the innovator of the race to the bottom model and they're the largest," said Paul Blank, campaign director for Wake Up Wal-Mart, a UFCW project aimed at educating the public about the effects of Wal-Mart.

Various UFCW locals, meanwhile, are sponsoring legal challenges and backing community efforts against Wal-Mart's planned California Supercenters, the massive stores that sell groceries alongside general merchandise.

Wal-Mart, for its part, insists the fact it employs 1.6 million people worldwide is proof that its compensation is fair.

"It takes a lot of talent to fuel the company's growth," Lin said. "We wouldn't be able to operate our existing stores, much less grow at the rate we're growing, if we weren't an employer offering competitive wages and benefits."

She noted that every store opening receives thousands of applications for hundreds of jobs, many from the family or friends of existing employees.

Free market advocates insist it's union wages, not Wal-Mart's, that are out of sync with the market.

"It's called the 'union wage premium,' which only exists because they can deny other people the right to compete for those jobs," said Gary Galles, a professor of economics at Pepperdine University in Malibu. "To the extent that Wal-Mart can take away sales from those stores, it's providing a mechanism for non-union jobs to compete with union jobs."

More than any specific wage or benefit gap, it's this encroachment on traditional union turf, the supermarket sector, that is fueling the anti-Wal-Mart movement, he said.

To the extent that other retailers push into or grow within this sector, they are garnering union attention -- though nothing nearing the level of Wal-Mart.

The UFCW 798 in Minneapolis -- where Target is planning a dozen grocery-stocked stores, called SuperTargets -- is working to organize local outlets and has launched the TargetUnion.org web-site.

"You don't think we'll discriminate against them, do you?" said Phil Tucker, a special projects director for UFCW 1179 in Martinez. "I'd love to go stand in front of Target with a sign. Once you're getting into groceries, then you're dealing with us."

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Batwoman said:
For the first few months I pretty much didn't see any money because it all went to union dues, back dues, initiation fees and plane old dues.

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