[Publib] Part-time employment -- Wal-Mart -- the future?

[Backwage at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/26/2009 11:47:01 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
bradthomas at hotmail.com writes:

low  prices! great selection! whats not to like?


Before folk begin bashing this viewpoint, I would like to say that Wal-Mart 
 has excellent prices and great selection.  They undercut almost any other  
store.  Which is why people, particularly lower-income families, shop there 
 with great regularity.  
 
Pay close attention:  I am a left-winger and I believe that Wal-Mart  
offers a great boon to ordinary shoppers.  As a trade unionist I  recognize their 
ability to fight off unions, but I strongly believe that this  has to do 
with the weakness of our unions and their inability to organize in  retail.  
Frankly put, Wal-Mart wins the employees-versus-union battle every  time.  
You can say this is because of its corporate clout and all that, but  some of 
us know enough labor history to understand that all the big national  firms 
that had unions (the automobile industry, steel, mining) were unionized,  
and against much worse opposition than Wal-Mart can or does put up.  
 
Wal-Mart's retain union opponents can't win over the workers.  They  lose 
elections, and blame the process.  Heck, before there was a union  process, 
workers organized--illegally, and against actual guns-and-ammo  violence.  
Wal-Mart is clever.  They know that the lower-income people  who want to work 
for them are less likely to demand anything, which is why they  hire them.  
They seek the downtrodden and get them, and then use them  up.  These people 
are generally too frightened to raise a stink--and their  friends in labor 
don't seem to be able to convince them in sufficient numbers to  rally.  
Unionists need to accept blame for this state of affairs.  
 
By the way, it was the same with Sears Roebuck and Company and many other  
retailers, except that they usually employed folks full-time at better  
wages.  At least until the firms got bought by multi-nationals whose bean  
counters ran things.  
 
Part of what we are seeing here is the destruction of the middle  class.  
This is done by making it almost impossible to gain middle class  status from 
working for regular wages.  Two adults can work for Wal-Mart  full time and 
not be able to save enough for a reasonable home in most  areas.  In my day 
one man could work and have a home for his wife and  family.  Adios to all 
that.  
 
The solution?  We have to make choices.  All of us love cheaper  goods.  
Wal-Mart gives these to us and sacrifices its workers--but there's  no 
guarantee that they would do otherwise if we paid more.  Nordstrom pays  more, and 
has a history of wage violations a mile long.  Every day you make  the 
choice to accept our wonderful practically unregulated profit system.   When its 
consequences come back to bite you, you complain.  Because you  want all 
those cheap goods, no matter the cost to somebody else.  Right  now, "somebody 
else" works at Wal-Mart, but even if they worked at a union  store, the 
goods would still be made by some semi-slave in China.  We pass  our grief down 
the line and take the discount where we can.
 
M. McGrorty
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