Wal-Mart stops smiling at critics

The giant retailer's CEO says the company's foes are taking cheap shots and telling lies and Wal-Mart will fight back.

By MARK ALBRIGHT, Times Staff Writer
Published April 6, 2005

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart has become the poster child for many of the ills confronting the American economy. Cheaper imports that undermine American manufacturing jobs. The growing reliance on low-paying American retail service jobs to support the middle class. Neighborhoods that fight tooth and nail to keep more traffic from overcrowded streets.

Lee Scott, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., says he's tired of his company being the punching bag for critics trying to "hang on to a status quo that doesn't exist in America today."
>snip<

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart plans to become an even more pervasive force. In its 43 years, the chain has grown far beyond its reputation as a death knell for small-town merchants. With the advent of Wal-Mart Supercenters, which combine a discount store with a supermarket, Wal-Mart quickly became the nation's largest grocer. For every new supercenter, two traditional supermarkets close.

Wal-Mart commands 19 percent of U.S. retail food sales, and its market share is forecast to hit 35 percent by 2007 as the chain adds 1,000 supercenters to its collection of 1,700, according to Retail Forward, a Columbus, Ohio, retail consultant. It's also the third-largest pharmacist, owns the nation's most popular pet food brand and runs the nation's largest truck fleet.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/06/Business/Wal_Mart_stops_smilin.shtml

screw wal-mart.

...maintaining my personal boycott. F**k Wal-Mart and it's dystopian plan for dominating America.

However the least of a company's employees and customers are treated is reflective of the true aims of the organization.

When Wal*Mart SHOWS you who they are - Believe it!

earlier!

... with those goddamned HumV's and Denali's... now the trust funders can rest assured that their contributions to Wal Mart will be spent towards defeding daddy's money...

Sickening.

market share is projected to increase (at the expense of their competitors).

Anything that is bad for Wal-Mart is good for everyone else (especially Wal-Mart's competitors).

The heads of Wal-Mart are irresponcible cheap bastards who feel no loyalty to to this country, nor mercy to the working people who created their wealth.

Fuck 'em.

>forecast to hit 35 percent by 2007 as the chain adds 1,000 supercenters to its collection of 1,700<

Infreakincredible.

The way it's going, they'll all have connecting parking lots by 2010.

Yes, we've noticed.

or a variation of it, like "American workers have been spoiled by unrealistically high wages."

Funny, though, I always seem to hear it coming from WalMart, or other business owners who are making higher profits than ever.

My two Republican brothers said this is a discussion we were having a few months ago. They both said, "We Americans expect to make too much money compared to the rest of the world." I pointed out that my husband and I are doing our part to lower American wages -- we make 25% less today than we did in early 2000 (and that's in real money, not even taking into account higher costs of everthing). I asked them when they were going to step up and lower their earnings, too.

The people who make lots of money and think others make too much always justify it by believing they work harder or take more risk, therefore they're entitled to make more while others' standard of living is dropping.

We *DO* "make too much money"...
Perhaps your bros think it'd be a good idea to arrest Shrub protestors and put them in slave camps running a molding machine, like the chinese did with the people in Tiannamen square?

I'm doing MY part! "Adjusted for Inflation", I'm actaully making less money now than I was in i981. "Adjusted for Inflation", everything costs a lot more than it did then, except for gasdoline, which was going crazy then, too.

After-tax corporate profits are at 75-year highs as a share of national income and after-payroll-tax employee compensation is approaching 50-year lows.





The ratio of corporate profits to employee compensation is at an all-time high.

Yes, I'm spoiled by my small town small business earnings. Spoiled enough to clip coupons for my groceries every week. Spoiled enough to be trying to cut out my unneccessary expenses. And spoiled enough to only purchase neccessities. I make less and I pay more.

"American CEOs have been spoiled by unrealistically high salaries and perks."

wages low enough to meet their expectations, so that they don't further ruin this country for those of us who expect reasonable compensation for our very valuable time and skills.

Was a choice phrase that I remember one of the people my carpenter father was doing work for - I will never forget it. They used it when he kept asking for payment which they never did.

I had clients rich and poor - and the poor ones always asked "when are you going to send me the bill?" or "How much do I owe you?".

I had to ALWAYS wait for payment from the rich ones - and they would ALWAYS leave off a few cents to round it DOWN - I remember waiting almost all day in one office demanding payment that was over 2 months late - & the threatened to kick me out - which I dared them - while I promptly volunteered " I hope you're not going to expect payment from these people, cause I'm still waiting" to EVERYONE who entered the office. The asshole eventually came out and paid me - minus the change mentioned above - AFTER BEING TOLD HE WAS NOT IN THE OFFICE AND THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHERE HE WAS OR WHEN TO EXPECT HIM"!!!! I heard a couple months after that that he skipped town and left a lot of people high and dry.

The company was "Michelle's" french restaurant in Honolulu (not to be confused with the one off Diamond Head). Bastard.

steal their money and give it to the really poor................. Seems like I heard of someone doing something like that before.......
some robins guy or something like that, you'll have to forgive me I'm trying to earn my way into a marijuana study so I've been smoking a lot lately practicing up for my audition.

"Trying to hang on to a status quo that doesn't exist in America today" should be reason enough for everyone to boycott them pronto.

They're trying to condition everyone to lower wages, nonexistent benefits, and the eventual end of the 40 hour work week.

No wonder they have their boy Arnold in California trying to dismantle labor unions. It's all part of the playbook.

He's sadly correct in a way,...
but even giant suns collapse into small, dark, dense balls.
So goes the universe.

They bust unions, pay their people substandard wages, lock night shift workers in the building.

On the consumer side, there damn well better be a competing pharmacy. If there isn't, rape victims are SOL when it comes to emergency contraception since Wal Mart doesn't carry it. And if you want birth control pills, better hope that the pharmacist on duty is not opposed to them.

Wal Mart is evil and every day there is a new reason to hope the whole chain goes under.

"Why do you hate America?"

---

Amidst all of the evils associated with this greedy giant, the Vlasic pickle article from 2003 really stuck with me.


The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

"I love Walmart." He got an earful of how evil Walmart was largely responsible for all the manufacturing jobs being sent overseas and how they made it impossible for small business to compete and put a lot of us out of business. My best customers are the ones who hate Walmart.

Welcome to Jesusland

'So basically we're all fucked and we have to like it. Welcome to Jesusland' without adding "Have a nice day."? tsk, tsk.

Some days I think I'm too old for this shit. Other days, I know I am.

by working for Walmart. I am salaried though :P

I've always wondered what most people here would consider as an acceptable wage?

It certainly depends on where you live and the size of your family. I would take a stab at $40,000 - $75,000 per year depending on those factors would be fine for most families.

What has always bigged be about Wal-Mart was the patriotic bull@#$%. That "Buy American", "We kept some small factory open and saved a town" crap is so disingenuous. They clearly are playing on the desire of people to keep Americans at work while their practices are doing the opposite. Several years ago I was working overseas and toured the factory where they made the tags that said "Made in America" to put in the pants they were exporting to Wal-Mart from that same factory. Think about that, even the TAGS that said Made in America were not made in America!

If you have to lie about your values to succeed then your values are a failure.

Edit: spelling

"If you have to lie about your values to succeed then your values are a failure."

Nice. :)

We have to talk to people and let them know how much that box of cereal really costs them.

The only way to fight them is to force them to raise prices to the level that everyone else is working at (by forcing them to pay their employees decent wages and benefits and by forcing them to rely less on Chinese slave wage manufactured products, etc. etc.)

The local Walmart Super-Center came in and boy, were their prices low on groceries. They essentially wiped out a lot of competition. Then, once they reached their targeted critical mass of market share, up the prices went. Now, they are not as expensive as that paragon of self-destructiveness, A&P, but they have them in their sights.

down under everyone to get them hooked away from the dollar stores. Well when they reached their goal/market they raised the prices and people in this small town went back to the Dollar General Store and the Family Dollar Store enmasse. Last year a new dollar store named FRED'S came to town and is doing very well along with the 2 dollar stores. Walmart just opened a new Supercenter here last month and another in next town 20 miles away in February. Sales are slow at the grocery stores while people lap up the specials but I predict the majority will be back as soon as the specials run out. Walmart is extremely greedy and is rapidly overextending itself and will fall sooner rather than later, you can bet on it.

since they have a 10,000 mile supply chain.

welcome to DU! :hi:

many business that rely on trucking everything everywhere. Huge expansion of Wal-Mart is impossible with expensive oil.

The feed and seed trucks that deliver to me keep having to go up on product and delivery fees, which means I have to go up on my prices. It's can't be helped, but I have a lot of customers on fixed incomes and I feel badly having to charge them more.

the other thing that hits them hard is when the working poor hsve less disposable income. The last round of high gas prices at Christmas time dinged their 4th quarter earnings expectations (Neiman's and other high end retailers had record setting--really speaks volumns as to our main street economy).

I wish I could say I was totally joking, but this IS Walmart we're talking about, here.

While some products are MUCH cheaper copmpared to the competition, they also (unshockingly) happen to be of lower quality as well and don't stand up to stress.

It's those cheap items people buy, and buy the name-brand same-as-everywhere-else prices for convenience, it seems. Wal-mart does seem to exaggerate the 'low price' guarantee; the differents is still ultimately by cents, not dollars. :-(

Boycott Wal-mart.

I'm not the only one.

If you look at this PDF of the nations top 100 companies, you can see the equation in terms of number of sales and profits that Wal-Mart achieves here, which is why they're "Wall Street" Mart for the investors. We need to up a company like Costco's position on this list and help them also be more profitable than they show here. A company like Costco should be the beacon for both investors and consumers! This list here even makes a comment to the effect of their commitment to decent treatment of labor:

http://www.stores.org/pdf/04%20JULY%20TOP%20100update2.pdf

Though as a single person I'd let my Costco membership expire a number of years ago when they upped their membership fees and at the same time added free spousal memberships (which I couldn't benefit from), I've just recently got my membership again and am agressively getting all of my gasoline there and trying to get a majority of my groceries there, along with some things like a laser printer and DVD recorder.

Everyone needs to speak with their wallets on this one! And that might not be enough yet according to the stats here. We need to recruit others to do the same!

One thing to note here on this list is that Costco's revenue per store (take their sales numbers and divide by the number of stores) looks to be higher than the other top outfits on this list. If they were to expand their number of stores into areas that didn't have them, my guess is that they'd get significantly more power over the likes of Wal-Mart.

Seems like the goal in neighborhoods with only Wal-Mart for miles in them is to find a way of driving them out of business there through boycotts so that Costco can move in and buy up their property! That's the ticket!

I'm not the only one.

then set prices wherever you want

Walmart is the most visible symbol of arrogance and greed in this country and will stay that symbol.

Fuck them.

all you lovers of mammon.

:hi: Love your screenname.

Mine was loosely based on lunch at the time I signed on. :crazy:

You obviously took more time and consideration when chosing yours, and what a great choice it was. It is exactly what we all need to be. I get so angry and frustrated with people who can't see that we're all in this together.

but very few have any comprehension of that fact. I have found that telling the truth with compassion is the only thing I can do. Anger and frustration only kept me in the stew, so I escaped as a sweet aroma above it all. Thanks for the welcome.

to point out what rat bastards they really are, how unfair to point out the tax and infrastructure subsidies, how unfair to point out the thousands of family businesses destroyed for the extra .05% market share, how unfair to point out the labor law violations, the illegal workers, the overtime, how unfair to point out that when forced to compete legally that haven't been able to cut it. And, oh, the blood, toil, tears, and sweat, the struggle and suffering, all to bring me the lowest possible priced...empire.

Somebody tell that Lee Scott for me that there's nothing cheap about any of this and not to fucking talk to me again until he's taken a fucking Latin class and has learned what 'status quo' means.

THAT's the point, dick!

...as a punching bag for plutocrats trying to hang onto a status quo that isn't sustainable today.

"Methinks those dost protest too much, GiantSuperMegastore"
I think we've finally gotten their attention..........:)

It's significant that they have to lie and dissemble in response to the pressure ... and trip over their own arrogance by rhetorically discarding a "status quo" in favor of turning the U.S. into a banana republic. Fuck 'em. They're the GOP "company store" driving the workforce into poverty.

Ya know, DU has been stoking the fire all along. It has been great to read the many threads over the years helping to educate the unaware to beware of wally worlds closeted intent.

Yae, the mighty hand of DU has struck yee a mighty blow!

WOOHOO!!

We need more people to jump on the boycott bandwagon now that it's havign an effect!!!!

to talk about the cheap plastic sweatshop crap they sell???

Walmart = cheap (and I don't just mean 'inexpensive')

:puke:

fuck wallmart

I used to shop at Wal-Mart, very briefly, then realized that it was like kudzu, just over-running all the smaller businesses. We've lost other discount stores (Hills and Ames) a garden and home improvement store, 2 shoe stores, and at least 2 clothing stores. I have to pass the local Wal-Mart to get to the stores I shop and there is always a steady stream of cars in and out, and so many have patriotic bumper stickers. We shop locally and online, and actually save money by not shopping at Wal-Mart, enough so that its worth the time we take to check the prices before we buy. Wal-Mart's big lie is that its prices are the lowest. They are not. They are convenient in that they have a wide variety of goods and services under one roof and in many of the rural areas they infest, they are the closest thing to a mall the area would get. I will shop any other place until there is no longer a choice. And as soon as there is no choice, watch the prices zoom. I remember reading about the Soviet Union's state stores -- you had to shop there, because there was no other place to go.
If it sounds like I really don't like Wal-Mart, here's another reason: we live in a river town and for them to build where they did, they had to haul a huge amount of fill. The hill they deconstructed was on the other side of the main highway of our city, and they stopped commuting traffic so the dump trucks could go in and out as they pleased. I was a commuter at the time, and I still resent that they were allowed to halt public traffic for a private enterprise.

and counting...

I hope that everyone can now see that it's starting to have an effect!!! :D

WOOOHOOO!!!

BOYCOTT WALMART!!!

Walmart yesterday and it felt good. I was in a small upholstery shop.
One of the owners was telling me to just go to Walmart to pick up something needed for the job she was going to do for me. I said sorry I don't go to Walmart. She said why? I said, I have boycotted them for 8 years. She couldn't imagine why? I said this is a small town, wonder if they start selling upholstery services? We have no shoe store anymore, no clothing stores, one hardware store left. On and on. But, we have one new Walmart "super" store that replaced their original smaller one.

that I was just going to return after I used it that once- this is the only thing they are good for, you would think. Well, after three clerks looked, they didn't have ONE camera they had on display, in stock, and they wouldn't sell the displays. That was my one and only visit to a Walmart, and the last. I had already vowed not to go there ever once they opened, but thought this would be one place I wouldn't feel bad doing this to...

had planned. For the first use I recorded a city council meeting where the Repugs literally fought over a microphone and the local newspaper published a still from the tape. Intimidated the council into acting civil at least, every time I showed up with the camera, most times without a tape- but they never knew. That ended the great photo-ops though...:evilgrin:

I haul freight for a living, I'm still amazed how little it cost to bring shipping container all the way from China.

Another thing that not looked on is all the creatures that hitch rides on these containers. Bugs, snakes, or in the ballast water of the ships clams.

CEO seem to think that labor cost is a bad thing. Can't see that if people have no money how are they going to buy your crap.

More and more shipping containers come in the back door of a plant and out the other end come crap, low wages, no health care. Stuff only in the season that the store says it is. Try getting parts for some crap only made on a production run and whole shop moves or now making something else.

Oh and you white collar workers guess the INTERNET is helping your jobs move to India. Try that old tired line of well you can just train for something else.

Some Jesuits are resisting a new Wal-Mart outside Toronto on religious grounds. Sorry, this is from Lexis/Nexis, so no link.


SNIP
But you never say die when you're a resident for sustainable development. In yet another final gasp, the group filed for an appeal to the OMB decision based on their religious freedom angle. Granting leaves for appeal of an OMB decision is an extremely rare event -- of 1,400 OMB decisions per year, perhaps five appeals are granted. And yet last week, Madame Justice Ellen Macdonald of the Ontario Superior Court granted a leave for appeal citing the "unresolved issues of the competing interests such as those of the Jesuits." Guelph's first Wal-Mart is back on the shelf pending new hearings.

Judge Macdonald has not overturned the OMB decision, mind you, but she has said there are enough interesting legal issues at stake in the concept of social incompatibility to make it worthy of an exceptional appeal. Interesting, that is, in the same way that a reversal of the Earth's polarity would be interesting. Interesting, unpleasant and devastating all at the same time.

Consider for a moment the consequences of a successful appeal that finds Charter rights to freedom of religion actually extend to the non-physical incompatibility of land development. It is a Pandora's Box -- make that a Pandora's Big Box -- of possibilities.

If the Jesuit Centre in Guelph is able to have the proposed Wal-Mart development wiped out because its mere presence would impinge on their spiritual contemplation, it would create a precedent open to countless other competing interests across the country. Given that the charging of interest is counter to the teachings of Islam, surely it would be an equivalent affront to have a bank or other financial institution in proximity to a mosque. What about a sausage factory and a synagogue? Would the mere existence of a strip club or casino in the same city as any kind of fundamentalist church be enough to raise a Charter challenge? Remember, the Jesuits cannot actually see the Wal-Mart from their property. But they know it's there. And that's the basis for the appeal.

SNIP

Source is Financial Post/Canada, April 6, 2005

You're already being infiltrated by "associates" who will vote YES on Union the minute SEIU gets the NLRB to preside.

To sign up to help in the effort to get the word out and to be on call in case pickets are needed at your local Walmarts, sign up here:

http://factchecker.purpleocean.org/answer/4894168756fcb750f6c393d3397a0f1e/

WalMart is un-American. They don't get a dime from me and haven't for many years.

DU Economic Activism Forum for anyone that is interested:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=255

at Wal-Mart, supercenters or not. There was a time when I loved the place, because it had what I wanted, at a price I was willing to pay. That was before I discovered DU, a social consciousness, and found out what Wal-Mart was really doing.

Since then, I haven't shopped there, or at Sam's Club.

Unfortunately, the local Wal-Mart is expanding into a Supercenter. In the same shopping center is a Redner's Warehouse Market (family/employee owned), which will probably wind up closing after the Supercenter opens due to the intense competition (I'll make a special effort to do as much shopping there as possible). Across the street is a Wegman's (Fortune's #1 employer to work for this year) which will probably do OK since they are known for the quality of their fresh meats/fish/produce/prepared foods/etc and their incredible customer service.

Since I didn't get the memo, truth = cheap shots.

cheap shots my ass!

The Walton Family are huge Repuke contributors. Their stores are a wasteland of the cheap and useless, shoved in every possible inch and crowding your personal space. The one near us has a shit-smell on the outside and is loaded with blobby 'murkans in the store and their blobbier, Bush-swastika'd PCVs in the parking lot. A parody of the worst of Repuke excess.

Get some of those bloody posters that the Anti-Choice crowd uses to picket Planned Parenthood, and use them to picket Wally World.
I’m absolutely PRO-CHOICE, but think the Fundies need to face this hypocrisy.





Will the Republicans stand on Moral Values when their wallet is threatened?
Only immoral people (Communist abortion lovers) shop at Wal-Mart!

My Dad runs a plant that provides parts for packaging for several products. If he knows a customer does a lot of business with Wal-mart, he'll only deal with them on a cash basis. Wal-mart can dictate how often they'll pay their accounts with these businesses and far too often, they'll pay late anyway. Of course while these smaller businesses flounder and go under, Wal-mart earns interest on that money. :grr:

to fight a corporation this size. As long as the American people sit back and take it, there isn't much that can be done. It is kind of like the high gas prices. As long as they are still buying the gas, they are going to keep pumping it at that price. In my opinion, the same goes for Wal-Mart. As long as they are shopping there, and the suppliers are putting up with it, it will grow and grow.

But how do a handful of people combat this issue?

You fight these bastards by not letting them in your city. The people of Inglewood, CA have been quite successful at it.

Edited for spelling.

so they can afford health care amongst other things. Yelling loud only causes the spotlight to shine much more brightly on you so many more get the opportunity to see just what you really are.