Wal-Mart could hike pay and keep prices low: study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news) could significantly increase employee wages and benefits without raising prices, and still earn a healthy -- albeit smaller -- profit, research released on Thursday concluded.

The Economic Policy Institute study comes as the world's biggest retailer faces a barrage of criticism from labor unions, politicians and community activists, who say it pays poverty-level wages and drives competitors out of business.

Wal-Mart, which has taken steps to improve its health care and other benefits, argues that its low prices boost consumers' buying power and increase their standard of living. The retailer regularly cites a Global Insight study that found Wal-Mart saves U.S. families more than $2,000 per year.

"The more important question for the future isn't whether Wal-Mart is a force for good or evil in the American economy, but whether the economic benefits provided by Wal-Mart can be preserved even if their labor compensation is dramatically improved," economists Jared Bernstein and Josh Bivens wrote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060615/bs_nm/retail_walmart_dc

when you tell a corporation they ought to cut their profits for the good of humanity.

Right.

a "healthy" profit. There is no limit to profit, except the one that is imposed, by force, on it.

We need some people with the balls to go to work at Wal-Mart JUST to organize the workplace, and the spine to break some noses when the union-breaking thugs Wal-Mart always hires show up.

DIRECT ACTION GETS RESULTS.

..and that was in Canada, do you think the outcome would be any different in the U.S.?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0210-13.htm

I mean no disrespect, but I think you oversimplify things a bit.

But we need an ORGANIZED campaign to hit MULTIPLE stores at the same time. They cannot shut them all down. They cannot afford that. If we can have a hit team at, say three dozen stores in key markets, we can break Wal-Mart!

These people can show you how; http://www.iww.org/

DIRECT ACTION GETS RESULTS

for at least 15 years now, and there continue to be as we speak. It is a very tough nut to crack. They spend millions and millions on keeping unions out. The odds are daunting to say the least, and I don't think any one organization, or even the Labor Movement as a whole by itself will be able to do it. It is going to take a rather large grass roots coalition to make a change with Wal-Mart.

It's not been tried.

I'd like nothing better than to see it happen...

:headbang:

are totally dedicated to sabotaging business.
All it would take is a minumum of 5 well trained, well placed
people in each store. They'd have to be patient enough
to toe the company line for about a year to get into position.

to shop at WalMart, it will never be a union shop.

If they tried to unionize them all, Wallyworld is out of business, or would finally have to pay a living wage.

I personally hate Wal-Mart and refuse to shop there, unfortunately the vast majority of the rest of the country doesn't agree, they LOVE it. In their mind, the prices are much cheaper than everywhere else, and they get a wider variety of shopping choices.

My point was that unionizing Wal-Mart is an extremely expensive and daunting task. Do you realize how much time and money the union would have invested to get that far, and then the fuckers just shut down the operation?

What is needed to go up against Wal-Mart is a broad coalition, not just unions, and a major turn-around in public thinking.

Sweet!

I'm very interested to see what happens when Americans can no longer even afford the cheap crap that Wal-Mart sells.

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but unfortunately right now we're engulfed in a race to the bottom.

Welcome to DU!

because their employees are likely to spend that wage increase at (ta da) Walmart.

That's what increasing wages at the bottom DOES, folks, it puts money into the hands of people who are going to spend it. As they spend it, profits go up.

There is only a trasitory decrease at the beginning with a minimum wage increase. Walmart is large enough to see the benefit if they increased their wages.

They make better moeny than Wal-mart workers and most are full-time with full benefits. Those COSTCO employees give good service too! Happy workers make for better customer service. Happy workers stay at the job longer and become very proficient.

COSTCO's CEO works for a living and doesn't eat up an inappropriate amount of the income with ridiculous pay demands.

Wall Street keeps telling COSTCO it's doin it ALL WRONG. ::snort:: Wall Street is just pissed off.

They donate to progressive charities and Democratic candidates. Plus they carry Naked Juice at half the price that the health food stores charge. ;-) :hippie:

Just got my first new glasses in six years (I've been broke) and they were HALF the price I paid at the Lenscrafters in 2000.

Because you just have to replace their crap more often so you really don't save any money at all in that regard. It also doesn't really increase ones standard of living because Walmart products look cheesy in just a few weeks so you actually may as well have went to the used goods store in the first place. Walmart seduces people into thinking they're doing well because they can buy new and that's about it.

Especially the clothing section. The housewares section and electronics is pretty blah.

Per your point, I like to buy clothes that I know are going to last--like LL Bean.

That stated that Wal-Mart could raise the price on every item that they sell by $.01. Due to the enormous amount of products they sell this would allow them to raise wages and provide health benefits to all their employees.

No right to organize, no health and environmental standards, no access to free media...

unit would translate into a significant increase in the pay of the workers who manufacture products (and health and safety conditions could be imposed in WalMart's contracts, if they were concerned ... which they're not) and would only need to increase prices this same tiny bit (unless WalMart insisted upon building a profit on the tiny bit).

who are not apt to vote strike or union because of their age and thus have an inevitable short time attitude. Home Depot tries this too, but are labled by many as having employees who don't know anything about the products sold. Home Depot has more complex producks. Generally it is easy to find a clerk at Walmart and imposible at Sears or Costco IMO.

for the worker is far more important. And for the taxpayer (Walmart is subsidized by public assistance & public health insurance programs that its workers must enroll it).

Fortunately I do not have to supplement my social security to make ends meet My point was that these seniors are not apt to promote getting a union so this policy protects Walmart. It would be very politically stupid for us Democrats to come out against the Walmart senior hiring. IMO it would sell worse than Bush's SS ideas. Right now my guess is the seniors are on our side, don't blow it.

Greedy bastards.

i don't think we really needed to study that.

Not content to just bust unions in the United States, last year Wal-Mart shut down a Canadian store after workers there voted to form a union. Now they’re jumping across the pond to start busting unions in the United Kingdom.

Asda Wal-Mart, as the company is known in the U.K., reneged on an agreement to recognize unions at all of its distribution centers. When employees spoke out about the broken agreement, Asda Wal-Mart apparently imported Wal-Mart’s anti-union handbook: pro-union employees reportedly faced threats, suspensions, propaganda, intimidation, and even firings.

Tell Asda Wal-Mart President Andy Bond and Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to stop unionbusting in the U.K. and play fair:

http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/asda

Asda Wal-Mart actually has union members in its stores, making it one of the few places in the world where you’ll find Wal-Mart employees who are also union members. But while employees at 11 of its 20 U.K. distribution centers have union representation, the company won’t extend their contract to employees at the other nine centers.

The company has already been fined a whopping £850,000 for illegally offering pay raises for employees who would be willing to give up their rights to form unions!

Additionally, Asda Wal-Mart has been accused of “bullying” pro-union employees with such tactics as:

* Putting audio CDs critical of the union in its drivers’ trucks
* Forcing truck drivers to go for interviews with senior management to persuade them not to strike
* Writing employees’ families warning them not to strike
* Suspending an employee for waving an English flag with a pro-union slogan

The similarities to Wal-Mart’s North American unionbusting strategies are too much to ignore. Asda Wal-Mart is unfairly and illegally cracking down on its pro-union employees, and it has to stop.

Please write to Asda Wal-Mart’s president to demand the company stop mimicking Wal-Mart’s North American anti-union tactics:

http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/asda

Thank you for your efforts to stand up for workers everywhere.

Sincerely,

Liz Cattaneo
American Rights at Work
www.americanrightsatwork.org

P.S. To read more about Wal-Mart's anti-union activity in the U.K., read The Guardian’s Tuesday article, “Asda under threat of prosecution for unionbusting.”


Tell Asda Wal-Mart
to Stop Unionbusting!



Click here to tell Wal-Mart to let these workers have a union.

since Walmart is the only store for miles in some of these places...if walmart increased their workers wages, they could buy more at Walmart. Walmart would sell more stuff. Follow a Henry Ford philosophy, increase workers wages. Make them proud to buy at Walmart (yes, I know).

Worker has more money... buys more stuff... walmart makes money... cheap stuff breaks... worker buys more stuff... walmart makes money... ad infinitum.