Maryland forces Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health benefits
How can I let a story like this go by without comment? It's a fascinating turn of events, and the implications are interesting no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on.
For example, those of us who believe in a free market might be understandably concerned about government dictating terms to a private enterprise about how much health benefits to provide their employees.
On the other hand, those of us who believe in a free market know that Wal-Mart, which sucks mightily at the taxpayers' teat, is not really a free market enterprise at all: it is subsidized by the taxpayers and reaps huge profits at their expense, forcing the those of us who pay taxes to pay the balance on their so-called "always low prices" with our tax dollars.
As far as I am concerned, if Wal-Mart can't stay afloat without relying on taxpayers' money, then it is a recipient of corporate welfare in the worst way and should be required to reimburse the taxpayers with some of those $10 billion record profits they are so proud of. But since we know that will never happen, the least they could do is tale steps to ensure that their employees do not have to rely on public assistance (yes, the store even encourages them to do so).
So, to all those to condemn government meddling in Wal-Mart's affairs, and who also condemn what they describe as lazy deadbeat welfare recipients who are encouraged not to become self-sufficient by living off the taxpayers, it is time to put your money where your mouth is. It's time for Wal-Mart to stand or fall without being propped up by public assistance.
p.s. - more states are pickin' up on this, too...
For example, those of us who believe in a free market might be understandably concerned about government dictating terms to a private enterprise about how much health benefits to provide their employees.
On the other hand, those of us who believe in a free market know that Wal-Mart, which sucks mightily at the taxpayers' teat, is not really a free market enterprise at all: it is subsidized by the taxpayers and reaps huge profits at their expense, forcing the those of us who pay taxes to pay the balance on their so-called "always low prices" with our tax dollars.
As far as I am concerned, if Wal-Mart can't stay afloat without relying on taxpayers' money, then it is a recipient of corporate welfare in the worst way and should be required to reimburse the taxpayers with some of those $10 billion record profits they are so proud of. But since we know that will never happen, the least they could do is tale steps to ensure that their employees do not have to rely on public assistance (yes, the store even encourages them to do so).
So, to all those to condemn government meddling in Wal-Mart's affairs, and who also condemn what they describe as lazy deadbeat welfare recipients who are encouraged not to become self-sufficient by living off the taxpayers, it is time to put your money where your mouth is. It's time for Wal-Mart to stand or fall without being propped up by public assistance.
p.s. - more states are pickin' up on this, too...
posted by SheaNC at 1:35 AM
16 Comments:
I read both articles (Rep George Miller and Wakeup Walmart) about the "subsidies" provided Walmart by them paying low wages. What a stretch and frankly, what a load of crap! They are at least paying minimum wage for unskilled jobs--that is what Walmart jobs are--unskilled--so I just can't believe what Democrats and libs will do in order to attack a retail organization. What next, are we going to attack McDonalds for paying minimum wage also? How about any other organization.
Yes, Shea, one should well be wary of what Maryland did, and drop the rest of the "argument" trying to exonerate them.
-Jack
You know, I never hear liberals talking about "Big Labor Union", "Big Education", etc.
Oh, and if you want to know what in this whole mix is fascism? Its what Maryland and Kentucky are doing. Is NL's advocating fascism now? If so, it needs to back off on Bush...
-Jack
They are standing up for unskilled workers who have to work at wal-mart because they cant work anywhere else. And maybe they go after wal-mart because they have a ridiculous amount of money that they could do a little better for their helpless unskilled employees. As far as Im concerned they're trying to help these people maintain. You want to ask Liberals the question, "whats next?" what would conservatives rather, they go on welfare instead? These unskilled workers are what make that company happen and there is enough there to at least help these unskilled workers maintain their lives. Maybe the "threats" of forming a union wouldnt always be in the works and the company wouldnt have to do their witchhunts against its own employees if their employees were a little more satisfied, unskilled as they are. Call it communism/socialism/evil left wing at work, the employees want to just be able to work their 40 hours and live. And I havent seen any evidence produced by Wal-Mart that refutes any of the accusations against them. It is unfortunate that this has to be forced upon them by the government but the people who run the company should realize they are in a position to maybe help some people who need the job and are stuck. Its sad it should come to this but Wal-Mart would still survive and our economy would as well.
I am lead to believe that the huge money-makers for Wal-Mart reap the benefits of those who came before them, and that they also proft greatly from the American taxpayer. I am not against big business, there are a ton out there and they provide so many jobs to the people. But there is a give and take: the people need those jobs and wouldnt have it if not for those corporations. But the corporations may not exist if they did not have their workers.
Anyway, the real reason why Wal-Mart's stuff is cheap is because its crap. I went in there once looking for a TV and I was offended by how much that place sucks. I will never set foot in that store again.
Jack, if you are referring to the part of fascism that involves a marriage between government and business, then Wal-Mart was fascist all along. Here is a better explanation of how they collected a billion dollars in government subsidies. You may call it "a stretch" and "a load of crap", but that is my tax money you're talking about. I would rather use it for something worthwhile, rather than lining the pockets of the Walton family, while their employees are directed to collect public assistance. I am surprised that you, Jack, who so frequently condemns public assistance, would defend a company's practice of encouraging its employees to collect it.
Y'know, Jack, you always seem curiously defensive whenever I write about Wal-Mart. You say you "just can't believe what Democrats and libs will do in order to attack a retail organization". If that's how you perceive my criticism of Wal-Mart, then you are really missing the point. It's as if you think I am criticizing capitalism, or retail commerce, or something, and that is completely erroneous. What I am criticizing here are the bad practices of this company. My post not meant to be extrapolated by the reader to be a blanket condemnation of all the commercial enterprises in human history. I'm only addressing this one company.
Also, you make a point of noting, twice, that these jobs are "unskilled". That's debatable (not to mention rather insuting to those workers - when was the last time you worked a full shift as a retail cashier?). Take a look at what the available jobs are in America today and you'll see that running a cash register, balancing a cash drawer, and performing customer service are all valuable market skills. Instead of looking down your nose at these workers and claiming that they are "unskilled" and thus undeserving of a decent share of the profits from the business which depends on their labor, maybe you should consider that they are performing a valuable service; one which not just anyone can do.
Besides, Jack, it was the "right" who decided to reclassify fast-food work as "manufacturing". By that right-wing logic, Wal-Mart cashiers are public relations personnel.
And lastly... "Big Education"? What? Huh? I guess "small education" is better? Helps keep that "unskilled" labor pool available for you? Hmm...
Hey Guys!
I'll get back to some of the specifics you raise in a bit, but in the interim:
I understand fully your righteous indignation. But you are forcing a morality upon others that is of your own choosing. While championing rights of homosexuals to marry, women to have abortions, etc. because it is your moral opinion that they should have that freedom, you deny in the same breath the freedom of others to do things that are contrary to your moral code. Pardon me for pointing out this, but if you begin picking and choosing freedoms you want revoked you are subject to forfeit those you most love. We all know this, and are the recipients of such!
Business is the most fundamental practice on the globe. It is necessary, and the only vehicle for prosperity.
Say you open a business. You want to run a sex-toy shop. The government tells you that you have to hire at least one black person, and you cannot consider the belief system of the fundamental Christian who applied for a job in your evaluation criteria. In addition, the college student who is going to school on his father's money--all expenses paid who, when you hired, made it clear that he just needs enough money to buy the occasional hit, has to be paid at least $6.25 an hour plus full benefits, health insurance, etc. All of the products you sell have to come from only the highest quality merchandisers--nothing from China, and nothing that can have an appreciable profit margin. Since you are the only sex-toy shop in the neighborhood, you need to hire the "kind of people" who can't get a job anywhere else. Not only that, the government tells you what you can and cannot sell (which for the fundamentalist Christian who applied-that's a GOOD idea!), what prices you should charge, etc., etc. and on and on.
Essentially what you are saying is that all of the above is ok! Let's regulate business and force it to do what the collective wants it to do. It is our moral code that should prevail. What you are forgetting is fundamental economic laws in the name of your new morality. How market forces are self-correcting. You are advocating social engineering based on the introduction of artificial fixes into the marketplace. You are risking tampering with the most basic of business principles which have potential of crippling an economy and widening the income gap.
I know that everyone hates the "fat cat" business man, but the business man is the reason you live in a home, drive a car, have electricity and everything you own. You guys have to move off the plantation and stop thinking in agrarian terms. You also have to consider how far you will push the government to advance your moral agenda with the full realization that empowering it to do so slowly erodes your own rights and freedoms.
All I'm saying, Shea and CH, is be careful what you wish for.
I have posted an article along these lines at
News Snipet 'Blog: LEGISLATING MORALITY
Take care,
-Jack
BTW, this is a great topic that we SHOULD be discussing, Shea. Thanks for bringing it up!
I am no fan of Walmart. I think a lot of their business practices, i.e. forcing suppliers to move manufacturing overseas, buying products from countries that utilize slave labor (I'm looking at you, China), and driving established "mom & pop" shops out of business while claiming to have the community's best interests at heart, all suck.
However, I don't think you can blame Walmart for "sucking at the taxpayers teat". Towns, counties, and states all compete for businesses to set up shop in their backyard. That competition gets pretty fierce, with these big fat subsidies the result. It would be bad business for any business to ignore these opportunities.
The reason behind these subsidies is to grow the local economy. The bottom line, despite tax abatements and subsidies, is always increased for the locality offering the incentives. If you take issue with these incentives, you needto speak to your elected officials.
I don't have the date in front of me when health benefits were first offered to employees by companies. It certainly is fairly recent. The practice started as a way to entice employees to work for the company. It was a perq, not an entitlement. Much the same way that local governments are attempting to entice business with tax abatements and subsidies. Go figure.
Over time the practice became widespread. It then became expected that a company would offer benefits. Of course, only certain jobs commanded those types of benefits. The types of jobs where employers had to compete for employees. There is a reason places like Walmart have only offered benefits to certain employees. Those are the employees it costs less to provide benefits for than to find a replacement for.
Forcing a company to offer medical benefits is the worst sort of government intrusion on free enterprise. And let's not forget, it's free enterprise that makes our economy the biggest in the world. Even China is starting to realize that a free(er) economy is necessary for growth.
I don't like a lot of what Walmart does, but to say they deserve this kind of treatment because they took advantage of offers made by local governments is unsupportable.
As for insulting the employees of Walmart, sorry, but Jack's right. Most of them fall into the unskilled category. How do you account for self-checkout lines at stores? Apparently the general public has all the skills necessary to perform the function of a cashier - that's the definition of unskilled. As for balancing a cash drawer, all that is required is the ability to count. Hopefully our public schools haven't failed us so much that teenagers cannot count and do basic addition and subtraction. And yes, in High School and College I held this type of unskilled job - even for a few months after I graduated from college, at a car parts store, while waiting to start my public accounting job at a (then) Big Six firm. I know what I'm talking about.
capitalism giveth, and capitalism taketh.
Sean: with all due respect, I know what I am talking about too. I have worked retail-cashier-customer service in full-blown grocery stores, a small convenience store (with the old style cash register that required the cashier to count the change), and been a bank teller, so I can rightly say that it is not something that anyone can do. Your analogy about the self-checkout lanes is not really accurate, because the customer does not do any cash-handing except to take money from an ATM, nor do they balance a drawer.
Jack: you're missing my point about Wal-Mart's being obligated to the taxpayers as a result of it's dependence on taxpayer subsidies. If they are dependent on gov't funds, then the government has a right to direct the use of the money it grants to them.
Corporate welfare is the worst kind.
The cashier comment is an aside to the issue, I'll concede on that point.
I still don't agree with your assertion that you can hold Walmart accountable to the taxpayer because it benefits from tax subsidies and government assistance, when the taxpayers approve these incentives by voting in politicians that create them.
It is the competitive environment between states/counties/cities that creates these incentives, which are created by those same states/counties/cities to attract all business, not just Walmart. Walmart is just taking advantage of what is there. Despite the rest of their vile practices, there is nothing wrong with taking the subsidies thrown at them by states/counties/cities.
Now, in the case where they push for the subsidy/incentive, we have a different situation. But I didn't read that whole report, so I don't know whether they are engaging in that practice more than they are just taking the opportunities offered.
Shea, do you have a mortgage? If so, then I subsidize it. It is unfair that I should have to pay more taxes to subsidize your mortgage. At least with Walmart I get cheaper prices as a result of the competition they bring into the market. I get nothing for subsidizing your mortgage.
I understand where you are coming from, but businesses locate in areas because of the breaks they get on taxes, etc. Here in South Carolina we gave huge incentives to BMW which has gone on to create thousands of jobs in the state and even attracted I-Car (touted to be THE car research and development center of the world in the next century). I don't think that it can be denied that Walmart creates as much as it takes otherwise politicians on both state and local levels would not be so receptive to their continued development. The problem I have with the left is that they are often finding something like "Big Walmart", "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Tobacco"--institutions that are actually PRODUCING something, but fail to take on "Big" institutions that are draining the country often of its lifeblood (or if not draining anything, at least causing some damage--but GENERALLY not producing anything of value). The ones that come to mind is "Big Education" (as I've mentioned earlier--please check out my site for my latest post on the abject failure of the American Education Monopoly), "Big Media" (except for that darned FoxNews and Rush Limbaugh!), "Big Union" (Many of these are pariah that have outlived their purpose and usefulness and have become leaches upon the businesses they feed off of), "Big Money-Activism" (Soros/Moveon, etc.) "Big Welfare/Government/Money Pit", and the list could go on.
Walmart is a business. It's job is to make money for its stockholders and owners. Period. It is not a welfare agency, it is not a charity or a social program. It is a business whose sole reason for existence is to maximize its profit in any legal manner. Liberals do not seem to understand this. They look at something largely amoral, and assign the moral value of "evil" to it. This is nothing new, they have been assigning the same term to the neutral economic system of capitalism, ever since the communist, Marxists, czarists, monarchs, socialists, and fascists recognized the danger of free enterprise in its role to create free societies. Shea, ask some of your left-leaning friends about Walmart (a corporate entity with hundreds of owners, who, heretofore has never been known to break a law, provides jobs that pay above the minimum wage, and is compliant with all local, state and federal employment and tax laws) and see if their inclination is to assign a moral value of similar nature to "evil" to it. (I usually hear from the left that they "hate" Walmart, an institution that largely caters to people who are not as fortunate enough to have the money that some of us "elite" do. What is your alternative, do away with the competition, eliminate Walmart, and let prices rise so that the people the left pretend to be concerned about will have even more financial difficulty making ends meet?)
I guess I get a little tired of the "flavor of the day" agenda, trendy little PC fads that become popular targets. It used to be that the "liberals" in this country really stood for something worthwhile, but have degenerated into petty notions like this--dreaming that they are once again saving the world by their beneficence (Not saying this particularly about you, Shea--I am speaking of some of the other sites that are really anti-Walmart in a huge way). I don't deny that it is not often well-intended, just that little thought is given to the far-reaching consequences of the actions that are championed on the left. Remember, empowering government should be viewed first and foremost with great skepticism, because they hardly know where to stop and rarely do. This is the reason I took exception to your praise of the government bureaucrats who levied such against a private business.
Anyhow, not meaning an disrespect to you, Shea.
Hope this makes sense,
-Jack
a corporate entity with hundreds of owners, who, heretofore has never been known to break a law, provides jobs that pay above the minimum wage, and is compliant with all local, state and federal employment and tax laws
Except when they're busted for hiring illegal aliens.
All that I ask from Wal-Mart is that they sell brand name televisions that I can trust. Because TV solves all of life's problems. I did buy Chappelle's Show Season 2 DVD there- I havent been the same since. Also, I think we need to get some Wal-Mart employees here to hear (back to back homonyms, thats right) what they have to say about their company instead of people who do not work for the company. I dont think its possible though, because I heard that Wal-Mart keeps all of its employees caged in the back of their stores when their shifts end. And Dick Cheney is responsible.
Ok, what Im really saying is I dont know anyone who works at Wal-Mart so if any of you do, ask them about the place. This is an interesting topic.
I don't have to ask the employees. Just this morning one of them got on the radio while I was driving into work. I forget her name, but she said she went to her local Walmart for a job and all the people there were so nice. She started as a floor person/cashier. An opening (she called it an opportunity) for department manager came up, she was encouraged by her fellow employees to apply. She did and now she's a department manager. What a great story of opportunity and success, all available at Walmart in addition to their great low prices.
I really did hear this story on the radio, I see no reason to doubt it. I mean, why would Walmart cherry pick an example of an average employee being promoted if work conditions were so bad?
(The preceding is a true story tinged with sarcasm.)
Sean, I wasn't really referencing the sex discrimination suite and the lunch hour lawsuit. Overall they operate in a legal fashion. Any large company is subject to the kind of lawsuits Walmart has been hit with.
What are your thoughts concerning the rest of the rant? :)
-Jack
The rest of the rant was good stuff. I, however, don't really like Walmart, for the reasons previously stated. That being said, I agree that they cannot be forced to provide health care just because they're successful, the market will bear low starting salaries, and they take advantage of government created incentives - just like every other business.
I feel Walmart is being singled out because they are successful. While I don't like them, their success is not a reason to single them out on this issue. It is also an improper intrusion by the government into our market based economy. This is the kind of crap that will turn our envy-of-the-world free market economy into a struggling socialist-style economy that can't compete.
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