Don’t hate the multinational mega corporation, hate the game.
It seems wherever we look today, someone is taking shots at Wal-Mart: South Park, Inglewood, Chicago, Jib Jab, Asheville, and the entire state of Maryland. Why? A variety of poorly thought out reasons. Here are some of the common complaints people have:
"Wal-mart puts mom and pop stores out of business"
"Wal-mart pays their employees low wages"
"Wal-mart does a poor job of providing employees with health insurance"
News flash to Wal-Mart employees: You don't have to work at Wal-Mart. It isn't mandatory. Get a job somewhere else! There are no laws compelling anyone to work for Wal-Mart. Personally, I don't think anyone - excepting high school students working part-time - should work in a Wal-Mart at all. I agree, they pay low wages and don't have a good insurance program. So, just don't work there. If people would just refuse to work there, Wal-Mart would be forced to treat its employees better. However, Wal-Mart wages aren't horrifically low as many would have you believe. The average Wal-Mart Sales Associate (the most common Wal-Mart job) makes $8.23 per hour, over $3 per hour more than minimum wage. The average full-time employee makes almost $10 per hour. Also, when people point out the fact that people who work for Wal-Mart make low wages, they forget that these people would probably be working somewhere else making the same low wages if Wal-Mart weren't around. In other words, Wal-Mart isn't quite holding people back from being millionaires.
It is unfair to a law-abiding company to be specifically singled out by the government (with the exception of abusive monopolies), but that is exactly what has been happening to Wal-Mart. The state of Maryland has just passed a law mandating that all companies in the state with over 10,000 employees must spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care. Of course, Wal-Mart is the only company affected by the law. While we do need to make sure that everyone in the U.S. has health insurance, we need to do it in a way that does not specifically punish certain businesses in favor of others.
When it comes to complaints about mom and pop stores, remember that Wal-Mart doesn't shut down them down - people do, by choosing to shop elsewhere. If the people in a community want to keep their mom and pop stores and don't want a Wal-Mart, then they are free to continue shopping at those stores. You don't have to shop at Wal-Mart. Trust me; if people don't shop at a Wal-Mart, it isn't going to hang around. But most people tend to like lower prices and convenience, so they end up shopping at Wal-Mart. If you really oppose Wal-Mart enough to force them out of town through government but you still shop there you are a hypocrite and someone should drive a truck into you.
And why exactly does Wal-Mart have such low prices, anyway? Wal-Mart's size enables it to purchase goods in huge volumes for reduced prices, and they have a very efficient system in place managing inventory and buying to reduce losses from being overstocked or under stocked. It is also very careful about scheduling to reduce overtime pay, as well as cutting general costs like reducing paper consumption by using computers.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a corporate cheerleader and I know Wal-Mart has a lot of problems. But the way they have been attacked lately is just crazy.