How can we defeat Wal Mart?

[La_Serpiente]

One of the biggest anti-union employers in the nation is Wal Mart. When they opened up their huge box stores in Texas I believe, they shut down a large supermarket chain there.

Now that they are going into California, the other supermarkets are definetly scared of them.

Something has to be done about Wal Mart. I don't want people losing all their jobs in Southern California to some oppresive, rush to the bottom, under minimum wage paying employer.

The only way to stop Wal Mart from organizing is to get a Democratic President in the White House. That way, they could stop Wal Mart from threatning workers or stopping union organizers.

However, this issue must be taken head on ASAP. Do you have any ideas to stop Wal Mart?

[stopthegop]

1. get a Democratic President in the White House

how would he stop WalMart?

[DBoon]

2. A pro-worker NLRB

Would maybe force Walmart to recognize unions, or at least make unionizing Walmart a less hopeless task.

[Flightful]

26. That was tried in Canada

It failed miserably. Employees voted against unionizing, the Labour Board (at the time dominated by appointees of the union-funded NDP) certified the union anyway. The employees then successfully petitioned for a decertification vote and the union walked away after their leaders were caught rigging the second vote.

[david_vincent]

3. Shoot down their satellite n/t

[mhr]

4. Without a Change In Laws, You Can't!

So There is Your Answer. To begin to understand what you are up against go read Thom Hartman's book Unequal Protection.

http://www.thomhartman.com/unequalprotection.shtml

[meti57b]

5. There was an article in the LA TImes about that this morning ...

Walmart is coming to California to wipe out the local supermarket chains. No need for me to post a link as that is the essence of the article and the LA Times needs a password.

Walmart pays much lower salaries. So, first we export the nation's technical jobs to India and manufacturing jobs to everywhere else. Then we force down the salaries in what few remaining jobs there may be left. How do the wealthy republicans expect people to have the money to buy the stuff they are trying to produce and sell on the cheap?!

The article mentioned perhaps the supermarket chains can still stay in business by carrying fresher produce and organic stuff. Yes, I think I would continue to like to have fresh produce. I would also not like to have to commute across town to buy a quart of milk.

Thank you for posting about it.

[dofus]

6. The best any of us can do

is DON'T SHOP AT WALMART. I haven't in years.

[xJlM]

7. Walmart won't get any of my money

But they seem to be doing just fine without me. A lot of the American consumers seem oblivious to the trade practices of Walmart, but then these same folks support Microsoft and other predatory traders too. I guess the bottom line for some folks is the almighty dollar.

[MercutioATC]

9. Walmart is providing a service people want. If they stop wanting it,

WalMart will stop.

Face it, the majority of people like one-stop discount shopping. WalMart isn't evil, it's just providing a service. If people stop buying there, they'll have to change the way they do business.

[Military Brat]

8. Tell the Christians about the China connection

Ever notice how many products in their stores are made in China, after Wal-Mart exhausted its "Made In America" campaign and suckered everyone into shopping there? Tell your Christian friends about China's abortion frenzy. Last-known statistics reflect a 29 percent abortion rate. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-prchina.html

Tell them by supporting Wal-Mart, they are supporting China, which has one of the highest, if not the absolute highest, abortion rates in the world.

Personally, I don't shop there anymore after it became clear to me that Wal-Mart Corporate is a bunch of cut-throat, low-life scum who bully their way into local markets with false upfront slashed prices which eventually rise again once they've killed the competition, plus they exploit the poor any way they can, either by acquisition of goods, marketing of goods, or selling of goods. And they treat their employees like crap. No way am I going to support that!

[kalian]

13. Xtians LOVE Wally Mart....

I'm dead serious...
Besides...when people can't make ends meet and they can't shop
anywhere else...how can you fight that?
Its the economy, stupid...

[specimenfred1984]

10. The same way they won, underprice them.

Their success was based on that one principle, checking out the competition's prices and beating it. That was their niche, along with being located in the "country".

Ebay's got a niche, a piece of a market. Create a niche or hang on to a current one. Wal-mart is now just like any other big store with workers who act like the customer is crap. They've become who they beat in the past.

A local hardware store in Manassas, VA is an old 1950's type of store with everything in a small building and people who can help the customer. They're doing really good business because they've got a niche and won't let go.

Wal-mart is huge and powerful, only huge and powerful thinking will beat them. That, and their own illegal employees and faulty globalistic thinking. Of course, I avoid/boycott the place too, they contribute heavily to the GOP.

[FDRrocks]

11. Don't shop there....

I know it sounds simple, but it is all a single person can do. I state the reasons people should drive 2 minutes to the nextdoor Target or shop for groceries at the ample local stores, d they just say (blankly) "Oh". I do this all the time. Anyone who claims to be s liberal and shops at that atrocity is a hypocrite. They do not support unions or the small businesses

Fuck Wal Mart, if shit like this exists in this country, it just justify my belives in socialism, or a socialist/capitalist balance. Wal Mart is a monopoly in every sense.

[QuestioningStudent]

12. No, it's not.

A monopoly, by definition, controls _all_ business in a given industry, and additionally, entry into that industry by another business is prohibited. Wal-Mart does not control all business in the grocery or general goods or sporting goods or clothing industries, and in those situations where it can drive a competitor out of an area or prevent one from coming in through effective competition it has not prohibitted them from attempting to do so. More or less, only the government can do that. Is Wal-Mart an effective competitor? Yes. Is it a monopoly? Absolutely not.

[Scottie72]

14. Well it is trying it's hardest to become one...

Wal-Mart only driving force is to drive out all competition from the area. How in the world to you explain having two SUPER-CENTERS within 3 miles of one another. I live in Newport News VA in an area known as Kiln Creek (featherstone apartments for those who know the area). In the Newport News entrance across Jeffereson AVE there is a huge Supercenter, now if you go to the other side of Kiln Creek (Yorktown side) which is a 5 minute drive and make a left there is yet another SuperCenter.

[QuestioningStudent]

15. I would imagine

the explanation is that one super center couldn't handle all the business in that geographic area.

At such time as they lobby the government to forbid entry into their industry by new businesses, they aren't a monopoly. By definition. Their market isn't closed.

Wal-Mart IS trying to be as effective a competitor as possible. I can't condemn them for that. If they knowingly break the law to do so, throw the book at 'em. If they commit a flagrant ethical/moral violation, condemn them. But I can't condemn being competitive as an evil/unethical trait.

[Lefty48197]

17. You do NOT need 100% of a market to have monopolistic powers

50% or even smaller can be enough to have monopolistic powers. Walmart has them and they use them. They use their monopolistic powers to drive the competition out of business, by subsidizing lower prices, and then raising the prices when the competition has been eliminated, just like all monopolies do. Walmart sucks. We should ALL be boycotting Walfart.

[QuestioningStudent]

18. And once again...

I pointed out that Wal-Mart is not a monopoly. BY DEFINITION, IT IS NOT. Its overall market share cannot even be construed as approaching fifty percent--I'd be surprised if it could break 15 percent. Can it have a stronger share in a limited geographical region? Yeah--and y'know what, Publix, Food Lion, Albertsons, Target, McDonalds, BK, TacoBell, Pizza Hutt, etc., etc., have all done the same damn thing. Take Little Caesar's, ok? About ten years ago, they used to be huge. I saw a Little Caesar's popping up in almost every town I lived in. Y'know what? I've seen two in the last six years. Wow, a company that was competing successfully and stopped, and got their arse kicked. Just amazing.

Can Wal-Mart be considered the major or even sole provider in its market in some areas? Yeah. But you know what? Here's a problem with any attempt to define Wal-Mart as a monopoly: The market is not closed. Other competitors can jump into the fray. There are no natural restrictions on the entry into the market of another business. The only way a binding restriction could be put in place would be through the agency of a local government and, guess what, that would be the type of corporate welfare most democrats argue against. Wal-Mart doesn't have, to my knowledge, exclusive contracts with towns, cities, and states to provide goods. When it gets one, call it a monopoly. Before then, IT ISN'T.

[Flightful]

28. Predatory pricing doesn't work

It's costly and as soon as you let up, another competitor doesn't work. Not only that, but in retail price is not the only factor. In Toronto there is not much difference in pricing between Wal-Mart and Zellers but Wal-Mart is gaining market share. Why? Because Zellers has a long history of treating its customers with contempt. Long checkout lines, bad store layout (just TRY finding an item), unhelpful/hostile/clueless staff. They didn't lose their customers over pricing, they lost 'em because shopping there was a nightmare. In the USA it's different, of course- I found that Target was a good place to shop but the Wal-Marts I'd been to were awful.

[Flightful]

27. Monopolistic behaviour...

Generally speaking, those who accuse a market leader of being "monopolistic" are projecting. Everyone accuses Microsoft of being monopolistic even though DOS and Windows are the easiest systems to program for, but say nothing about the way Apple has a long history of harassing anyone who tried to clone Apple IIs and Macs. In the case of Wal-Mart, the worst monopolistic behaviour here in Canada has come from their biggest competitor, the Hudson's Bay Company. Whenever Wal-Mart tries to open a new store in Canada, several "grassroots" organizations use the zoning process to delay or halt construction. These organizations always sprouted up in towns that had a Zellers store (owned by HBC), and HBC was caught so many times organizing and funding these groups that some judges have ordered them to pay Wal-Mart's legal bills. HBC continues with this practice because abuse of process is cheaper and easier than providing decent service at fair prices.

[ChemEng]

21. Kick!

[MissMarple]

16. It will take a sea change in how our government relates to corporations.

Benefits, out sourcing, undercutting, etc. reflect a systemic problem that will take a cooperative and visionary Congress and President to change.

The culture wars may destroy everything truely American and save nothing any of us value. There will be no substantive change until we can take back the government. And I mean that for both sides of the aisle. Both parties need to shape up and figure out how to solve our mutual problems as they exist and quit inventing them so they can have "control".

[glasalle]

19. How are they going to keep the unions out?

I can see why Walmart does well here in Texas, which is a so-called right-to-work state and has few unions. But California stores are heavily unionized. I anticipate a strong campaign to unionize them.
It is possible to unionize Walmart, as it happened in Florida with the butchers union.

[Lady Freedom]

20. AS long as people are poor and need thing like..

clothes and food and meds ect. They will keep going!

[NoKingGeorge]

22. Oh the Irony. When the falling dollar makes it more

profitable for the Chinese to do business in Euro's ,they will.
This will make everything WalMart buys from China more expensive.
The Euro is worth 1.25 for each dollar. Oil is priced in dollars, so right now it is $32 Dollars for a barrel. In Euros that is what? 28 Euros? How long before WalMarts biggest supplier demands to be paid in Euro's? The deserter is so worried about this that he has written off Taiwan to appease them....

[kalian]

30. Good point....

and I think this is why Wal-Mart was already "warning" about its
December sales. Since the items they are purchasing are getting more
"expensive" when it comes to currency conversions...makes you wonder
what their REAL loses are...on the books... ;)

[DLCfromGA]

23. Why would you want to defeat Wal Mart?

Wal Mart provides consumers with all sorts of low cost goods in a one stop, convenient location, and is popular with millions of consumers.

Seems to me that they are providing a service that millions want. Why would you want to defeat them?

The best way to "defeat" Wal-Mart is to develop a service that people want more than Wal Mart, develop a business plan to sell that service, and execute.

[cosmicdot]

25. one stop, convenient location -- sounds kinda like the old Soviet Union

and, shopping we once heard about there ... the government store G.U.M.


here are some articles which shed some light on the Wal-Martinzation of our society

I see it as having disasterous socio-economic implications for our people here in the US ...

they're creating sweatshop labor markets abroad which can't be healthy for maintaining stability and peace ...

it's like a return to the early days of American industrialization as far as as salary and such

imo ... it's has a bearing on all of our standards of living ... one doesn't have to work for Wal-Mart to feel what that business does to our communities and country ... it's about building and maintaining community - the things that keep our spirits up, our people healthy, our country strong ...

I've heard better things RE Costco
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4276361.html

Integrity in running a business well, not just on the cheap ... has it's long-range benefits, not just for the business, but for the community that business operates in ... such practices contain much good will which spills over into the community ... from fortune.com:


"James D. Sinegal, the president and CEO of Costco, has no palace
guard and no profile to speak of, particularly compared to a retail
legend like Sam Walton. Yet he's the guy who in 20 years has taken
Costco from a startup to the FORTUNE 50 using, as surely as Mr. Sam,
highly distinctive practices. He caps Costco's markups at 14%
(department store markups can reach 40%). He offers the best wages
and benefits in retail (full-time hourly workers make $40,000 after
four years). He gives customers blanket permission for returns: no
receipts; no questions; no time limits, except for computers—and even
then the grace period is six months."

The Real Cost of That $8.63 Polo
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-lopez26nov26,1,3665379.column


When Wal-Mart comes to town

What happens when the world's biggest corporation opens a hangar-
sized outlet in Smallsville USA?

Gary Younge
Monday August 18, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1020912,00.html

Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers an $8.63 Polo Shirt
Wal-Mart, once a believer in buying American, extracts ever lower prices from 10,000 suppliers worldwide. Workers struggle to keep pace.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walmart24nov24,1,3188309.story
taken from this link:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-walmart-sg.storygallery

this is an excellent article too ...
The Death of Horatio Alger
by Paul Krugman


The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an
article titled "Waking Up From the American Dream." The article
summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United
States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined
considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research
together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income
and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America
looks more and more like a class-ridden society.

And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can
to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains--
or even points out what is happening--as a practitioner of "class
warfare."

Let's talk first about the facts on income distribution. Thirty years
ago we were a relatively middle-class nation. It had not always been
thus: Gilded Age America was a highly unequal society, and it stayed
that way through the 1920s. During the 1930s and '40s, however,
America experienced what the economic historians Claudia Goldin and
Robert Margo have dubbed the Great Compression: a drastic narrowing
of income gaps, probably as a result of New Deal policies. And the
new economic order persisted for more than a generation: Strong
unions; taxes on inherited wealth, corporate profits and high
incomes; close public scrutiny of corporate management--all helped to
keep income gaps relatively small. The economy was hardly
egalitarian, but a generation ago the gross inequalities of the 1920s
seemed very distant.

Now they're back. According to estimates by the economists Thomas
Piketty and Emmanuel Saez--confirmed by data from the Congressional
Budget Office--between 1973 and 2000 the average real income of the
bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers actually fell by 7 percent.
Meanwhile, the income of the top 1 percent rose by 148 percent, the
income of the top 0.1 percent rose by 343 percent and the income of
the top 0.01 percent rose 599 percent. (Those numbers exclude capital
gains, so they're not an artifact of the stock-market bubble.) The
distribution of income in the United States has gone right back to
Gilded Age levels of inequality.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040105&s=krugman

Up Against Wal-Mart

At the world's largest and most profitable retailer, low wages,
unpaid overtime, and union busting are a way of life. Now Wal-Mart
workers are fighting back.

By Karen Olsson
March/April 2003 Issue


Jennifer McLaughlin is 22, has a baby, drives a truck, wears wide-leg
jeans and spiky plastic chokers, dyes her hair dark red, and works at
Wal-Mart. The store in Paris, Texas -- Wal-Mart Supercenter #148 --
is just down the road from the modest apartment complex where
McLaughlin lives with her boyfriend and her one-year-old son; five
days a week she drives to the store, puts on a blue vest with "How
May I Help You?" emblazoned across the back, and clocks in. Some days
she works in the Garden Center and some days in the toy department.
The pace is frenetic, even by the normally fast-paced standards of
retailing; often, it seems, there simply aren't enough people around
to get the job done. On a given shift McLaughlin might man a
register, hop on a mechanical lift to retrieve something from a high
shelf, catch fish from a tank, run over to another department to help
locate an item, restock the shelves, dust off the bike racks, or
field questions about potting soil and lawn mowers. "It's stressful,"
she says. "They push you to the limit. They just want to see how much
they can get away with without having to hire someone else."

Then there's the matter of her pay. After three years with the
company, McLaughlin earns only $16,800 a year. "And I'm considered
high-paid," she says. "The way they pay you, you cannot make it by
yourself without having a second job or someone to help you, unless
you've been there for 20 years or you're a manager." Because health
insurance on the Wal-Mart plan would deduct up to $85 from her
biweekly paycheck of $550, she goes without, and relies on Medicaid
to cover her son, Gage.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/10/ma_276_01.html

[DocSavage]

32. Forced Labor?

When did the labor bus come by and pick up Jennifer up for her forced Wal-Mart job? Just as no one is forced to shop at wal-mart, no one is forced to work there. The premis of comparing the Soviet Union and wal-mart is a big stretch.

Jennifer goes to wal-mart and offers a product. Her product is her skills and knowledge. At this point, wal-mart either accepts her product and offers her money for the use of her product or it does not. Jennifer has the ability to accept the offer or decline.

Not one person is forced to shop or work at wal-mart. If you feel that people are not getting paid enough, well, shop somewhere else. It is your money and you are free to spend it as you will.

[kalian]

29. You quite don't get it....

...do you? :eyes:

[54anickel]

24. Don't shop there, don't hold mutual funds that hold Wal-mart and beg

CostCo to build in your area.

Wonder if we could somehow organize ALL these unemployed folks to get a job at WalMart long enough to attempt to unionize it. Infiltrate it somehow. Heck, it's not like it's a job you'd want to keep. As long as you're out of work and looking, spend some time busting Wally World from the inside.

[kalian]

31. I have been boycotting Wally World for over 2 years now....

and I feel damned proud.

[ramapo]

33. Society would have to change

Shoppers want the big-box, one-stop shopping store. Few care about WMs techniques to pay the least amount to suppliers and employees alike. Indeed people love the low prices.

Society has evolved to where WM is the desired place to shop. It's not going anywhere until we've moved on to something else.

Any guess what that could be? The return to the neighborhood shop is extremely unlikely.