I HAVE TAKEN THE PLEDGE AND WILL REFRAIN for an (unspecified!) period from commentary concerning the central potentially overriding environmental calamity looming over our future. However, because this will be published on June 8 and that date has been designated “World Oceans Day,” I call your attention to the many powerful and fascinating (and frightening!) pieces you will find under that heading. I will find some silent way to honor the day but surely touch on these when my (week, month, longer?) pledge period has elapsed! I may be found sometime during the 8th of June at the tip of the Benicia pier attempting to master “Meditation for Beginners.” No words are to be spoken! The possibility does exist that if my efforts and self-discipline are successful, at some stage I will have conquered the need to speak or communicate and my words will cease to break the sacred silence or mar the tranquility of your Sunday read. (I’m sorry but boisterous celebration is hardly an appropriate response to my last comment! And you do run the risk that such reactions will reawaken those compelling drives I sought to dampen. Damn!)
With that resting on the shelf, I thought to touch upon a true American success story: the Walmart saga, that uplifting story of the incredible financial success of a family following a dream. We have just recently learned (via Fortune listing) that for the fiscal year ending January 2014, Walmart increased net sales by 1.4 percent to $473 billion and returned $12.8 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Further, Walmart ranks first on the FORTUNE 500 list of the world’s largest companies by revenue! First!
What employee wouldn’t be energized, excited, thrilled to learn that his or her company ranked at or was nudging the top of the list of great and powerful corporations?
Unfortunately, there are always those for whom the success of others is a real bummer. And indeed, here in the United States we have precisely that phenomenon with respect to Walmart.
What is truly shocking about this story is that this unhappiness even exists within the Walmart organization itself!
A June 4 story from CNNMoney’s Patrick M. Sheridan carried the following bulletin: “Walmart workers strike in major cities.”
“Walmart workers Wednesday joined strikes in several major cities. Union organizers said employees were set to walk picket lines throughout the day in Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“At a Dayton, Ohio store, Walmart worker Cynthia Brown-Elliott said from her cell phone that she had joined a protest outside the store, chanting slogans such as: ‘Respect! Now!’
“Brown-Elliott, 48, who works at a Cincinnati Walmart, said 25 workers were in the picketing line. The grandmother of 14 said she would travel with the group to a later protest in Cincinnati, where a larger crowd was expected to gather.
“A cake decorator in the Walmart bakery, Brown-Elliott makes $8.95 an hour. She has been with Walmart for two years and believes she’s overworked and underpaid.
“‘Save money and live better?’ she said, citing the company’s advertising line. ‘How can you save money if you’re not making enough money? How can you live better if you’re not paid enough?’”
Which only goes to prove that even those folks with a solid, well-paid job will find something on which to rag.
In a May 28 Huffington Post piece by Alexander C. Kaufman, Walmart’s president and CEO deflects a question about how to improve his employees’ lives by reportedly “proclaiming himself just another ‘associate.’” That he made a $9.56 million salary (definitely not his total return!) was irrelevant. “Parroting the usual line Walmart uses to justify its low wages, McMillon said the company provides an ‘opportunity’ for low-level employees to move up. After all, he said, he started by working in a company warehouse.”
A possibly relevant note: Walmart “associates” cost the government about $300 million a year in food stamps, according to the public radio show “Marketplace.”
From the Aug. 26, 2013 piece “Walmart CEO Claims ‘Vast Majority of Workers Make More than Minimum Wage,’” by Bryce Covert, we draw the following:
“In a recent interview, Walmart CEO Mike Duke told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, ‘The vast majority of our associates are paid more than the minimum wage,’ estimating that ‘less than one percent’ are paid at that level. Yet that figure leaves out the fact that the low-wage retailer relies heavily on part-time workers. And a recent survey of Walmart locations found that over half are only hiring temporary workers, not full-time positions.
“And even if workers are making more than the $7.25 minimum wage floor, they may not be making much more. The company claims that full-time workers make $12.78 an hour, but an IBISWorld report puts that number at $8.81.
“That’s 28 percent less than the pay at other large retailers. Workers make so little that they use around $1 million worth of public benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid, at one location alone. The low pay has sparked worker strikes in protest.
“The company has also been a vehement opponent of living wage bills in cities where it wants to open stores. The latest showdown was in Washington, D.C., where it has threatened to walk away from its plan to open three stores if the wage is raised to $12.50. It previously helped kill a living wage bill in Chicago through the same tactic.
“Other stores have followed a different model. Costco, which competes with Walmart’s Sams Clubs, pays workers $21.96 an hour on average. Its profits rose 19 percent in the first quarter of the year. WinCo, a small Idaho-based grocery store chain, is able to beat Walmart’s prices while paying workers more than $11 an hour and providing generous benefits.”
A Walmart employee group “fact sheet,” titled “Making Change at Walmart,” notes the following:
“Walmart jobs are poverty-level jobs. Walmart’s average Sales Associate makes $8.81 per hour, according to IBISWorld, an independent market research group. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart’s full-time status of 34 hours per week. This is significantly below the 2010 Federal Poverty Level of $22,050 for a family of four.
“Walmart can afford to pay higher wages.
“According to a 2011 report, if Walmart started paying a $12/hour minimum wage, ‘its workers currently earning less than $9 per hour could each earn $3,250 to $6,500 more per year before taxes. If Walmart were to pass this cost directly to shoppers, the average consumer would need to pay only 46 cents more per shopping trip, or $12.50 per year.’”
And back to Mike Duke, the Walmart CEO who in 2010 received $18.7 million in total compensation, or, as the Walmart employee fact sheet put it, “1,201 times the annual income of the average Walmart Sales Associate.
Finally, do communities benefit from the arrival of Walmart in their midst? Again, that handy fact sheet: “Walmart’s entry into a market depressed wages, displacing better-paying retail jobs.
“A 2005 study (PDF) found that Walmart’s entry into a metropolitan area eliminates similar jobs that pay about 18 percent more than Walmart. In those areas, the total average earnings of retail workers fell by 0.5 to 0.8 percent.”
Further bulletins from this battlefield to follow, hopefully with some guidance regarding the riveting question: Will employee greed triumph over the compelling social contribution and sacrifice of the Walton family?
Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.
Sharing is caring!
I do not understand your attack on Walmart only. Or are you going to attack other nation-wide retailers fastfoods etc. Walmart in an area has reduced prices foer all they consumers because all the competion now meets Walmarts prices. They have done very good things for the spending consumers. Go check out local grogery stores, Drug stores and yes Target prices. You are now paying lower pricwes at these business’ because of Walmart. Are you going to tell me that the staff payroll at these places is higher than at Walmart Jerry? Do you know that? Go do your homework on this issuer. Ask the folks at Home Depot, Lowes, Target, CVS, Rite Aid etc what they are being paid and also benefits offered. Just who is your next target Jerry? But first do your homework before you attack any business.
Sorry for the typo errors. Jerry gets me going and I do fail to correct typos. So be it.
If you were to apply a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index calculation to Walmart on a national or even a international scale, you probably would not get a troublesome value, relatively speaking. However, if you were to single out specific geographical markets, especially in the within US, I believe the numbers would be much more significant, and those numbers would be more worthy of consideration..
There are certain areas in the US where Walmart is shutout. Like NYC. No chance to see how they can help market prices. I dio believe where every Walmart is yoiu will find out it has a very big impact on prices. We all know some folks shop at high end dept. stores others shop at middle or lower end dept. stores. Being that Mr. Page is very concerned about income differences I would think he wouls welcome Walmart. They offer jobs. lower prices and very good selections. They are now on a campaign to have more American made goods in their stores. At one time Walmart would not buy any goods not made in America. That was about 35/40 years ago. Think about that. Walmart is very good for the consumer.
A colleague’s son used to be one of those workers that were exploited by the cruel Walton’s. He started there at 17, part time, minimum wage. The bastards.
Oh sure they tried to do some small things: a partial scholarship to college, a full scholarship for a Master’s degree, stock shares as a bonus were thrown his way, like crumbs to the hungry.
The Koch’s, I mean the Waltons, exploited this kid, now turned adult, for over 30 years, before he had enough and quit. He could no longer take it.
BTW, the kid is a multi-millionaire; those crumbs turned into a lot of bread.
Now DDL you know the Liberal Socialists are only going to think he may have a rerlative. in the company. How can anyone make it working at Walmart. I guess if you have ambition that does seem to work. Think if all those folks on food stamps had invested their food stamp money where they could be now. Oh I forget that would mean they would have had to work. Hard work in their mind gets you know where. Well if you have never done it that could very well be true.
Bob Said: “had invested their food stamp money”
I ran the numbers: If one invested $100 in Walmart in 1975, the year they went public, that investment would be worth just over $1,000,000 today.
And that is not including dividends.
I didn’t realize WalMart forced people to work for them.
Mr. Page considers the pay stated in his article to be low yet people freely accepted the offer and chose the position.
If Mr. page was so concerned about the poor and low pay he should support economic growth policies that lower unemployment rates and force companies to compete for employees. As Mr. Page has shown in previous posts, he supports policies that stymie economic growth and encourages high unemployment rates (cap and trade policies). While Mr. Page claims he cares about the poor he actually supports policies that hour the poor … Low wages due to poor economic models and high energy costs.
Typical disconnect of liberals … They encourage policies that hour the poor while claiming to care.
WalMart will pay higher wages when they have to compete for employees with other companies.
*hurt not hour
Matter stated:Typical disconnect of liberals … They encourage policies that hurt the poor while claiming to care.
BINGO!!!
Better to force your will on others, than to let the free market decide.
How do cap and trade policies impact Walmart’s bottom line?
Thomas P. stated: How do cap and trade policies impact Walmart’s bottom line?
Are we to believe that a person familiar with the complex variables of the HHI index does not also understand the variables, as well as the impact, of cap and trade?
Seems your comment serves as a violation of an agreement.
if it does, send me a private e-mail, as I am unclear on the violation and we will take it off line.
Thanks
DDL
Seems your comment serves as a violation of an agreement
Indeed it does.
Thanks for the polite reminder.
Regards
Dennis
I see no violation at all, But that is between you fellas.. After all I am just an 80 year old man with many years of seeing and hearing these comments. Everyone is quilty some where along the way of violating personal on this but I do have a very good memory. I do believe we were past all this stuff.
Cap and trade raises the price of carbon based fuels. When fuel costs rise, inflation follows. Inflation slows the economy, hurts those on fixed incomes. Unemployments grows. As more people are out of work, WalMart does not have to pay more to hire people as people grow desperate.
How does cap and trade affect WalMart’s bottom line? It helps profit! They can pay lower wages and the price of goods goes up with inflation. So if you want to help those greedy SOBs at WalMart, support cap and trade!
But if you want poor people to earn more, support free markets and a growing economy. Make WalMart compete for employees.
Gee-whiz…lets just go back to Climate Change so as to avoid the pain and misery of confronting a new equivocal topic.
Great run. the Liberals are getting hammered and have no come backs that make any sense. Love it. The Conservatives in California are coming back stronger than ever. Even if in small numbers now. Keep your eye on the common sense Conservative movement.