It makes me very happy to read stories like this
For most of Wal-Mart's 41 years, corporate America refused to acknowledge the retailer as one of its own. Wal-Mart was Podunk, U.S.A., Jed Clampett, Uncle Jesse's pickup--and worse yet, a discount store. This year its transfiguration is complete. Wal-Mart is FORTUNE's most admired company, marking the first time the world's biggest corporation--yes, it replaced Exxon Mobil atop the Fortune 500 last year--is also its most respected. You might say that Wal-Mart finally belongs in corporate America. More accurately, you could say corporate America belongs to Wal-Mart.To understand this astonishing development, you need to grasp the difference between a big company--what Wal-Mart was at the time of Sam Walton's death in 1992, when it was about one-fifth its present size--and a company that has created a whole new definition of bigness. If conventional metrics, like Wal-Mart's $240 billion-plus in sales or its 1.3 million "associates," don't do the trick, these may help:
Wal-Mart's sales on one day last fall--$1.42 billion--were larger than the GDPs of 36 countries.
It is the biggest employer in 21 states, with more people in uniform than the U.S. Army.
It plans to grow this year by the equivalent of--take your pick--one Dow Chemical, one PepsiCo, one Microsoft, or one Lockheed Martin.
If the estimated $2 billion it loses through theft each year were incorporated as a business, it would rank No. 694 on the FORTUNE 1,000. What this means for Wal-Mart's low-profile CEO, Lee Scott, is that he runs what is arguably the world's most powerful company. What it means for corporate America is a bit more bracing. It means, for one, that Wal-Mart is not just Disney's biggest customer but also Procter & Gamble's and Kraft's and Revlon's and Gillette's and Campbell Soup's and RJR's and on down the list of America's famous branded manufacturers. It means, further, that the nation's biggest seller of DVDs is also its biggest seller of groceries, toys, guns, diamonds, CDs, apparel, dog food, detergent, jewelry, sporting goods, videogames, socks, bedding, and toothpaste--not to mention its biggest film developer, optician, private truck-fleet operator, energy consumer, and real estate developer. It means, finally, that the real market clout in many industries no longer resides in Hollywood or Cincinnati or New York City, but in the hills of northwestern Arkansas.
[...]
By systematically wresting "pricing power" from the manufacturer and handing it to the consumer, Wal-Mart has begun to generate an economy-wide Wal-Mart Effect. Economists now credit the company's Everyday Low Prices with contributing to Everyday Low Inflation, meaning that all Americans--even members of Whirl-Mart, a "ritual resistance" group that silently pushes empty carts through superstores--unknowingly benefit from the retailer's clout. A 2002 McKinsey study, moreover, found that more than one-eighth of U.S. productivity growth between 1995 and 1999 could be explained "by only two syllables: Wal-Mart." "You add it all up," says Warren Buffett, "and they have contributed to the financial well-being of the American public more than any institution I can think of." His own back-of-the-envelope calculation: $10 billion a year.
I think one of the greatest tragedies of human history is that during most of it capitalism was supressed and ostracized and demonized and punished.
UPDATE(4/6/2004 1:03pm)
Wal-Mart is attempting to use a city-wide vote to get itself exempted from a large parcel of development in Inglewood. Rock on, Wal-Mart. Use the system against itself.
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Okay. You say WalMart is so nice to its employees? WalMart, Baytown, TX is run by Scrooge! Any decent union would have run him off!
RE: the firing of Kevin O'Neill on Christmas Eve
I would like to tell of the firing of my son, Kevin O'Neill, at the Baytown, TX, Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve, in the hopes that perhaps it would be re-considered.
(Ernie Defees Wal-Mart Supercenter #194
4900 Garth Road
Baytown, TX 77520)
Kevin has a variation of Klinefelter's Syndrome, a chromosome disorder of the sex chronosome. This mainly effects his verbal ability. He is also impulsive. He is registered with Texas Rehabilitation Center in Houston, TX, but we were quite proud of him that he got his job at Wal-Mart all on his own. He has worked at Wal-Mart Baytown for 2 1/2 years. He has never taken a sick day. He is always on time. He never complains. He is an excellent employee. He has had several postions at Wal-Mart. Currently he is a cart-boy outside. The problem arose when a woman, talking on her cell phone, almost ran into Kevin. This scared Kevin and he blurted out and called her a bitch. Now I know WalMart cannot toloerate bad language from their employees. But with Kevin's past good employement I would hope that he would be given a warning and a second chance. The woman on this very crowded and busy day at WalMart took the time to find the manager, Ernie Defees and complain and get Kevin fired. The fact that she almost ran into him was completely taken out of this problem equation. A woman who does this, my bet is she has heard the word 'bitch' before. But of course I am not excusing Kevin. He was in the wrong. He applogised, but Ernie still fired him. The ads on TV show WalMart as the compassionate employer thus WalMart has no need for unions. I feel sure if a union were in place an employee as Kevin could not be dismissed so quickly. Kevin is impulsive and does not understand some social situations. If it were me, I would have lied to my boss and told him the lady must have misunderstood .... Kevin doesn't think like this and told the truth. Compounding the problem was it was Christmas Eve. If ever the word Scrooge comes up, a man who fires an employee who has spent his entire paycheck buying presents for his family at WalMart .... I think Ernie could get the role. My twin sons are home from the Air Force for Christmas and things have been so nice ... until now. It can't surprise you to learn our entire family had a huge dark cloud over our heads on Christmas day. Let me state again .... Kevin was wrong. He knows this. But couldn't he be given a second chance?
Posted by: Margie O'Neill on December 27, 2003 10:14 PMMrs. O'Neill: First of all, I never said Walmart is nice to it's employees. Secondly, yeah, what THAT STORE'S MANAGER did to your son, assuming your story is true, is harsh. I wouldn't have fired your son, but there may be something the manager knew that we don't. And you're probably right; if Kevin was part of a union, he might not have been fired. Employees have the right to freely associate and collectively bargain if they wish, provided they don't break their terms of employment with the company.
You expect the advertisements for a company to be truthfully applicable to the entire enterprise...and specifically one as large as Walmart? That's about as foolish as expecting a person with genetic disorders like or worse than your son's to go through a whole life of jobs without incident. His condition puts him in a unique situation; he's an additional liability by default. It is as unfair to judge him like this as it is to judge Walmart as a whole, but from the employer's perspective, Kevin poses a greater risk for incidents like these.
Posted by: Drizz on December 28, 2003 04:11 PMI found Wal-Mart stores in Dallas Texas to be giant money grabbing capitalist,
pro global retailers with the philosphy that Humans do not count and their employees are ALL replacable. Wal-Mart is what IS wrong with America. They have put a hundred thousand people out of business. They have created Ghost towns across America wherever they have opened for business, and now they are doing this across the entire earth. Wal-Mart gives NOTHING back to communities, so small businesses can not exist, because small businesses depend upon monthly cash flow, and Wal-Mart take that cash flow and transfers it OUT of town.
Wal-Mart has negative records of Employee relations, and disrespects individual rights. If you shop there you are supporting a dictatorship form of capitalism, NOT free enterprise. If you support Wal-Mart you are supporting the demise of hard working private business owners that have invested in their community, in short, you are screwing YOURSELF.
Mr. Kenyon, it has been several years since I wrote the above post. My thoughts have changed somewhat regarding Wal-Mart, but those thoughts are predicated upon Wal-Mart's willingness to use the state to its advantage over other competitors, something far more businesses do than most people expect.
Your concerns, however, are not necessarily mine.
Yeah, the owners of Wal-Mart want to make a profit: "giant money grabbing capitalist." What's surprising about that?
Yeah, the owners of Wal-Mart want to operate in other countries: "pro global retailer." What's shocking about that?
You think the people who run Wal-Marts believe "Humans do not count"? If they thought humans didn't count, why do they try so hard to offer decent products at cheap prices? Why do they bother with customer service at all, if they think humans don't count? This is criticism is either silly or insincere.
Hard reality check here: employees are replaceable. There is no right to a job just as there is no right to a management position. The closest you can come to a right to such a thing is in a voluntary contract. Your labor is your property and the position you work is owned by the employer. If you want to have the freedom to quit your job for reasons serious (sexism, bounced payroll checks, etc.) and trivial (bathrooms filthy, neighborhood bully's father works next to you, etc.), then the employer also has the right to terminate your job for reasons serious (persistently late, poor work quality, etc.) and trivial (unkempt appearance, turned down offer to host annual party at your house, etc.).
Wal-Mart gives "NOTHING" back to every community in which a store is located? Surely you just. I realize that you cannot count on corporate employees to always tell the truth, but I challenge you to refute, for starters, everything on these pages: http://walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate.do?catg=216 and http://www.walmartfacts.com/walmart-charity.aspx It may be a fact that Wal-Mart and Wal-Marts around the world don't work with the community or with charity as you think they ought, but that doesn't mean they do nothing whatsoever.
Regarding how Wal-Mart out-competes local businesses, I'd respond by saying local businesses are not intrinsically divine or automatically deserving of respect and protection. The same goes for any business, present company included. I do recognize the dangers of a monopoly and an entity approaching monopoly market powers, but there are a whole host of economic reasons that mitigate that impact over time.
To the extent that Wal-Mart managers, executives, and anyone else in a supervisory role "abuses" employees (racism, sexism, breaking agreements, etc.), those supervisors ought to be ashamed of themselves and in an ideal business culture they'd be disciplined. I may be cynical, but I really want to know your conception of "individual rights" before I begin to talk about that subject.