Anti-Wal-Mart activists are at it again. Their latest target is a Wal-Mart store set to open in Sherman Heights. The anti-Wal-Mart activists claim they don’t want the store replacing the historic Farmers Market building. Yet, the protest seems to be more about con- deming Wal-Mart using misleading information than disputing the actual construction site.
Similar to many other Wal-Mart protests, the rally on Sept. 22 was filled with activists holding propaganda signs portraying the company as the root of all evil. This included signs reading “The top 1 percent hurts the other 99 percent.”
Other than being old, there’s nothing historic about the Farmers Market building. It’s not a major landmark of any sort and the building doesn’t have eye-opening architecture. In fact, it was vacant before Wal-Mart began construction. Given the building’s age, it’s better to tear it down and replace it. Furthermore, Sherman Heights needs a grocery and retail store. The new Wal-Mart will offer fresh produce, meat, dairy and frozen and dry foods. This will save gas money for local residents who would otherwise drive longer distances to the nearest grocery store. It will also save residents the hassle of going through downtown traffic to get to Horton Plaza for their other shopping needs.
Most Wal-Mart critics point to the company’s labor policy, specifically, low wages, poor health care benefits for employees, outsourcing jobs overseas and anti-labor union tactics. Many of these claims are exaggerated and misleading. Labor unions, for example, love to complain about Wal-Mart only insuring 44 percent of its employees, yet they don’t men- tion only 45 percent of employees in the retail industry receive health benefits from their employers. However, according to the Washington Post 95 percent of Wal-Mart employees have some form of health insurance through the company, a family memer or the government.
Hypocritical Wal-Mart opponents don’t tell you the company’s major competitors use the same policies. I used to work for Target, Wal-Mart’s primary competitor. In the brief time I worked there as a retail sales associate, I was paid minimum wage, had no health benefits and was shown a biased anti-labor union video twice. In fact, Wal-Mart’s pay scale, which ranges from $7.73 to $12.08 per hour, is higher than Target’s range of $7.47 to $10.94. Despite treating em- ployees in a way no better than Wal-Mart, Target gets a free pass from critics on its labor policy because it’s viewed as the good corporate citizen.
This double standard is even extended overseas. Other retail com- panies, such as Sears, Kmart and J.C. Penney employ workers from sweatshops in China. Some provide worse pay and work conditions than Wal-Mart. Workers in a J.C. Penney sweatshop work as many as 78 hours per week for as little as 18 cents per hour. For the same sweatshop job, Wal-Mart pays 23 cents per hour with a workload of 60 hours per week. These stats are nothing to brag about for either company, but critics don’t mention Chinese wages, prices and the cost of living are much lower than in the U.S.
I would love to see labor unions attack the entire retail industry as aggressively as they do Wal-Mart instead of just trying to pick on the easiest target. Perhaps then we could have good paying jobs at all major retail stores. None of Wal-Mart’s competitors will instantly reform their labor policies if the unions attack just one store. Labor unions grumble about Wal-Mart’s anti-union policy without making a legitimate effort to unionize its workers.
Labor unions and other critics seem to miss the point about the low-wage jobs Wal-Mart and other retail outlets provide. There are homeless people squatting across the street from the construction site, who would benefit from having a job in the industry. Any job they could get would be better than the position they’re in now. First-time job seekers and college students benefit from the job experience and flexible schedules. People who aren’t qualified or unable to get other jobs, such as high school dropouts and the elderly, rely on jobs in the retail and fast-food industries to make a living.
Wal-Mart is by no means a model corporate citizen, but don’t buy into the anti-Wal-Mart hysteria just because it’s the loudest.
