(from the AFL_CIO NOW email update)
Wal-Mart’s ‘Everyday Low Vices’
It hurts the economy and the national quality of life if a company treats its employees badly. But when the largest retailer in the world does that, the consequences could be enormous. So it is with Wal-Mart, says T.A. Frank in “Everyday Low Vices,” an article in Washington Monthly, which is posted on the Alternet website.
Frank says the current generation of Wal-Mart bosses seems to have forgotten founder Sam Walton’s second tenet of doing business—make your employees feel like they’re part of the company. The first, of course, is to make as much money as you can.
As a testament to their loyalty to that tenet, five Walton family members are listed in the top 21 of Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people.
It is Wal-Mart’s size, however, that makes it different from other bad employers, Frank says:
Wal-Mart really is different. In terms of annual revenue, Wal-Mart is nearly four times the size of The Home Depot, the country’s second-largest retailer, and almost twice the size of Target, Costco, and Sears (which includes Kmart) combined. That means the company exerts pressure on the entire sector to imitate its methods–including its treatment of workers. That would be less worrisome if Wal-Mart’s record didn’t stand out within the sector. But there are strong indications that, when it comes to how it treats its employees, Wal-Mart really is worse than the rest. The company finds itself in trouble because, since the death of Sam Walton 14 years ago, something ugly has happened to the way it does business.
It won’t be easy for Wal-Mart to change its ways, Frank says. But the post-Sam Walton generation may be forced to because of increased scrutiny and pressure from government, media and unions. We hope he’s right.
by James Parks
