Wal-Mart has redone its compensation plan. The change accomplishes two major things. First, it allows Wal-Mart to pay its CEO more and more, even if sales suck. Second, it takes away profit-sharing for most Wal-Mart employees.
Wal-Mart, or more accurately, Sam Walton, defended Wal-Mart's low pay of its employees by pointing to profit-sharing: If the company did well,the employees got a taste as well. As Walton saw it, it gave the employees a stake in how well Wal-Mart was doing, above and beyond their base pay. That's why he referred to his employees as "associates".
But Sam Walton has been dead for almost twenty years. His brother, Bud, who co-founded the chain with Sam, died a few years after Sam's death. Sam and Bud may have thought that they were running a family business, but those days are long gone. Wal-Mart is just another corporation, where the executives do everything they can to push down the pay of their workers, while those same executives take home more and more.
Wal-Mart may not be the Font of All Evil, but they are certainly close by and downstream.
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3 comments:
Wal-Mart has been the specter of what is wrong with this country for a very long time. In the past 18 or 20 years I've probably crossed their threshold fewer than 10 times. The last time I was there and actually bought anything was a bicycle inner tube... only because it could not be found anywhere else.
Every community that allows a Wal-Mart in its borders has begun the slow decline into gheto-hood. I go by the 5 or so stores that are in my area and the townships that begin to look decrepit as the downtown shuts down one business at a time...Allan
This is indefensible.
But to address Allan S's point, I lived in one of those small towns where a Wal-Mart opened. For the most part, the reaction of me and the locals to the downtown businesses shutting down was "good riddance" -- they never had any inventory newer than 1935, they typically closed by 7pm (before most of us got home from our jobs in the nearest big city), and rather than the friendly proprietor that you'd expect most were owned by snarly people who felt they were doing you a favor by being open. If you go by that town many years later you'll find that the hardware store is still open because they sell quality stuff that Wal-Mart doesn't sell and have a helpful staff. The building supplies store is still open too, as is the farm supplies store. The rest... gone. And nobody misses them.
- Badtux the Former Small-town Penguin
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