Four Lies They’re Telling You (That You Might Believe) About Walmart Retail giant Walmart has been the political left and mainstream media’s perennial whipping boy to such a degree, it’s easy to get sucked in to the propagandistic dogma that the company is inherently evil. It’s understandable … Walmart is profitable, successful and for the most part, it’s leaders don’t seem anxious to “change their ways” to fit the liberal ideology. Combine that with Walmart’s refusal to permit its employees to unionize and it’s easy to see why they’re despised by some. But don’t believe everything you hear. Here are four lies they’re telling you (that you might even believe) about Walmart: 1. Walmart doesn’t pay its employees enough. This is a common complaint, especially among the unions. Problem is that it simply isn’t true. Glassdoor, a website that tracks employee ratings and salaries, ranked Walmart 16th highest in the nation for employee pay among retailers. According to the site, on average, sales associates earn $8.85 per hour, higher than Target, The Gap and Urban Outfitters. The job website indeed gave Walmart 3.5 of 5 stars for employee satisfaction based on over 18,000 worker reviews. 2. Walmart doesn’t provide health insurance to its employees. Additionally, 48 percent of Walmart employees receive health insurance from the company, higher than the national average of 45 percent, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Granted, having less than half of one’s employees covered by the company’s insurance seems low, but most of those employees receive insurance from their spouse’s employer or another provider. 3. Walmart hurts local economies, causing fewer retail jobs, especially in small towns. This is one that’s actually true, and it’s a good thing. Not too long ago, it took 80 percent of the population to feed 100 percent of us. Farming was tedious, dirty work. But technological and other efficiencies have reduced that labor force to less than one percent. This leaves people to search for other work – important work, like curing cancer or taking care of the elderly or teaching children or cooking McRibs. At the turn of the century, we needed those workers in the field getting sweaty and dirty so we had enough food on the table. Now we don’t. This is good for the economy and society. Much of retail work is menial, requiring minimal education – not dissimilar to many agricultural jobs. So if a business comes in and has a better, more efficient method, isn’t that a good thing? Haven’t we been doing this for hundreds of years? Besides, Costco is much more efficient than Walmart and I don’t hear anyone howling about Costco. 4. Walmart is just plain evil. As neat as this would be … having a major corporation in direct league with the horned one himself, facts belie this assertion. In 2011, businessinsider reports that Walmart gave over $1 billion in cash and products to charity, nearly four times more than rival Target. The $1 billion represents nearly five percent of Walmart’s pre-tax profits, higher than most retailers. On a personal note: Years ago, I worked for a small seasonal toy company that manufactured its products in China. Every season, the large retail buyers (Kroger, Target, etc.) would decide which products they wanted to buy from whom and how many. On one occasion, the Walmart buyer wanted to buy one of our toys, and sent a sales order of $2.001 per unit. That’s right. Not two-dollars-and-one-cent, but two-dollars-and-one-tenth-of-one-cent. They refused to go any higher and because we were selling hundreds of thousands of units, we had to accept their offer. The problem was our sales software didn’t know how to reconcile one tenth of one penny. No retailer had ever negotiated with us in tenths of one cent. It drove folks at the toy company crazy, and detractors might claim it proves how “cheap” Walmart is, but that’s ultimately how they keep prices low, stay in business and employ two million workers worldwide.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 22:35:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015