"Observations" Epilog

My sister, Joanie, wrote me retelling a story about WalMart in particular. I've included it, and my response, below. I think this provides a fitting explanation point to the subject.

John

I ran into a friend of mine today at my local market. He is one of the five remaining survivors of The Arizona attack at Pearl Harbor.He sets up a table at our local Grocer, Haggens, every month or so and sells his books about The War and displays his medals. The money he raises from his book sales goes to Fred Hutchison Cancer Research in Seattle. He told me a story today that I thought was "on Topic".Before the closing of the local Lumber Mill, he had rallied to get a Wal Mart built in a nearby town. He was thinking of how many jobs were being lost and how many people WalMart could hire. He spent many boring nights at the town council hall and at the age of 85 spent time going door to door to ask for support. Of course, the WalMart was built, BUT today he isn't happy about it. You see, after Walmart opened, he asked them if he could set up his table out front to raise money for his charity. Walmart told him they don't do that sort of thing.So, he stopped shopping there. "WalMart has NO HEART", he declared today. And I think he is right!


Hi Joanie

Don't get me started on WalMart (oops..you already did!!!). Their practices can only be described as predatory.The Corporation controls all the products and pricing, then they tell the Department Manager that he/she must increase profits by 5% over the next year or they're fired. This is a thinly disguised way of saying "cut you employees hours, don't pay overtime" as personnel is the only expense the manager can control. They make profit in the most disgusting way possible...by short changing their own employees. The mangers are forced to cheat his workers out of pay for hours worked, degrade the employees during reviews to disqualify them from raises, or fire them out right to avoid pay increases. Always remember this....6 of the 10 richest people in America have the last name WALTON.

And what they do to their suppliers, and by extension the American public, is even worse. Once a manufacture has placed products in a WalMart they immediately start negotiating a price reduction. Most suppliers will go along with this once or twice but they rapidly reach the point where they'll lose money on the product. WalMarts response is "so what! Either drop the price or lose all your shelf space for all your products in every WalMart worldwide" This is what happen to Rubbermaid. They went along and lost money doing business with WalMart. Eventually the company lost so much they filed for bankruptcy, they were bought out by a conglomerate that closed all the U.S. plants and transferred all production to China. How's that for being a good citizen. Did you know that long Beach CA is the largest port on the west coast and that their largest importing nation is China. But Long Beach's largest single customer is...(drum roll) ...WalMart ...(cymbal crash)!!! You think they care at all about this country?

Johnny