I, of course, don't. I have a very different perspective on Walmart than most people, I think, because my father is a UFCW representitive and I've had many talks with him about the company. Now, I'm trying to finish this post duing my lunch hour so I'm going to just run things off quckly, I'm sure you can references in google if you want them.
First of all, repo-man, ours is not a free-market economy. If it were we'd be buying everything, including dipers, newspapers, and caskets from the Standard Stuff conglomerate which owns everything and controls everything. We have a heavily regulated economy because a leaze-fare economy is horribly unstable and will always result in a few plutocrats gaining control in short order.
Second of all, Walmart is not just about being more 'efficient', they degrade the quality of life of their employees, their suppliers, and eventually, their customers.
Predatory pricing is illegal because it's an abbrigation of market principles. If you're Joes Hardware Shop in Smallsville, ID, and the richest company on earth has decided that they'd like to see you out of buisness, do you think that if you fail it's resultant from your inability to "adapt", or is it because the deck was stacked against you? Locally owned shops whose profits go back into the community are thus run out of buisness and replaced by a big box that pays its employees as little as possible.
So every company in America should agree on what to charge so Joe and Martha are insured a good living?
About employees: Walmart's health care plan has premiums too high for their almost-minimum-wage employees to afford. So those employees have no insurance. What happens when they get sick? They have to go to the emergency care ward at a hospital (which legally can't refuse payment), or they are paid for by public assistance (free clinic, etc). If the hospital has to eat the cost, they have to raise care costs for everyone else to cover it, which means everyone else's health care costs go up. If public assistance pays for it, everyone else feels it in their taxes. Also, if the employee misses much work, they'll be fired, which'll mean they'll end up on the dole.
The city I run had our Health insurance premiums increase 30% this year. Run that out five years and every employer in the counrty will fit the above
When Walmart goes up against a union shop, even a big one against which they can't use illegal tatics like predatory pricing, they can still undercut them because they don't have to worry about heath care or benifits for their employees. So the competitor turns to the union and says, if you don't give we'll have to shut down the stores which are in competition with Walmart, or we'll go out of buisness. Walmart is only more efficient if you consider taking care of employees to be an inefficency.
I don't understand this point at all
Often when the trucks arrive at a supplier's warehouse, they have to queue up because arrival times are not determinalistic. Walmart will refuse to do buisness with a company if their trucks ever have to wait for more than some (short) specified time. So when the Walmart truck shows up, it always goes to the front of the queue. No supplier can afford to be dropped by Walmart. I recall a specific incident that I heard about a bit ago, where Walmart ordered some huge shipment of Campbell's soup (I could have the specifics wrong). When the order came due Walmart said that they didn't want them anymore, and told the Campbell that if they sued for breech of contract they'd quit doing buisness with them. So Cambell had to dump all of the soup, which will eventually raise costs to the competitors as Walmart could refuse to pay more.
I would like a source for that point. Common sense tells me that, 1. The huge conglomerate that owns Campbells could negotiate with Walmart. 2. They would not "dump" the soup, they would just sell it to someone else. 3. If I'm Walmart, It just makes sense to unload my trucks first, they are my trucks and I lose money when they sit.
That's another thing, Walmart often makes suppliers open their books for an "audit" by Walmart's accountants. They cut out all of the "waste" in the budget and then offer them a price commensuate with the new budget. Of course, they consider union labor and factories in countries that don't commit human rights abuses to be "waste". They've moved their purchasing department to China and are the the main importer of Chinese goods, and one of the main forces in the exportation of jobs to China.
This point like several others only flies if the supplier "Has" to sell to Walmart. If I am a manufacturer and I am making a small profit, and Wally come knocking and offers a price where I cannot profit, I just say see ya. and make my small profit. If the supplier chooses to "open his books", thats his problem.
Anyhow, this is way past the end of my lunch hour, I've been working on this post in bursts between doing real work, and I've wasted too much time on it now. This isn't a comprehensive list of greviences against Walmart at all, but it's something to think about next time you go in for some "low low prices." [/QUOTE ]