Tag Archives: Walmart

Is Wal-Mart Really to Blame?

I’d like to respond to some of Howard’s and Steve’s comments to my previous article, so I’ll take them in turn. Unfortunately, I’m so darn long-winded that it’s too big for a simple comment post, so its taken the form of an article:

Costco’s competition with Walmart

Howard speaks of how Costco effectively competes with Walmart effectively with unionized labor and higher wages. This may indeed be true. However, the fact is Costco does not directly compete with Walmart Stores. Rather, Costco is a more direct competitor of Sams Club, another Walmart brand. Walmart Stores are really the bread and butter of Walmart, and having said this, there is no other organization that competes effectively with Walmart on a worldwide scale, hence Walmart’s iconic status. This being the case, it might even be plausible to say that Sam’s Club could pay higher wages and unionize and still be competitive. One possible reason for avoiding this scenario is the collateral effect it would have on Walmart Stores.

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Walmart, Unions, and Un-Fair Labor Practices

[The other day I was mildly annoyed by an email I got from Care2 asking me to sign a petition against Wal-Mart. Coincidentally, I recently had a conversation with a good buddy of mine about Wal-Mart, unions, and related topics. WhenI got the Care2 email, I forwarded it it to him and asked if he’d write an entry for my blog. He agreed. This fellow, who we’ll call Lightwave, earned an MBA in 2001 and an MS in MIS in 2002. – Funky]

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately of how awful labor practices at Walmart are unfair to works. I recently read about Walmart’s "ruthless" tactics where Walmart closed a store rather than negotiate with unionized workers. Indeed, there seems to be a lot of talk about how Walmart and other publicly traded organizations are treating non-unionized labor. I’d like to discuss this, but first, let’s get on the same page about some basics of publicly traded organizations.

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