Dear editor:
”
Other communities in our region have said no to Wal-Mart. …
Why? It all comes down to how it treats its people.
”
~ Dennis Taylor, Dispatch Column
Dear editor:
“Other communities in our region have said no to Wal-Mart. … Why? It all comes down to how it treats its people.”
~ Dennis Taylor, Dispatch Column
It was Wednesday again, time for another excursion into Dennis Taylor’s Carnival of Deception. Wal-Mart superstores were outlawed in Oakland and Contra Costa as a result of planned campaign of disinformation and aggressive lobbying by the unions. Put simply, the unions were a lot more successful at infiltrating their running dog lackeys into the local governments than they have been so far in Gilroy.
Since that campaign was reported in The Dispatch and acknowledged by you, Mr. Taylor, in some of your columns, that little statement of yours up there looks like an out-and-out, bald-faced lie.
And now for the charge of the Archie Bunker Boys! Look out Meathead, here we come! Mr. Taylor, for a putative business reporter, you demonstrate remarkably little understanding of what business is and what it does. They produce and distribute goods. That’s it. It ain’t reasonable to expect them to do any more than that; those of us who have figured out that our lives and prosperity depend on them think that it is quite enough. If you want charity work, may I suggest that you try inquiring at the Salvation Army or the Boy Scouts?
Based on the news stories so far, it looks like Wal-Mart operates a business model with a two-tiered employment structure. They have divided store tasks into stuff anybody can do and other stuff, more challenging, that requires, training, experience, and motivation.
Part-time employees with minimal pay and benefits do the simple stuff while full time employees with all the usual goodies do the harder stuff. The unions are fighting that business model. Not because there is anything immoral about it, there ain’t. But because unions have featherbedded the simple jobs in competing union shops and do not want to loose their undeserved, excessive wages when Safeway has to cut costs to compete with Wal-Mart.
It was in The Dispatch a few days ago. Perhaps you missed it?
Intellectually, I mean.
Addressing your charges:
• Turnover is high at Wal-Mart: Of course it is, turnover is a normal consequence of the Wal-Mart business model. Lots of people don’t mind working for low, part-time wages while they look for something better, it’s preferable to unemployment. Did it occur to you to thank Wal-Mart for training employees for other retail businesses?
• Wal-Mart does not want to be a union shop: Given the huge number of businesses that unions have driven into exodus or bankruptcy, the position makes a certain amount of sense.
• Chinese businesses that sell to Wal-Mart do not follow United States business practice: Duh. Wal-Mart has no more responsibility for policing the companies they buy from than you do for policing any business that you might patronize. That responsibility belongs to the Chinese government. Don’t hold your breath, they’re socialists; the most brutal regime in world history.
Stuart Allen, Gilroy
Submitted Thursday, Feb. 5 to [email protected]
The Golden Quill is awarded occasionally for a well-written letter.
