Wal-Mart

So the last few years I've stopped shopping at Wal-Mart (and Sam's Club, although I've never really been there in the last fifteen years) and sometimes I feel bad for fighting this corporation when really the only people I am hurting by not shopping there are the low-paid low-level workers. Well, not entirely I suppose, but I certainly am not putting a dent in the Walton family fortune. Nevertheless, I recently read an article in Newsweek contesting that Sam Walton should have won the Nobel Peace Prize because he pays workers more than the average living wage in poor Latin American and Southeast Asian countries. On average, a Latin American worker earns about $12 a day working for Wal-Mart, where a farmer in that region survives off of $1-2 a day. Now, all things considered, it is great that Wal-Mart is employing these otherwise impoverished people. But what kind of message does this send to other corporations?

It says that we can pay workers outside the United States whatever we want, even if its more than the average current living wage, because it benefits Americans wallets because they aren't spending so much at the store. If Wal-Mart can churn out multi-billion dollar profits a year, they can afford to pay their factory workers in developing nations a comparable salary to American factory workers. This could even benefit Wal-Mart because they would likely recruit the cream of the crop from these respective nations because of the inevitable competition for such a high-paying job. And putting more money into their wallets would help their economy as well, and perhaps they themselves could build hospitals and schools, instead of relying on foreign philanthropy.

There is another thing unmentioned often in the Wal-Mart debate. Well, putting aside the fact that they outsource most of their products and thus labor, it pins the American manufacturers against them, and Wal-Mart is too strong and too vast for them to not succumb to Wal-Mart's low quality standard for their products. The other factor is the environment. Now, I will concede Wal-Mart is making strides (they say they will cater to whatever the current modern consumer wants, which is why they now carry free range eggs and almond milk) in that capacity, and are even investing in alternative fuel and energy sources. This isn't enough though. When most of your products are coming from China, that is a huge environmental risk traveling your products (of which there are literally hundreds of thousands) across the largest ocean on the planet. This puts an enormous stress on our planet, and this is not the best way to help out the common American consumer. I must say, I will continue my boycott of Wal-Mart until they start localizing their business more (they are starting to do this with local farmers) and start paying these off-seas workers a real wage.