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Unionizing Walmart
As I'm sure you've all heard, various efforts are underway to unionize some Walmart outlets. Who wins if a Walmart is unionized?
- Hard working employees are bounded by metrics such as seniority
- If wages (as a whole) do rise, profits go down so the overall health of the store suffers (bad for everyone but the union itself)
- Employees have to pay union dues (thereby decreasing their pay)
- Customers suffer becuase labor costs rise, causing increased prices and a possible lower quality of staff (since they will have a harder time axing lousy employees)
Really, the only entities who benifit are lazy employees and the union itself. There was a report on CBC Sunday this morning that showed the story of a young man trying to unionize his Walmart...he spoke of dropping out of high school and that this was the life he chose so he had to make the best of it. Wouldn't the best of it be working hard at his job to move up? (I'm not sure how much room there is for advancement there...but there must be some.) I only see the union as being a short-term bandaid and a long-term handicap for this guy. Thoughts?
Reader Comments:
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Comment By: Trevor IP Address: 129.100.19.140 |
Mar 13, 2005 - 4:18 PM |
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Think of the government as a nation's union.
If nobody paid taxes the economy would be technically more efficient. Of course we'd then all need to worry about the little things like fixing roads and the upkeep of public transit, etc and the big things like defense. Sure a union throws a monkey wrech into the efficiency of a coporation but think of the benefits. These include health care plans, a modicum of job security and the works for the 1.6 million Walmart employees. If these outweigh the overall costs the uber-bliging Walton family, why not. |
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Comment By: Pete IP Address: 24.103.163.196 |
Mar 14, 2005 - 10:44 AM |
| I believe that unions have long been experiencing the effects of "the law of diminishing returns". Real gains in pay and benefits are negligible or less that 1% a year these days. Wal-mart would be best served in my opinion, to offer a significant benefits program for its employees. The cost of negotiating perpetually with the union, would be more than this gesture of good faith. Also, I'm sure some customers would be fine with paying a little more for their products knowing that the hundreds of thousands of employees can maintain a quality of life above the poverty line. | |