Essay About Wal-Mart Wal-Mart And Low Wage

Wal-Mart

The ‘Wal-Mart’ video by Walmart and other media are part of what is making a difference in the lives of middle class and working-class households on Wall Street. The company’s video has become a platform for the collective conversation and debate about how best to help American workers compete in their workplace. The video was directed at members of the American Community Survey (ACS) which asked members to provide evidence for a minimum wage increase for all workers, and a minimum hourly wage of $15. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measured the income of each hourly worker as the average of the four income quintiles. The video was originally distributed by Citi Direct (http://www.citi.com/taxpayer-paypal/#/).

. As part of its campaign against higher

But why this specific, management imposed trade off between productivity, wages, and prices? Henry Ford used the enormous efficiencies generated by the deployment of the first automotive assembly line to double wages, slash turnover, and sell his Model T at prices affordable even to a tenant farmer. As historian Meg Jacobs makes clear in Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America, the quest for both high wages as well as low prices have been at the heart of America’s domestic politics throughout much of the 20th century. And when social policy tilts toward the left, as in the Progressive era, the New Deal, and on the World War II home front, workers and consumers find their interests closely aligned. They see the relationship between wages and prices as a fundamentally public, political issue and not merely a dictate of corporate management or the interplay of market forces. Thus, as late as 1960 retail wages stood at more than half those paid to autoworkers, in large part because the new unions and the New Dealers had sought to equalize wages within and across firms and industries. But by 1983, after a decade of inflationary pressures had eroded so many working class paychecks, retail wages had plunged to but one third of that earned by union workers in manufacturing, and to about 60 percent of the income enjoyed by grocery clerks in the North and West. And this is just about where retail wages remain today, despite the considerable rise in overall productivity in the discount sector.

Indeed, if one compares the internal job structure at Wal- Mart with that which union and management put in place at GM during its mid-twentieth century heyday, one finds a radical transformation of rewards, incentives and values. GM workers were often lifetime employees so factory turnover was exceedingly low: these were the best jobs around, and they were jobs that rewarded longevity. Auto industry turnover is less than eight percent a year, largely a result of normal retirements. At Wal-Mart, in contrast, employee turnover approaches 50 percent a year, which means it must be even higher for those hired at an entry-level wage. Turnover at K- Mart is somewhat lower and Costco, which provides even higher wages and benefits, reports a rate of only 24 percent.