By Robert Reich

A half century ago America's largest private-sector employer was General Motors, whose full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50, in today's dollars, including health and pension benefits.

Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, whose average employee earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart's employees work less than 28 hours per week and don't qualify for benefits.

There are many reasons for the difference - including globalization and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services, such as retail.

But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today fewer than 7 percent do. As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizeable share of corporate profits.

At the peak of its power and influence in the 1950s, the United Auto Workers could claim a significant portion of GM's earnings for its members.

Walmart's employees, by contrast, have no union to represent them. So they've had no means of getting much of the corporation's earnings.

Walmart earned $16 billion last year (it just reported a 9 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter of 2012, to $3.6 billion), the lion's share of which went instead to Walmart's shareholders - including the family of its founder, Sam Walton, who earned on their Walmart stock more than the combined earnings of the bottom 40 percent of American workers.

Is this about to change? Despite decades of failed unionization attempts, Walmart workers are planning to strike or conduct some other form of protest outside at least 1,000 locations across the United States this Friday - so-called "Black Friday," the biggest shopping day in America when the Christmas holiday buying season begins.

At the very least, the action gives Walmart employees a chance to air their grievances in public - not only lousy wages (as low at $8 an hour) but also unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, excessive hours, and sexual harassment. The result is bad publicity for the company exactly when it wants the public to think of it as Santa Claus. And the threatened strike, the first in 50 years, is gaining steam.

The company is fighting back. It has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board to preemptively ban the Black Friday strikes. The complaint alleges that the pickets are illegal "representational" picketing designed to win recognition for the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. Walmart's workers say they're protesting unfair labor practices rather than acting on behalf of the UFCW. If a court sides with Walmart, it could possibly issue an injunction blocking Black Friday's pickets.

What happens at Walmart will have consequences extending far beyond the company. Other big box retailers are watching carefully. Walmart is their major competitor. Its pay scale and working conditions set the standard.

More broadly, the widening inequality reflected in the gap between the pay of Walmart workers and the returns to Walmart investors, including the Walton fammily, haunts the American economy.

Consumer spending is 70 percent of economic activity, but consumers are also workers. And as income and wealth continue to concentrate at the top, and the median wage continues to drop - it's now 8 percent lower than it was in 2000 - a growing portion of the American workforce lacks the purchasing power to get the economy back to speed. Without a vibrant and growing middle class, Walmart itself won't have the customers it needs.

Most new jobs in America are in personal services like retail, with low pay and bad hours. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average full-time retail worker earns between $18,000 and $21,000 per year.

But if retail workers got a raise, would consumers have to pay higher prices to make up for it? A new study by the think tank Demos reports that raising the salary of all full-time workers at large retailers to $25,000 per year would lift more than 700,000 people out of poverty, at a cost of only a 1 percent price increase for customers.

And, in the end, retailers would benefit. According to the study, the cost of the wage increases to major retailers would be $20.8 billion - about one percent of the sector's $2.17 trillion in total annual sales. But the study also estimates the increased purchasing power of lower-wage workers as a result of the pay raises would generate $4 billion to $5 billion in additional retail sales.

This seems like a good deal all around.
(c) 2012 Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His "Marketplace" commentaries c

http://www.issuesandalibis.org/

And again another huge failure to your argument...


The REAL world. Walmat's prices are cheaper. Hence shoppers go there. if they have no unions and prices are lower GUESS WHAT? Unions are driving the costs up so high evidently it is MAKING Walmart THEY place to shop.

Evidently Walmart was smart enough to snub collective bargaining among their employment base. And in scale of things compared to any Union Shop more people work for Walmart than the combined American Auto industry.

Likewise GM has suffered heinously thanks to Union Stagnation. They fell behind the times where foreign Auto makers led the way. They made bigger gas gulpers, Japan and other nations made smaller gas sippers. GM has not made any innovations and are one step behind the other guy INCLUDING FORD WHO IS NOW TAKING THEIR MARKET SHARE AWAY WITHOUT GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE!

Now about GM, I will bet you a dozen donuts they have no Union woes to think about there. I feel eventually within the next five years GM will shutter in just about every location in America as far as manufacturing goes just to get away from the Unions. Some industries move slower than others and GM moves like Molasses.

And here you try to use the words f an unnamed expert who feels we could raise wages without impacting the price of consumer goods. On what planet? Not this one! Where one cost goes up another must come down. So what must come down to encourage an employer to raise wages? Les try cutting down on all the taxation we are hammered with.

Here is yet another fact you seem to overlook, the more we make the more our government taxes us. So what little we gain we loose to handing out to the government who cannot balance a check book let alone maintain a solvent budget. And yet again you forget the more on person makes the more a person like you gets mad when they are making more money than you.

All I can say is this, once my business operations are up and running fully, if I have $1M in the bank free and clear of taxes in five years I will feel thoroughly vindicated in MY life and will be able to look at people like you and KNOW FULL WELL YOU ARE SO WRONG!

You don't become rich being the Bytch for someone else. You sure don't work for yourself! You don't run a business. You are nothing more than a skilled GRUNT who thinks he knows ore and is smarter than the rest of us. I on the other hand AM a HIGHLY skilled Grunt with greater aspirations than working for someone else the rest of my life.

Speaking of Bailouts and YOUR BOY OBAMA, Remember TARP II and how many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS THE BANKS GOT? Well, why didn't WE THE PEOPLE get bailed out first if at all? We need the help that Obama gives to others who DON'T DESERVE IT?

I see this argument that we don't pay people enough because Walmart doesn't allow unions in their operations carries as much weight as a roll of toilet paper. Clearly Walmart is smarter than you because look at who is making all that money!

I can't remember the last time I went to Walmart. Can't stand it there. I would much rather give other stores my business.

Plus, many of the people who shop there freak me out a bit. Older grumpy people running into others with carts? No thanks.

Other reasons to not shop at Walmart. Shop at your own risk.....

Walmart Heirs Worth Same Amount As Bottom 30 Percent Of Americans In 2007: Analysis


The Occupy Wall Street movement has brought increased focus on the disparity between the top one percent of earners and everyone else in the United States. But one American family paints a particularly stark picture of the country's wealth gap.

The six children of Walmart's founders, Sam and James "Bud" Walton, had the same net worth in 2007 as the entire bottom 30 percent of American earners, according to an analysis from Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at University of California-Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics.

Though the 2007 figure is striking, the gap between the Walmart heirs and the rest of the country may get even bigger -- the Walton's combined fortune has grown by more than $20 billion, according to data compiled from the Forbes 400 this year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/walmart-heirs_n_1137492.html

Right on Andy

Robert Reich!
Wonder how much the Hypocrite has salted away!
Keynes would even diss him!

What good are cheaper goods if no one can afford to buy them?

Many of you are welcome to work for less but not me.

I would be willing to pay a penny more for a product to raise the workers out of poverty.

I would have less of an issue if the walton family would take a penny less to raise their workers out of poverty.

How about we split the difference and we pay half a penny more and the Walton family takes a half penny less.




The Waltons control about 39% of Wal-Mart stock, worth some $90 billion, which makes them by far the richest family in the U.S.
http://www.chacha.com/question/how-much-is-the-walmart-family-worth

that's why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Idiot-Shoppers!

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/340781

Boycott this! Don't shop there! Don't eat these! Wow, you're really keen on putting people out of work. That's smart!

The Liberty and Freedom Foundation
EPIC UNION FAIL: WALMART REPORTS RECORD SALES DESPITE BEING TARGETED BY LIBERALS AND UNIONS - Liberals and bloated union officials were smacked down on Thursday. Despite union efforts to target retailers like Walmart so they could get more people to pay dues and support union fat cat leaders, businesses are reporting record Black Friday traffic – the biggest sign yet that the unions are out of touch with the American people. Starting at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Walmart put its products on Black Friday sale, sparking a run to the stores and earning the stores record sales. Anti-business Liberals, who want businesses and job creators to suffer were rebuked by Americans this weekend.

And what good to us are Unions when there is no work because between Government and Unions they are screwed out of making any money at all due to your ideals of wealth redistribution.

It is time Unions got back to the real world and stepped out of the world of the 1890s when unions really were needed!

How about this? Unions have become like Churches. They lie about salvation to get at your money! All they are about is your money and the power YOU give them.

The Unions have become the Church of the Almighty Dollar! they are not about sustained jobs. They are not about growth. They are NOT there for the employer usually with a RARE few exceptions! They are there to "Protect workers" by squeezing for more money.

Back to the Auto Industry. Wanna know why Saturn folded as a car company?

1) Even with profit sharing for the Employees the Unions, ESPECIALLY THE UAW AND TEAMSTERS made ridiculous and expensive demands especially when Saturn sales were up when they chose to strike.
2) Although GM agreed to let Saturn Division operate their way ultimately GM did the exact opposite screwing Saturn's management up something awful.
3) Because of GM's sudden Involvement near Saturn's end where Quality was going up each model year GM caused the Quality of their vehicles to DROP SIGNIFICANTLY!

So about that whole, No one having any money... Who is at fault here?

COUGH Obama COUGH. AMERICA'S LEADERSHIP COUGH COUGH!! And voters like YOU! COUGH WHEEZE GAG COUGH COUGH COUGH!

Can someone here please give me $3.50?

And what good to us are Unions when there is no work because between Government and Unions they are screwed out of making any money at all due to your ideals of wealth redistribution.

It is time Unions got back to the real world and stepped out of the world of the 1890s when unions really were needed!

How about this? Unions have become like Churches. They lie about salvation to get at your money! All they are about is your money and the power YOU give them.

The Unions have become the Church of the Almighty Dollar! they are not about sustained jobs. They are not about growth. They are NOT there for the employer usually with a RARE few exceptions! They are there to "Protect workers" by squeezing for more money.

Back to the Auto Industry. Wanna know why Saturn folded as a car company?

1) Even with profit sharing for the Employees the Unions, ESPECIALLY THE UAW AND TEAMSTERS made ridiculous and expensive demands especially when Saturn sales were up when they chose to strike.
2) Although GM agreed to let Saturn Division operate their way ultimately GM did the exact opposite screwing Saturn's management up something awful.
3) Because of GM's sudden Involvement near Saturn's end where Quality was going up each model year GM caused the Quality of their vehicles to DROP SIGNIFICANTLY!

So about that whole, No one having any money... Who is at fault here?

COUGH Obama COUGH. AMERICA'S LEADERSHIP COUGH COUGH!! And voters like YOU! COUGH WHEEZE GAG COUGH COUGH COUGH!

Can someone here please give me $3.50?

Wow! There sure is much in Robert Reich's commentary that is flawed.

First of all, whenever a person applies to work at Walmart, that person states what times during the day and what days during the week that the person is available to work. It is common for associates in high school and college to limit their work hours to specific blocks of time.

Second, the service industry, which includes restaurants, is famous for not granting certain benefits to part-time employees. So, why not protest all restaurants for doing the same thing that Walmart does?

If Reich wants to talk about average pay rates at Walmart, then he needs to explain how the employee turn-over rate affects pay rates. Employees have to stick around long enough for them to receive pay raises.

Reich mentions excessive hours, but he fails to mention that Walmart's corporate officers are opposed to hourly associates working overtime unless a store manager has a good excuse for associates in a store working overtime.

Reich mentions unsafe and unsanitary working conditions but cites no evidence of such things being common in Walmart stores. Such things are the opposite of Walmart strives for and works to prevent.

In short, Reich's opinion piece is full of hearsay and is nothing more than a promotion of labor unions.

Thanks Dodo, I was going to mention that.

I like K-MART

So True!

Funny....the doctor's office I work at is in a Walmart and the people there like it there for the most part. There are always people that have issues with where they work.