Good Wal-Mart, Bad Wal-Mart

I used Wal-Mart the other day in "Seeing Whole Elephants" as one example of an organization too huge and complex to be summed up as good or evil. Allow me to illustrate:

GOOD WAL-MART: OK, the real reason I'm doing this blog entry is that I wanted an excuse to link to this article I ran across the other day. It has got to be the most ironic thing ever written about Wal-Mart. Admittedly, it's more anti-union hit piece than testament to the goodness of Wal-Mart:

Stacy J. Willis, Las Vegas Weekly:"Picketers for Hire: The strange business of protesting jobs that may be better than yours"

They're not union members; they're temp workers employed through Allied Forces/Labor Express by the union—United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). They're making $6 an hour, with no benefits; it's 104 F, and they're protesting the working conditions inside the new Wal-Mart grocery store.

BAD WAL-MART: According to this webpage, Wal-Mart is one of the biggest benefactors of eminent domain abuse and subsidies in the country. They've sinned on one of my pet issues here:

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/independent_business/walmart_eminent_domain.html

Wal-Mart leads the pack in attracting subsidies, this year collecting $10 million in Denver; $500,000 in Dallas; $36.7 million in Scottsdale, Ariz., (as part of a shopping center that includes Lowe's); $9 million in Bartlesville, Okla.; and $17 million in Lewiston, Maine.

GOOD WAL-MART: It's been pretty well publicized that Wal-Mart has been generous in offering relief to Katrina victims:

Michael Barbaro, Justin Gillis, Washington Post Service: "Wal-Mart receives praise for hurricane relief effort"

Wal-Mart's response to Katrina -- an unrivaled $20 million in cash donations, 1,500 truckloads of free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals and the promise of a job for every one of its displaced workers -- has turned the chain into an unexpected lifeline for much of the Southeast and earned it near-universal praise at a time when the company is struggling to burnish its image.

Looks like this publicity was actively spun by corporate headquarters. Still I have to give them points for doing good, no matter what their motivations:

Robert Berner, Business Week: "Can Wal-Mart Wear a White Hat?"

The troops also try to spin positive stories about the corporate giant. As they sat facing one another around three tables arranged in a U shape one day in mid-September, Hurricane Katrina was still high on the agenda. Action Alley had scored a bull's-eye after just weeks on the job when it garnered widespread national publicity about Wal-Mart's efficient relief efforts following New Orleans' devastation.

BAD WAL-MART: It looks like they are being sued for mistreating employees, yet again, this time in Oakland:

David Kravets, Associated Press: "Wal-Mart accused of depriving employees lunch breaks"
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Lawyers representing about 116,000 former and current Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees in California told a jury that the world's largest retailer systematically and illegally denied workers lunch breaks.

My personal experience of Wal-Mart is limited. I shopped at the Mountain View store a couple of times and found the experience unpleasant. I won't go there any more, but then, being an affluent professional, I'm not in their target demographic of rock-bottom price seekers.

I've been told by people that do shop at Wal-Mart that there are much nicer stores than the Mountain View store, which is right in the middle of one of the poorest neighorhoods in Santa Clara County. Our local state representative and former Mountain View mayor, Sally Lieber, was one of the first to call attention to Wal-Mart managers giving employees instructions on how to apply for food stamps. I wouldn't be surprised if the incident that triggered that story happened at the Mountain View store, although I haven't found any documentation of where it occurred.

I also came close to taking a job with a software company that did Wal-Mart's data mining. During my interviews, I learned that Wal-Mart was pushing the envelope in inventory management and analysis of sales patterns. I also learned that they had an entire mock store set up in Benton, Arkansas just for testing out product display arrangements. I didn't take the job, though, because I didn't see the prospect of regular business trips to Benton as a positive.