Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win
It could be used as a textbook lesson on all that is wrong with capitalism in it's current form:
Henry Ford once said, "There is one rule for industrialists and that is: make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.
According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.
The latter part of that equation has been changed in modern capitalism to read, "delivering the maximim profit to one's shareholders", and the worker - the person whose labour actually produces the profit - is reduced to simply another unit from which profit can be squeezed.
It would be unthinkable for Wal-Mart to forbid it's shareholders the right to organise and question whether or not the company is properly looking after their interests, and yet when it comes to workers having the same rights we find Wal-Mart bending over backwards to spread fear about unionisation, as if a collective favouring the workers would actually work against them.
The actions by Wal-Mart -- the nation's largest private employer -- reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership. That could lead to higher payroll and health costs for companies already being hurt by rising fuel and commodities costs and the tough economic climate.These same companies that we are being asked to pity because of "rising fuel and commodities costs" have been making bumper profits for years whilst paying their staff as little as they could get away with.
The notion that the staff organising themselves to better their lot is worrying to Wal-Mart for one reason and one reason alone; it might effect their huge profits.
So we now have Wal-Mart telling their own staff not to vote Democrat in case they lose their jobs, which can be the only inference regarding what might happen if wages rise at a time of "rising fuel and commodities costs".
We had all this nonsense in Britain before Blair introduced the minimum wage with the Tories threatening that thousands of workers would be laid off if MacDonald's were forced to pay a decent wage.The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.
"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.
When the bill passed absolutely bugger all happened. No-one was made unemployed; the only real difference was MacDonald's and companies like it saw a sliver of their massive profits redistributed to the people who made those profits possible: the people who work for them on the shop floor.
But here is the ugly face of capitalism, with Wal-Mart telling it's own workers to fear anyone who might try to better represent their own interests.
2 comments:
A better definition of capitalism might be this: making the maximum level of profit while giving as little product as possible. This is the ideal, this is what makes a company a "success".
Funny thing though, nobody ever applies that to workers, including the workers themselves. If you really bought into capitalism, you would recognize that the workers have just as much right to maximize their profits as any corporation. And yet, no one seems to see it that way...
That's my point Dave. It appears that it is considered healthy for everyone to want to make as much money as possible out of business, except the very people whose labour makes that business able to make profit.
If the workers ever decide that they would like to make more money then they are accused of jeapordising the entire enterprise through greed.
Profit is to maximised - i.e. the money that is made after the workers have been paid and the product produced. The managements greed is good and healthy, but worker's financial ambitions are always portrayed as dangerous.
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