V = I·R

Well!.. I!.. Never!..

Charles Platt decided to go undercover and investigate the inner cobweb of the evil empire that WalMart is. Here’s the report.

As TRS says, if you want to make a liberal mad, work hard and smile.

You have to wonder, then, why the store has such a terrible reputation, and I have to tell you that so far as I can determine, trade unions have done most of the mudslinging. Web sites that serve as a source for negative stories are often affiliated with unions. Walmartwatch.com, for instance, is partnered with the Service Employees International Union; Wakeupwalmart.com is entirely owned by United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. For years, now, they’ve campaigned against Wal-Mart, for reasons that may have more to do with money than compassion for the working poor. If more than one million Wal-Mart employees in the United States could be induced to join a union, by my calculation they’d be compelled to pay more than half-billion dollars each year in dues.

Anti-growth activists are the other primary source of anti-Wal-Mart sentiment. In the town where I worked, I was told that activists even opposed a new Barnes & Noble because it was "too big". If they're offended by a large bookstore, you can imagine how they feel about a discount retailer.

The argument, of course, is that smaller enterprises cannot compete. My outlook on this is hardcore: I think that many of the "mom-and-pop" stores so beloved by activists don't deserve to remain in business.

When I first ventured from New York City to the American heartland, I did my best to patronize quaint little places on Main Street and quickly discovered the penalties for doing so. At a small appliance store, I wasn't allowed to buy a microwave oven on display. I had to place an order and wait a couple of weeks for delivery. At a stationery store where I tried to buy a file cabinet, I found the same problem. Think back, if you are old enough to do so, and you may recall that this is how small-town retailing used to function in the 1960s.

As a customer, I don't see why I should protect a business from the harsh realities of commerce if it can't maintain a good inventory at a competitive price. And as an employee, I see no advantage in working at a small place where I am subject to the quixotic moods of a sole proprietor, and can never appeal to his superior, because there isn't one.

By the same logic, I see no reason for legislators to protect Safeway supermarkets with ploys such as zoning restrictions, which just happen to allow a supermarket-sized building while outlawing a Wal-Mart SuperCenter that's a few thousand square feet bigger.

Based on my experience (admittedly, only at one location) I reached a conclusion which is utterly opposed to almost everything ever written about Wal-Mart. I came to regard it as one of the all-time enlightened American employers, right up there with IBM in the 1960s. Wal-Mart is not the enemy. It's the best friend we could ask for.

http://gobnf.org/i/ihm/frownsmileycover.jpg
(liberal propaganda of WalMart’s effect on communities)

Another proof to immortal truth: anything that can be done privately is better done privately. Including philanthropy.

A study of evil Walmart’s help to Katrina victims, compared to that of FEMA. (“The top causes of a Black man’s death in the USA include AIDS, chicken wings, guns, and FEMA.” — Boondocks.)

Wal-Mart produced desirable outcomes in the Katrina event because it had both the right knowledge and the right incentives in place, compared with those of government agencies [the U.S. Coast Guard is not included], declares economist Steven Horwitz. “Whether organizations are able to acquire such knowledge and have the appropriate incentives depends on the institutional environments in which they operate and the way in which the organizations are structured,” he continues.

“In general, the environment of market competition is superior to that of the political process in providing both the knowledge necessary to respond to people’s needs and the profit incentive to act on that knowledge in ways that create value. Within the political process, agencies face different incentives, as they do not operate by profit and loss. Instead, government agencies are more often concerned with pleasing other political actors and finding ways to expand their budgets and power. This often makes them less sensitive to the direct needs of the people who rely on them to get specific tasks accomplished.” On the market’s superiority at providing both the knowledge and incentives for efficient resource use and greater value creation, Horwitz directs interested readers to the essays in F. A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.

“In addition, the absence of a competitive market for their product means that, in general, government agencies face knowledge problems in determining what their output should be and how best to produce it. However, government agencies with a more decentralized structure that puts them in more direct contact with the people they serve may be able to overcome these knowledge problems. Larger, more centralized government agencies will lack the incentives of firms in competitive markets as well as the knowledge provided by true market prices, but more decentralized ones may do better along the latter dimension. [...]”

Who could have thought that evil WalMart that cares only about its pockets, kicks small cute businesses out of local area, trades with China and hates labor unions would be more effective in helping poor people than the government? Hmm… Maybe somebody with the right idea of what the government’s role is supposed to be?..

http://www.indypendent.org/wp-content/photos/Labor_Unions.jpg

Interesting reading.

Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Co.’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working — on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than 31ドル an hour, plus benefits.

“We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper,” he says. “Otherwise, I've just sat.”

Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.

[...]

The jobs bank was established during 1984 labor contract talks between the UAW and the Big Three. The union, still reeling from the loss of 500,000 jobs during the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s, was determined to protect those who were left. Detroit automakers were eager to win union support to boost productivity through increased automation and more production flexibility.

The result was a plan to guarantee pay and benefits for union members whose jobs fell victim to technological progress or plant restructurings. In most cases, workers end up in the jobs bank only after they have exhausted their government unemployment benefits, which are also supplemented by the companies through a related program. In some cases, workers go directly into the program and the benefits can last until they are eligible to retire or return to the factory floor.

By making it so expensive to keep paying idled workers, the UAW thought Detroit automakers would avoid layoffs. By discouraging layoffs, the union thought it could prevent outsourcing.

That strategy has worked but at the expense of the domestic auto industry's long-term viability.

American automakers have produced cars and trucks even when there is little market demand for them, forcing manufacturers to offer big rebates and discounts.

“Sometimes they just push product on us,” said Bill Holden Jr., general manager of Holden Dodge Inc. in Dover, Del., who said this does not go over well with the dealers. “But they've got these contracts with the union.”

In Detroit's battle against Asian and European competitors that are unencumbered by such labor costs, the job banks have become a major competitive disadvantage.

And so on. Read the article. Of course, instead of getting this yucky thing out of our economy’s system, we just want to go on having it — like protesting against getting out your roundworm out of your GI tract. Who’s responsible? Liberals and unions.


At the same time, Rubashkins that provided a great service for Jewish and non-Jewish communities throughout the US are being targeted. For what? For providing illegal immigrants a source of work at a higher-than-minimum wage? For providing cheap kosher meat? For benefiting local Jewish and non-Jewish (primarily) community? For doing lots of acts of chessed themselves?

Dina d’malchusa dina? Give me a bloody break. Come on. First of all, it has nothing to do with immigration laws — just strictly monetary issues. Second, it is not applicable to an unjust government. There is a story of the Rogachover refusing pay some of his taxes (covered by dina d’malchusa dina laws, by the way) to the Russian government — because they were not justified by Torah. Is doing chessed to people by providing them with jobs justified by Torah? How about forbidding it because of fascist unions’ influence?

But even if it was violation of dina d’malchusa dina — so what? Are you personally a tzaddik? You never do any violations? Should we be happy for every Jew who violates some area (for instance, breaks Shabbos — a much worse violation than dina d’malchusa dina) of Halacha who goes to jail? What if a Jew was taken driver’s license away for not paying a parking meter? (“Uhh... isn’t it violation of Halacha?..” Maybe, but so what? We shouldn’t protest about it? Let this Jew do teshuva and be answereable in front of Eibeshter — it’s not your stinking business, as long as his actions don’t disrupt the fabric of society and yiddishkeit.)

This is all besides the fact that Rubashkins are being treated unfairly even within the system: all California farms are run by illegals, and Rubaskin is not allowed bail because he is supposedly a risk flight? (Hirshel Tzig may be criticized for a lot of things, but I agree with his opinion on the situation and all the little dogs that thought it their ingrate business to bark). Our cooperation with the government as Jews in this society rests on the assumption that we will be treated fairly and justly and that Torah observience will not be messed with. Here we have a case of a Jew who’s done a lot of chessed being treated poorly, and an ease of following the mitzva of kashrus (think of all those borderline baalei teshuva, for whom cheap kosher meat is important for keeping kashrus) is being endangered. Think about it this Thanksgiving — and influence the government whatever way you can.


For a long time, I had problems with WalMart. As it turned out, all the problems (doing business with China, importing goods from China, low pay, lack of benefits, forcing local little stores out of business) are all not problems at all. Yes, these things happen. So what? People are free to work wherever they freaking want. If there is no demand for their unskilled labor, this is how much it costs — with these many benefits. Otherwise, competitors would snap those people up. Doing business with China helps Chinese people by introducing capitalism to their country (to the point that even their socialists are more capitalist then our capitalists) and allowing capital to spread amongst masses. Little business should adapt by providing unique or better services or goods or get the hell out back into the workforce. What, every time a way to mass-produce and mass-sell something is introduced we are going to have Luddite uprising?

But the last thing that I never had a problem with is refusal of WalMart to deal with union mobsters. To quote an anti-WalMart web-site:

Wal-Mart Anti-Union Policy

Wal-Mart closes down stores and departments that unionize

• Wal-Mart closed its store in Jonquierre, Quebec in April 2005 after its employees received union certification. The store became the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America when 51 percent of the employees at the store signed union cards. [Washington Post, 4/14/05]

• In December 2005, the Quebec Labour Board ordered Wal-Mart to compensate former employees of its store in Jonquiere Quebec. The Board ruled that Wal-Mart had improperly closed the store in April 2005 in reprisal against unionized workers. [Personnel Today, 12/19/05]

• In 2000, when a small meatcutting department successfully organized a union at a Wal-Mart store in Texas, Wal-Mart responded a week later by announcing the phase-out of its in-store meatcutting company-wide. [Pan Demetrakakes, "Is Wal-Mart Wrapped in Union Phobia? Food & Packaging 76 (August 1, 2003).]

Wal-Mart has issued "A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free,"

• This toolbox provides managers with lists of warning signs that workers might be organizing, including "frequent meetings at associates' homes" and "associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other." The "Toolbox" gives managers a hotline to call so that company specialists can respond rapidly and head off any attempt by employees to organize. [Wal-Mart, A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free at 20-21]

Wal-Mart is committed to an anti-union policy

• In the last few years, well over 100 unfair labor practice charges have been filed against Wal-Mart throughout the country, with 43 charges filed in 2002 alone.

• Since 1995, the U.S. government has been forced to issue at least 60 complaints against Wal-Mart at the National Labor Relations Board. [International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Internationally Recognised Core Labour Standards in the United States: Report for the WTO General Council Review of the Trade Policies of the United States (Geneva, January 14-16, 2004)]

• Wal-Mart's labor law violations range from illegally firing workers who attempt to organize a union to unlawful surveillance, threats, and intimidation of employees who dare to speak out. [“Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart,” A Report by the Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2/16/04]

Good job, WalMart. At least it does not want to bend over in front of the fascist mobsters, like the car industry did.

More on the effect of labor unions.


On a final note: say Tehillim for Rubashkins. Reishis goyim amalek, but they are nothing but a tool in the hands of Hashem — we can influence on high by praying down below and doing acts of goodness and kindness, which are infinitely more important than all this b.s. Rubaskins certainly did enough chessed themselves.

http://www.crownheights.info/media/4/20060704-tehillim-smlr.jpg

Of course, when it’s the Jews that are in the government or are scheming against other Jews… Woe to us all. Trees in the forest are not fallen unless one of them donates wood for the axe. Every single anti-Jewish event in the Jewish history, starting from the first slavery (resulting from Yosef’s successful transformation of Egypt into a slave society) till our very days had Jewish hand in it. Then we must pray double and do acts of ahavas yisroel triple. It was causeless hatred that sent us to golus; it will be causeless love that will send to towards Mashiach and geulah, when even liberal Jews will come back to emes.