A Pity-Party for Walmart

Walmart has gotten supremely bad press over the last few years and all the signs of late seem to indicate the anti-Walmart sentiment is only growing. Given the relative lateness of the store giant’s latest efforts to quell image-critics, I’m doubtful that any last-ditch efforts to salvage their once highly esteemed brand image will produce any visible payoff.

I am neither a Walmart-hater nor a fan of Walmart. I don’t shop there but I also don’t shop with the competition either (i.e., K-Mart and Target). However, I've lived in many cities across the country and never have I found any difference in the level or manner of complaints afforded to large chain discount stores such as Walmart, Kmart and Target. Long lines, bad customer service, unclean stores, non english-speaking employees, minimum healthcare coverage for employees, low wages etc., etc.... We're talking about part-time employees working for a general store, right? I used to work in the healthcare consulting industry and healthcare coverage for part-time employees, is not a common practice. Low wages? The lowest-wage earner at Walmart makes more than the minimum wage.

How much should it cost to hire stock boys, clerks, cashiers and baggers?

Thousands of jobs requiring signifcantly more physical labor, brain power and longer hours are often paid either the same wages or, in more favorable circumstances, only slightly more. So what's so special about Walmart employees that they deserve differential treatment?

Keep in mind I am NOT advocating poor pay and poor healthcare coverage; like most I am none too fond of having to pay for someone else's healthcare. But I don't even see this level of reaction aimed at our prison systems across the country. The lowlifes piling up in these places actually did something and we have to shell out 10 times more per year to pay for their food, shelter, excercise and education. Really the question I'm driving at is this: How did Walmart get such an unfortunate claim to fame when no one else did (certainly not because they are the only ones).

So compared to the competition, is Walmart really so terrible? What started out as general consumer malcontent over poor customer experiences quickly escalated to communities battling it out with the giant to ban it from entering the locality. I recognize the inevitability of discount store giants squashing competing local businesses - a sad end for "the little-man" - but I also recognize this as being the benefit and price of capitalism. Anti-Walmart hostilities eventually escalated to the point of garnering significant political press and politicians speaking out against the Walmart movement which in turn even gave rise to Walmart-bashing on C-SPAN. My reaction to this is simply, ‘wow’.

Is Walmart really the evil empire it’s made out to be - a narcissistic slave-institution set to take over then destroy the world? Or did it’s size, and domestic and global expansion efforts make it an easy target whose occasional reports of shoddy customer satisfaction (not terribly unusual given it's size, locations and target audience) quickly snow-balled into this monolithic anti-Walmart movement with Walmart becoming the symbol for everything in the world that’s wrong....?