The Wal-Mart Myth

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

I thought this was an interesting article that compared Wal-Mart to CostCo. The interesting quote was from the CostCo President, "Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business."

Can any current or former CostCo employees verify the facts of this article? Given that retail is generally a crappy-paying job, do they really take better care of their employees? It's from the website www.inequality.org, so I assume it's a fairly reliable source (and no just a stealth press release for CostCo).

The Wal-Mart Myth

[daytondem]

1. fix your link...

[struggle4progress]

6. Please fix it!

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

7. Fixed!

Sorry about that!

[mark414]

2. 2 years

is how long i spent fighting a wal-mart in my hometown 3 years ago, only to see it all fall apart at the hands of an incompetent and corrupt mayor.

i fucking hate that company.

[cjbuchanan]

3. I can't get your link to work

But I do have a good friend who works for CostCo and loves it. After two years, he is making some good money plus he has a solid health plan.

I know this is only one person, but he is really happy. By the way, he has worked retail for about 13 years and never stayed at a job more then 1 year (due to the way he was treated).

[Hawkeye-X]

4. And yet.. another WalMart pops up

and in the middle of construction, they managed to shut down IHOP, auto-parts store, and a thrift store.

Fuckin' great. Lakewood mayors are so incompetent.

Hawkeye-X

[w4rma]

5. COSTCO - The Only Company Wal-Mart Fears

Nobody runs warehouse clubs better than Costco, where shoppers can’t resist luxury products at bargain prices.
By John Helyar
…
James D. Sinegal, the president and CEO of Costco, has no palace guard and no profile to speak of, particularly compared to a retail legend like Sam Walton. Yet he's the guy who in 20 years has taken Costco from a startup to the FORTUNE 50 using, as surely as Mr. Sam, highly distinctive practices. He caps Costco's markups at 14% (department store markups can reach 40%). He offers the best wages and benefits in retail (full-time hourly workers make $40,000 after four years). He gives customers blanket permission for returns: no receipts; no questions; no time limits, except for computers—and even then the grace period is six months.
…
Other retailers began to investigate and imitate. One was Brotman, who wanted to start warehouse clubs in Seattle and in 1981 recruited Sinegal from Price Club to run Costco.
…
In 1993 Costco bought Price Club.
…
Axiom No. 3: Take care of your employees. Sol Price actually invited unions in to represent Fed-Mart and Price Club workers. Following suit, Costco pays the top wage in retail, starting employees at $10 an hour. In the minds of Price and Sinegal, high wages yield high productivity, low turnover—Costco's is a third of the retail industry average of 64%, according to the National Retail Foundation—and minimal shrinkage; that's retail-speak for theft, which at Costco is about 13% of the industry norm.
…
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,538834-2,00.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=228675

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

8. Awesome!

Here's a link to the Business Week article referenced in the original post. If this really is true, I'll be glad to purchase a Costco membership. I don't mean to gush -- honest to God I'm not in Costco marketing -- it's just nice to see a large corporation that has a soul.

The Costco Way

On Edit: I read through the prior thread (sorry for the dupe, BTW) but the information that the Costco CEO is a Democratic donor pretty much seals the deal!

[struggle4progress]

9. Interesting article! Thanks!