Turning People into Profits Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers (sickening)

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/cox04202004.html


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A list of numbers serves to illustrate how Wal-Mart deals with tradeoffs among the interests of workers, customers, and shareholders:

Pay scales, high to low

$2,200,000,000: Total dividends Wal-Mart plans to pay its shareholders this fiscal year, after a 44% dividend increase announced March 2, 2004

$23,000,000: Average annual compensation for Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, 2000-2003

$4,500,000: Average annual compensation for previous Wal-Mart CEO David Glass, 1995-2000

$70,000 to $150,000: Bonuses (coming on top of typical base salaries exceeding $50,000) commonly earned by Wal-Mart store managers in 2002 as incentives to increase their own store's annual profit, with profit increases coming largely through holding down labor costs

$9.68: Average hourly living wage as defined by 22 of the U.S. cities and towns that passed living wage ordinances between 2000 and 2004

$9.60: Average hourly wage Wal-Mart could pay if one-third of its current profits were diverted to pay its U.S. employees instead

$9.54: Average hourly wage Wal-Mart could afford to pay if it raised its prices an average of 1%

$9.32: Average hourly wage Wal-Mart could pay if the current annual dividend going to its stockholders were diverted to pay its U.S. employees

$9.15: Hourly wage that Dana Mailloux was earning at a Ft. Myers, Florida Wal-Mart when she and more than a dozen similarly paid employees were laid off because of "lack of work", after which, as they were leaving the store, they noticed "six new hires -- red vests in hand -- filling out paperwork," and then that next weekend saw Help Wanted ads on the store's bulletin board

$8.00: Approximate nationwide average hourly wage for Wal-Mart employees

$6.25: Starting wage for a cashier at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Salina, Kansas, 2003

$12,192: Income earned by a newly hired cashier working 40-hour weeks (more than the 32-hour company-wide average) for a year, with no weekdays off, at the Salina Supercenter

$13,994: Minimum annual expenses for bare existence faced by a single cashier with children 4 and 12 who lives in Salina, Kansas and provides as many necessities as possible by shopping at the Supercenter where she works (Expenses do not include child care costs, which, if the cashier finds a qualified provider, are covered by a state subsidy.)

$6.00: Typical hourly rate being paid by Wal-Mart to custodial contractors for the services of more than 300 undocumented workers in late 2003 (with the contractor, not Wal-Mart, having to pick up the employer's share of the workers' Social Security tax)

$0.31: The legal hourly minimum wage in China

$0.23: Average hourly wage at 15 Chinese factories making clothing, shoes, and handbags to be sold at U.S. Wal-Mart stores, 2001

73: Average number of hours worked per week by employees at those 15 factories

Some other numbers:
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sorry I couldn't post all of this but the snipped numbers are most interesting.

[WoodrowFan]

1. thanks

great stats, thank you for posting. (plus a bump)

[eyesroll]

2. Wow. Thanks.

BTW -- The contractors generally don't pay taxes on illegal employees. It's all under the table. The workers often make way less than minimum wage, because they're hired as subcontractors at a flat rate. (That's also illegal.)

I write about the cleaning industry for a living. We're doing a feature on illegal subcontracting this summer.

[Desertrose]

3. makes me physically sick and completely infuriated

Isn't anyone else bother by this?? (I mean besides those of us here on DU?)

:grr:
We are set up to fail downwards. What a bunch of crap!

DR

[Toucano]

4. I once read that Wal-Mart turns over 600,000

employees each year.

Why the hell can't we get laid off union workers hired in who could then vote the store union.

Get one Wal-Mart with a union and the rest would be much more vulnerable.

Is anyone at the AFL-CIO working on this?

[Lasira]

7. I bet they won't hire people who've been part of a union

The management of Wal-Mart is at full red alert when it comes to the threat of unionization. I used to work as a cashier there, and during orientation, the anti-union video was longer than the safety video!

[Toucano]

8. I've heard that about the video.

It's amazing.

Although I realize they are strongly opposed to it and would do anything to prevent it, is it legal for them to ask if an applicant has been a member of a union?

I can't imagine they do a thorough background investigation for clerks and stock positions. We wouldn't want applicants to lie because they could use that for an excuse for firing them, but it seems like they could get hired without their union background being discovered.

With so many union people out of work, it just seems like a natural.

[Cursive_Knives512]

5. Terrible.

And to think that one's going to be built less than a mile from my house, and no one in my community really cares (although there have been some concerns about Walmart increasing the number of "scuzzy" people driving through "our" streets). :puke:

[histohoney]

6. Here

in my town they "right sized"(It's still letting people go no matter what you call it.)They fired a good number of checkers and them put in these self check-out stations. You scan your items, bag them and then use a credit card or cash to check yourself out.

Two days ago I was purchasing some items and I got in the check out line of a REAL person chaser. A long line. The store manager came up to me (I think it's the manager, they have the gold vests right?) and said. " Here mama, try using the new self check out lane."
With out thinking I said "Heck (yes,I say heck for real) NO! You took away someones job who probable really needed it and now you want us to do the job with out any discount for using it so you can get a bigger profit margin. I'll stay right here and what for a real person all day if I have to." The lady behind me clapped the manager just turned around and walked off.
I don't mind doing it myself in a store that specializes in self check out (Pack and Saves ect...) But to take away jobs and expect us to do it for a bigger profit for them. NO WAY.
Yesterday I saw the self check outs at Albertsons. I wounder how many people they "sacked".

[Athletic Grrl]

9. Albertsons are union...

...at least they are here. I can't imagine the SEIU idly sitting by as these self check out lines threaten the jobs of checkers and baggers.

[histohoney]

10. I don't

know for sure but I don't think we have the Union here.
All I can do is not use them (the self check outs) and maybe if enough people refuse to use them Wal-Mart and Albertsons will bring back the checkers.
OK here I go showing my ignorance, what or who is the SEIU?

[Libertarialoon]

11. You apparently don't believe in the free market

No one has to work at Wal-Mart if the conditions are unacceptable to them, but thousands do. No one has to shop there if they disagree with their policies, but millions do. If people were herded into Wal-Mart and forced to work at the barrel of a gun, I'd agree with you. Why do you presume that what you find offensive is offensive to everyone?

Now I personally don't shop at Wal-Mart; I simply can't find anything inside their mammoth stores. But vitually all my friends do. Wal-Mart is a revolutionary business in terms of keeping costs down and passing on much of the savings to their customers. They have the lowest profit margins of any comparably-sized company, yet you complain they are being greedy. How few profits should a company make before they are acceptable to you?

[Wapsie B]

12. If they just had

some of their people on their base wage plus a commission based on sales in their dept. it would actually reward those that made all that money for Wally World. Put their dept. managers and a few high acheiving employees on the commission structure. But then again that would cut into the Walnuts fortune.