St Louis Today: Low prices aren't everything (guess who)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/2DFE30D1F4EEF9EE8625735900829148?OpenDocument

09/18/2007

If Wal-Mart were only about low prices, we might be inclined to look favorably on the retail giant's recently annnounced plans to add grocery operations to four of its area stores. According to a study released over the summer by professors Emek Basker of the University of Missouri and Michael Noel of the University of California, when a Wal-Mart Supercenter comes to town, grocery competitors lower their prices by 1 to 1.2 percent.

Sometimes, just the anticipation of Wal-Mart expansion affects competition. At the start of 2007 year, for example, Schnucks stores announced they would cut prices on some 10,000 items; Dierbergs quickly followed suit.

But low prices are only part of the Wal-Mart picture.

At Schnucks, Dierbergs and Shop 'n Save, our area's three major grocery chains, a new union contract ratified earlier this month pegs the average hourly wage of a full-time worker at $16.43, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655. The labor group represents 9,500 employees at the three firms' 98 area stores.

The contract also includes comprehensive health coverage for workers and their families, for which employees currently pay no premiums. In 2009, they will begin paying a modest part of the cost of their health insurance. Nearly all workers take the coverage.

In contrast, the average hourly pay for non-supervisors at Wal-Mart is $10.47, according to the company. It says that it provides some level of health insurance coverage to 47 percent of its workers, although critics have said its available health plans fall far short of comprehensive. Other Wal-Mart employees are covered under a relative's health insurance policy, and some make so little that they qualify for Medicaid. Nearly 10 percent of Wal-Mart workers have no health insurance coverage at all.


FULL story at link.

[Solon]

1. Ah shit...

We have too many fucking Wal-Marts as it is, also, where the fuck are they going to build. The closest supercenter, right now, is in Troy, we don't need another fucking grocery store around here. We have Shop n' Save, Schnucks(BIL works there), and Dierberg's(Grandma is good friends with the owners). I don't see why the fuck they would build this unless they want to drive more of our local businesses out of business. Hell, my uncle has no kind words for Wal-Mart, his company was to supply them with some local teams' logo shirts and stuff, and they dropped the contract because his company, a local clothing print shop, called Sportsprint, couldn't compete with Chinese contractors.

[brentspeak]

2. k and r

Thanks, Steve, for your posts.

:kick:

[sarge43]

3. I invite Professors Basker and Noel to eat only W-M produce and meats

for a couple of months, then get back to us about that 1% saving thing.

Some of that Wally World crap would drop a T. rex in its tracks if it tried to eat it.