Will Wal-Mart Cause Woe for Hillary?
Nick Gillespie | March 13, 2006, 8:19am
That's what this AP story (via the Wash Times) asks:
Mrs. Clinton served on Wal-Mart's board of directors for six years when her husband was governor of Arkansas. The Rose Law Firm, where she was a partner, handled many of the Arkansas-based company's legal affairs.
She had kind words for Wal-Mart as recently as 2004, when she told an audience at the convention of the National Retail Federation that her time on the board "was a great experience in every respect."
In 1986, Clinton became the first woman appointed to the Arkansas titan's board of trustees. More recently, she has turned down campaign contributions and ragged on the company's health-insurance benefits. And garnered anger from left-leaning critics:
"There's no evidence she did anything to improve the status of women or make it a very different place in ways Mrs. Clinton's Democratic base would care about," said Liza Featherstone, author of "Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart."
More here.
Julian Sanchez stood up for low, low prices here.
A decade ago, the modern anti-big-box retailer movement was born and, like Walter Cronkite at every major moment in history, I Was There.
fyodor | March 13, 2006, 11:12am | #
Billy Occam,
Maybe you're being silly, and maybe you mean what you say. In case it's the latter, allow me to explain. Primarily, it's not who does it, but what is being done.
Therefore, a private corporation certainly can "do crappy things to people". For instance, if it hires a hit man off someone or break their legs. If it lobbies for taxpayer subsidies (though if it succeeds, the government bares even ultimate responsibility). If it truly does not pay someone for work performed at the rate agreed to.
The basis of the disagreement between libertarians and the rest of the world on employment issues rests on our belief that no one has a right to a job.
Regarding the allegation quoted by Keith, corporations may influence and urge its workers to work "off the clock," but in lieu of threatening them with something worse than firing, which would make them no worse off than if they hadn't been given the job in the first place, there is no "force" as we see it. We may disagree about that, but please understand it is not just because a corporation is doing it, but WHAT they are doing. Regarding overtime, that's a stickier situation. Libertarians don't believe that the law should restrict wage agreements. But obviously the law is the law, and one could assume that it should be taken into account when determining the nature of the employer/employee agreement. OTOH, if a worker works under such conditions for years before claiming back wages owed, I would question whether he changed the nature of the "implied contract" by continuing to work under such terms long after it became obvious those were indeed the terms being offered. And I know these workers don't face very happy choices if they're living paycheck to paycheck and don't have very good employment options. But that doesn't change the core issue that unless they were threatened with something worse than firing, like a threat to their life or limb or property, they were not forced to do anything.
But you probably knew all that already. Satirical caricaturization can be fun, but if it's misleading, gotta take it to task.
Evan | March 13, 2006, 11:53am | #
Billy Occam:
"Also, when you work for $8/hr, just quitting is usually not an option. One takes a job like that because options are limited."
So, because your "options are limited", the government should force the employer to give the employees more than the employer feels they are worth? Ugh. I've not always had a great job. I've had plenty of shitty jobs, and I didn't grow up with any special opportunities (my family isn't wealthy, I had to make my own money). But even when I was sweating my ass off mowing lawns or stuffing envelopes in the musty basement of the Bursar's office, just to make enough money to get through school, I never had any feeling that I was "owed" anything more than my employer felt I was worth.
Here's a question that I would like to be answered just once: what if Wal*Mart just decided to close up shop? Is there any law preventing them from simply going out of business?? Nope. Think of all the poor folks that would lose their job, and would have to go looking for a new job, maybe even at reduced wages. But would you surmise that companies should be prevented from going out of business, even if they're losing money?
"I'm constantly amazed that libertarians are perfectly willing to accept that the government will screw people (and rightly so) but when a corporation treats people like crap, they're less willing to acknoledge it. The obvious response is that coporations don't have tanks or a monopoly on force."
Yes, that
is the obvious response---obvious because it's valid. I willfully (and constantly) acknowledge that Wal*Mart treats its employees worse than it should---but that's just my opinion, and it's all relative. Surely, if someone came here from cambodia and suddenly had the opportunity to work at Wal*Mart for its base wages, they'd be ecstatic! But regardless, the difference here is that the anti-corporate crowd does not seem to be able to acknowledge the fact that voicing their opinion/protesting is where it should stop.
"That's certainly true, but it also ignores the reality that outright physical coercion is not the only way to obtain power, and that when a person or group achieves power, they will invariaby use it to their own ends. In the case of corporations, that often means treating lower-echelon workers like widgets to be used and disposed of."
So? What is your point? None of this speaks to anything except the fact that Wal*Mart treats its employees poorly. Yet, thousands of people still want to work there. Quite amazing. What I'm confused about is, what is your point, really? DO you favor government intervention? Or do you favor peaceful criticism of the company? If it's the latter, then I don't disagree with you. I would posit that putting peaceful social pressure on a company in order to achieve a certain end is an integral part of the socio-capitalist structure.
But, again, I fear that you folks are building this immense strawman argument in which Wal*Mart or other corporations somehow get a pass from libertarians on ethical issues simply because those same libertarians don't support government remedies to these ethical breaches---unfortunately, you're going to be very hard-pressed to find an example here. But good luck.
keith | March 13, 2006, 12:26pm | #
Fyodor, RC Dean (and maybe Evan too),
In the event that a Walmart manager locks in a shift of employees and forces them to perform some discrete task off the clock, what would you call the appropriate response?
Should the shift workers:
1) call 911 (presuming cell phones or wall phones are available) and say they're being held against their will?
2) Do the work, suffer through the rest of the evening, and figure out future options?
2a) What should they plan to do next time?
3) Walk away in the event, using fire escapes or breaking windows (if required), to leave the building.
3a)Come back the next shift and steely-eye the management about whether or not they've been fired?
4) sit down; refuse to work until they are clocked back in?
If I were to work at Walmart, and I were locked in by a supervisor, you betcha I'd call 911, but then, I'm white, and I'd probably be that supervisor.
3a and 4 will only be able to keep the management at the table if the workers can commit to each other that they will work together... that they can, dare I say it, bargain collectively.
Is there a solution to Walmart abrogating employee work agreements that does not logically lead to incentivizing the workers to collective bargaining?
Evan | March 13, 2006, 1:25pm | #
Occam:
"Evan-you point about the bum is interesting, but does not change the fact that for the people working for Wal-Mart, the power to end that job matters.
Sure, it "matters". That wasn't my point. My point was more succinctly summed up by Fyodor: if WalMart hires and then fires someone (or they choose to quit), then they're no worse off than if WalMart had never been there in the first place. Starting from imaginary hypothetical point A (no jobs), then if WalMart offers 5000 jobs, then that is a net addition of 5000 opportunities to earn money. Yet, if WalMart suddenly closes and those 5000 workers are out of a job, they're still right back where they started (unless they've saved anything from their stint).
"The fact is that people do work there who are exploited. Ask yourself why? Are they "worthless" as Timothy suggested? Stupid?"
Again, what baseline are you using to consider them "exploited"? The absence of WalMart? Yes, it would be great if there were a WalMart-esque company of similar size and scope that treated their workers better---but just because WalMart doesn't live up to your (or my) ideals, doesn't mean anyone is being "exploited" (well, to be fair, every employee in the history of employment has been "exploited", which means, in its base definition,
to be made productive use of.). But to be exploited unfairly, well, that requires a universal baseline of fair employment, and I posit that having a job is more "fair" than not having any job options at all. Yes, perhaps it's more "fair" to pay someone $12/hour than it is to pay them $7/hour---but just because they're not making $12 doesn't mean they're being unfairly exploited---and I don't know about you, but I'd rather make $7/hour than nothing at all. The entire argument that WalMart unfairly exploits its workers is based on the fallacious assumption that we have a "right" to a job.
Anyway, maybe they are "stupid". Maybe they are "useless". There's surely a reason why they're stocking cat food at Walmart instead of trading stocks---just like there's surely a reason I'm a modestly successful architect and not a millionaire land baron. Maybe I'm too "stupid" or "useless" to be a millionaire land baron...or maybe, as you mentioned above, "the weight of circumstances make it impractical to just quit". But, surely, I don't assert that I'm being "exploited" because I'm not being paid more than I already am.
"That is not coercion. It is shitty."
Point taken. Lots of shitty shit goes on in this world. My property tax assessment just went up 30%. That's shitty. WalMart does shitty stuff. I never said they didn't.
But what's your remedy, Biff? How would YOU suggest we deal with these shitty actions?
"I am suggesting that intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge that companies have an incentive to treat people like shit, and do so. To pretend otherwise just makes us look silly and out of touch with reality."
Ah, intellectually honest. I see. This is why you're pining on? Of course, everyone everywhere that is interested in making money or doing well, or even having clothes on their backs, has an
incentive to treat people like shit. The fact that I could rob someone on the street and suddenly become richer means that I have an incentive to treat someone like shit.
The point you make is as poignent as stating that athletes have an incentive to win the game. We are all faced with thousands of dastardly incentives each day---and I never said that corporations were any different. I don't defend corporations on any grounds other than they actually own their own property, and it's wrong for anyone to force them to do anything else, unless it has externalized effects against the will of a third party. I don't defend their actions on ethical grounds...so I don't know what you're trying to prove, Billy.
