Facts and Values

Dr. Green

Responsibilities

Wal-Mart

Employees Manufacturers

Consumers Shareholders Communities

Bonacich

• ... So wages are declining, health benefits are declining, and labor standards are declining. And this is true not only in manufacturing industries, but also in the service providers.– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Bonacich

• What happens is that inequality is increasing in the United States. The middle class is kind of being hollowed out, and there're more and more workers who find that it's hard to earn a living wage. They don't make enough in order to live. The distinction between the earnings of workers and the earnings of management, that division has grown huge. It used to be something like 60-1, [what] the highest executives made versus their workers. Now it's something like 600-1.

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Bonacich

• I think, in the end, Wal-Mart and big-box retailers are driving a system that causes people to lose jobs, that causes a global system where cheapness is the only value that matters. And so all other human values are put in second, third, fourth, fifth place. And there are just so many other things that a society has to be about. It's not just about having a lot of stuff. It's not just about getting it very cheaply.– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Bracy

• We are creating a lot of American jobs, and that is on top of the fact that we have 1.2 million workers of our own. So this is an economic engine that's all about creating jobs in America. It's not just about buying things [from] China.– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Bracy

• The jobs that are created just in construction alone are 40,000, 45,000 jobs a year, and about $5.5 billion of product bought that goes into [those] stores, whether it's carpet on the floor or ceiling tiles or lights or toilets in the bathroom or plumbing fixtures -- that is significant. We likewise estimate that in information technology, we support roughly 20,000 jobs in America. We do no outsourcing of our information technology at Wal-Mart. And the list goes on.

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Bracy

• The cost of doing business in America relative to other countries -- especially in [the] manufacturing environment -- is another factor. We can't lay blame on one or the other, but to be sure, the cost of health care is very high here. The cost of environmental regulations is higher in the United States than it is in Europe, which is well known for its green policies. Regulations in general [are] higher.

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Bracy

• The litigation risks that occur in America are higher than anywhere else in the world. Tax subsidies and tax rates are in many cases higher in the United States for manufacturers than they are in other parts of the world. So it isn't just about the price of good[s]; it's about the cost to produce them– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Hopson

• "OK, Chinese have lower labor; we'll discount it for that labor, but we're going to add shipping costs," and you take all the other costs and add them together, you know there was no way that they could be meeting those price points on a fair playing field

• Well, you know, the biggest thing that I kept arguing and I believe strongly is [that] it's not free trade; it's fair trade, number one. And we're here to create jobs for our people in Greenville, Tenn., and on a fair, level playing field. If we can't compete, then we go out of business like anyone else. – Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• Wal-Mart used to advertise "Always the low price." They don't do that anymore. They got in trouble. Some of the other competitors sued them, tried to go after them and say, "You can't say 'Always the low price,' because you're not always the low price." They did a study -- a very critical study, very thorough study -- and found that Wal-Mart was not always the low price. And Target and Kmart got a little miffed, and some other competitors that [said], "How can Wal-Mart advertise this and it's not true?" – Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• Oh, absolutely not. It's just like fishing: You want to entice that fish to that lure. ... Once you walk past that opening price point, they've got you, because you've already formed the perception that everything in that department is the lowest price in town.

• And maybe it's not.

• No, it's not. No, I can tell you it's not. I can tell you from experience it's not. ...

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• And there is no saying no, because Wal-Mart already knows the cost of your raw materials, the cost of your production, the cost of your shipping, the cost of your everything. They know everything. …– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• The reason that we were inundated with what I think is Wal-Mart merchandise from overseas is because it's high-profit. ..– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?.

Lehman

• I had a Rolodex on my desk, and I still have the Rolodex; I took it home with me. But it's full of business cards of social service outfits in the local city that I was running a store: indigent health care organizations that provided indigent health care, soup kitchens, everything, the United Way -- all these people that I had lined up that I would call in the event that an associate came into my office and said, "I can't afford to take my child to the doctor," "I can't afford groceries," or "I'm getting kicked out of my house," or whatever. – Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• I think, "Wow, that's incredibly poor that the company doesn't care enough about its workers to pay them a living wage and to help them with their medical costs, to pay for their medical expenses and things like that." ...– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• Wal-Mart has a predatory pricing policy. They are always talking about bringing the prices down for the American consumer when it's all about, really, raising profits in Bentonville, Ark., and raising profits for the shareholders and continuing the growth, continuing the accountability to the quarterly earnings report that comes out every quarter. It's all about growth. It's all about profit. – Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• Yeah. Wal-Mart is making this profit basically on the backs of their workers. The workers are bearing the burden. The workers that have made this company great are being paid a poverty-level wage, lousy benefits, worked off the clock, cheated out of overtime. ... Gender discrimination lawsuits. Now, the company has [been] mistreating its workers, and they're making billions on the backs of their workers. So yes, there is a cost.– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• I don't think Wal-Mart is good for America because what's happening is, yeah, you can get maybe a bag of groceries more, or you might spend $50 at Wal-Mart and spend $50 at Target or Kmart and you might get a few more items at Wal-Mart because of the prices.– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• But there's a cost to low prices. And the cost is [that] good, American jobs are being shipped overseas. … Many times union jobs are going away, and those same people are having to go to work at Wal-Mart, making a fraction of what they made there and not getting good health care; not getting a good company-paid pension, company-paid health care. – Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lehman

• Workers are being worked off the clock many times. There's lawsuits, class-action lawsuits, in over 30 states right now of workers saying: "Enough is enough. I'm being worked off the clock, not paid for my overtime." ...– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lichtenstein

• Wal-Mart has been developing a different kind of model -- low wages, maybe a dollar or two above the minimum wage; relatively temporary employment; lots of turnover; very low benefits in terms of what we think of as health and retirement; and a kind of very low-skill [work] that Wal-Mart has been pioneering to take [out] any kind of skill and responsibility and transferring it to this vast telecommunications and computerized world of management. And they've been successful in doing that.

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lichtenstein

• it is, in fact, ruthless in terms of labor costs. That cannot be underestimated. It is ruthless there, and it takes advantage of the new social landscape of America in the period after the 1970s, the period [when] we have deindustrialization of the North and higher levels of unemployment. ... It's a business advantage to have a high level of unemployment and a vast pool of underpaid workers.

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lichtenstein

• So what you're saying is that if we as a society emulate our template, Wal-Mart, that in the end it's going to be very, very painful?– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Lichtenstein

• I think it will [be], because this kind of transfer of wealth, this kind of a stagnation in American living standards cannot continue indefinitely. ... You'll end up with an economy which, although it is technologically innovative, and new products [are] coming out ... what's really happening is a kind of stagnation. ... And whether that ends up as a political crisis or social crisis, I don't know, but that, in fact, will be the result of this kind of imbalance.

– Is this a factual claim.or an ethical claim?

Responsibilities

Wal-Mart

EmployeesManufacturers

Consumers

Shareholders

Communities

Predatory Employment Predatory Pricing

Deceptive PracticesExternalitiesExcessive Profits