Wal-Mart to close unionized store in Quebec

[August1991]

Trudeau, Wallmart does serve the people that is why so many of use buy thing there. If they didn't serve they would go out of business.

I liken it to a prisoners dilemna. Everyone acting in their own best interest results in no one's best interest.

In the market for the stuff WalMart sells, WalMart competes on price. The prisoner's dilemma does not apply to this situation.

In the particular case of this union negotiation and WalMart store, the prisoner's dilemma does apply. By closing, both the unionized workers and WalMart lose.

One can only conclude that the head office of WalMart chose this action to gain a credible threat in future union negotiations.

Playing the hawk seems to be WalMart's modus operandi. This may explain why it is so unpopular among the Left but so successful among people seeking bargains.

In the medium and long term, retail is a competitive market. Simple game theory doesn't apply.

IOW, if unions make labour markets work more effectively, then WalMart should work with unions. Or, WalMart should not think of playing the heavy but rather think of lowering costs.

In this, IKEA strikes me as a better retailer than WalMart.

AND THE WINNER IS.........WALMART!!!!!

No, other stores in Jonquière are happy to see this.

[daniel]

Good for Walmart!!! Big blow to the unions!! ...

Now lets look at the Quebec town & Walmart store in question. First of all, the losers.

#1... the employees....students who need the money & work experience...seniors, who many of which may have just taken the job for something to keep theselves busy

with....& all the other employees without jobs who are probably in the pogey line now...

And for this you're happy? You're not a very nice person are you?

One would hope that in a civilzed society, everybody can be treated with respect.

[jccc]

And for this you're happy? You're not a very nice person are you?

I am happy for Walmart, not the victims & I am, in fact quite a nice guy, ask my non union employees.

One would hope that in a civilzed society, everybody can be treated with respect.

The same respect that union members quite often show their employers ?

Jim

[I Miss Trudeau]

I liken it to a prisoners dilemna. Everyone acting in their own best interest results in no one's best interest.

In the market for the stuff WalMart sells, WalMart competes on price. The prisoner's dilemma does not apply to this situation.

The situation, as I see it, is that most people go to Walmart for the lower prices. They do this to save a buck or two. Everyone else does the same thing. The problem is that the economic cost of those lower prices in the end outstrips the economic gain. I do think that people end up paying more, not less, due to Walmarts stranglehold on the retail economy. These costs are hidden in the infrastructure needed to enable a store of this size to operate (roads, policing, etc), lower tax base as others have pointed out, lower wages in the community, taken as an average. So yes, I do see it very much as a prisoners dilemna; by acting in their own best interests by saving a few bucks on each shopping trip, they end up paying more in the long run. Problem is, if everyone else is going to shop there, you might as well too...

[I Miss Trudeau]

People who apply to work at Walmart know that they don't pay well. Why are they surprised that this back-door attempt to force higher wages blew up in their faces?

Because it violates the law of the land that they live in?

[I Miss Trudeau]

Loser #3...US AGAIN..the taxpayer who is going to have to help support these former employees & their families til they get back on their feet.

I applaud those employees who vote NO to unionization, to the others...you played with fire & got burned!!!

Jim

Loser #3...US AGAIN..the taxpayer who is going to have to help support these former employees & their families til they get back on their feet.

There is a better solution for the taxpayer. Make the company that caused this mass unemployment due to its illegal actions pay the cost. Problem solved.

I applaud those employees who vote NO to unionization, to the others...you played with fire & got burned!!!

Charming.

[jccc]

There is a better solution for the taxpayer. Make the company that caused this mass unemployment due to its illegal actions pay the cost. Problem solved.

I have not yet heard "exactly" what the illegal action was & if Walmart has been proven guilty or not of these charges.

Jim

[jccc]

Why not indeed. Some distant day on some distant planet, some alien intelligence will figure out that the economy exists to serve the people, and not the other way around.

Here on earth it works both ways, if you don't have an economy to serve, you probably suffer in your existence....

Jim

[Hugo]

So many despots in the making here!

Wal-Mart exists and thrives because it offers people what they want. If they did not offer people a good deal, nobody would shop there. If they did not offer employees a good deal, nobody would work there. That someone works at Wal-Mart means that Wal-Mart is better for them than the next best alternative, and someone who shops there finds that Wal-Mart is better than the next best alternative.

What you guys are proposing is to punish somebody for offering a better alternative than anything else out there. Good move.

Your real issue, although you can't see it, is not Wal-Mart but the regrettable fact that there are no better alternatives. If a landlord offers a poor person a cheap but nasty apartment, the problem is not the landlord but the poverty of the tenant! If he were not poor, he would not have so little to pay for rent, and would not have to resort to a cheap, nasty apartment. Too many people have a serious problem discerning between causes and effects.

People obviously want to buy from Wal-Mart. They find that what they sell is better value to them than the money they pay for it. However, in keeping with my first comment, Wal-Mart bashers presume to tell these people that they have no right to like what they like. "They should like what I like," the detractors say, "and if they don't, well, I'll use unions and the law to force them to like what I like!"

If you don't like Wal-Mart, don't shop there and don't work there. Stop trying to run other people's lives. Nobody died and made you king. I find it amazing that so many people who are outspoken in favour of social and sexual freedoms are utterly disgusted by the notion of economic freedom.

[I Miss Trudeau]

So many despots in the making here!

Wal-Mart exists and thrives because it offers people what they want. If they did not offer people a good deal, nobody would shop there. If they did not offer employees a good deal, nobody would work there. That someone works at Wal-Mart means that Wal-Mart is better for them than the next best alternative, and someone who shops there finds that Wal-Mart is better than the next best alternative.

What you guys are proposing is to punish somebody for offering a better alternative than anything else out there. Good move.

Your real issue, although you can't see it, is not Wal-Mart but the regrettable fact that there are no better alternatives. If a landlord offers a poor person a cheap but nasty apartment, the problem is not the landlord but the poverty of the tenant! If he were not poor, he would not have so little to pay for rent, and would not have to resort to a cheap, nasty apartment. Too many people have a serious problem discerning between causes and effects.

People obviously want to buy from Wal-Mart. They find that what they sell is better value to them than the money they pay for it. However, in keeping with my first comment, Wal-Mart bashers presume to tell these people that they have no right to like what they like. "They should like what I like," the detractors say, "and if they don't, well, I'll use unions and the law to force them to like what I like!"

If you don't like Wal-Mart, don't shop there and don't work there. Stop trying to run other people's lives. Nobody died and made you king. I find it amazing that so many people who are outspoken in favour of social and sexual freedoms are utterly disgusted by the notion of economic freedom.

That is a whole lot of missing the point.

[Hugo]

No, it is not. This is actually the crux of the matter, but because you don't know anything about economics you don't recognise it - as I already pointed out, I might add.

[I Miss Trudeau]

No, it is not. This is actually the crux of the matter, but because you don't know anything about economics you don't recognise it - as I already pointed out, I might add.

Its really not, seeing as my point is that what Walmart did was illegal. It has nothing to do with economics. It has to do with law.

[Trial-and-Error]

Or why not cut to the real point and pass a law forcing WalMart to pay all employees a minimum wage of, let's say, $15/hour?

Whaddya think?

Why, August, at long last, an idea that reflects a little heart. Stay with it.

I think it's immoral for any business, especially one as established as Walmart to earn profits on the backs of its workers. I refuse to shop at Walmarts or any store where it's clear that the worker is tantamount to slave labour.

[PocketRocket]

Or why not cut to the real point and pass a law forcing WalMart to pay all employees a minimum wage of, let's say, $15/hour?

Whaddya think?

Why, August, at long last, an idea that reflects a little heart. Stay with it.

I think it's immoral for any business, especially one as established as Walmart to earn profits on the backs of its workers. I refuse to shop at Walmarts or any store where it's clear that the worker is tantamount to slave labour.

Re: $15.00/hr....Gee how do you think that would affect Wally's product prices???? How much does the average stockboy at Zeller's make???

Re: On the backs of it's workers.....There is this wonderful thing called "minimum wage". If you accept a job that pays only minimum wage, then that's what you should expect to earn. No one ever expects to compile a personal fortune working at McDonald's, or at Wendy's.

Why then is WalMart any different???

Also, if the government thinks minimum wage is adequate, then who are we to argue???

Maybe we need a new, multi-tiered wage scale. Miinimum student wage. Minimum adult wage, etc.

The sad thing is that I'm actually defending a company which I depise for a variety of reasons. I dislike all big-box retailers.

As I stated in an earlier post, I avoid WalMart except as a last resort. Likewise Future Shop and Home Depot et al.

I don't like any of them

Big box=great price. But the flip side is that the big boxes are staffed primarily by people with little or no product knowledge or training of any sort.

Example...When I go to a hardware store, it's a little Home Hardware store. There are a couple guys there who know EVERYTHING about building ANYTHING. If they don't have what I need, there's another, bigger store, a Beaver Lumber, where again, the staff is very knowledgeable. Next, I'll try Canadian Tire (at least it's Canadian owned, and sometimes has some smart cookies staffed).

If they don't have it, then I'll try Home Depot. But I don't expect anyone there to know anything, and I am seldom disappointed in that regard. In fact, while doing some electrical work in a friend's house once, we stopped at Home Depot to pick up a few supplies (his choice, not mine). Whilst inside, a kid working there tried to tell us that we could use 14 gauge, 3-conductor wire to supply power to the kitchen range. The kid absolutely refused to believe that it would not handle the current required.

I reported the kid to his manager, not to be mean, but to possibly save someone's life in the future. Running 14-gauge to a stove is a sure way to set your house on fire whilst cooking thanksgiving dinner.

This is the kind of service you get with minimum wage employees who are not adequately trained.

Great prices partially as a result of low wages. But you get no knowledge-based support whatsoever.

[Guest eureka]

You are being somewhat contradictory, Hugo. As you say in one breath, there is no better alternative for the employees. That is because Walmart has forced the better alternatives out. Without Walmart, there would be better alternatives.

There is a perception of no better alternative on the pricing. However, for the reasons that have been given, this is not true. Walmart is a subsidized operation that also squeezes the blood out of its employees once they have no alternative.

Other large operators in varied fields have been forced into competing with Walmart on the perceived price alone. To do this, they have been forced to find cost savings in wages. Loblaws has renogiated its union contracts to lower wage levels: both Loblaws and A & P have now begun to go the discount route with No Frills and Food Basics. These stores are minimum wage employers and many of their employees are 3 or 4 dollars an hour poorer.

It is ignorance of economics that keeps so many shopping at WalMart. They do not know that they are actually paying more through their taxes and support for the underpaid. It is not ignorance of economics on the part of the people who are posting here: on the contrary.

WalMart is a massive scam and possibly the most successful one in economic history. As I posted in the discussion on WalMart, their prices are not even the bargain that is claimed. The comparison shopping information I gave there shows that.

The owners become the richest people in the world while the financially chalenged suffer.

[knn]

eureka Posted: Feb 12 2005, 11:21 AM

WalMart is a massive scam...  The owners become the richest people in the world while the financially chalenged suffer.

Gads, eureka, you're either becoming a, {gasp} socialist, or you're a store owner who's been hurt by the competition!

[Hugo]

what Walmart did was illegal. It has nothing to do with economics. It has to do with law.

Government makes the law and government should punish those who break it? Replace "government" with "Mafia" and you have a good description of organized crime. And please, don't tell me that law is democratic or the will of the people. Law in our society lacks a price mechanism and is therefore quite detached from what people actually want.

As you say in one breath, there is no better alternative for the employees. That is because Walmart has forced the better alternatives out. Without Walmart, there would be better alternatives.

Wrong. The Canadian people - the consumers - have forced the "better alternatives" out, and they did it because they didn't share your opinion that the alternatives were better at all.

But you think not sharing your opinion should be a crime.

After all, Wal-Mart did not appear overnight as a corporate monstrosity. Like all large companies - Ford, Microsoft, Exxon - they started out as very small firms struggling against much larger competitors and, from the will of the consumers, rose to their present position. And the consumers can break them at will. Remember Commodore, Atari and Sega? All were once dominant, all are now defunct, because people did not want to buy what they offered. If people stop wanting to buy what Wal-Mart offers they will disappear too.

Other large operators in varied fields have been forced into competing with Walmart on the perceived price alone.

Welcome to market economics. Lower prices make people wealthier, Eureka, since we can afford more consumer goods. Do you yearn for a return to the 1950s, when fridges, cars and televisions were luxury items for the few thanks to their high prices?

What you are advocating is poverty for all.

It is ignorance of economics that keeps so many shopping at WalMart. They do not know that they are actually paying more through their taxes and support for the underpaid.

That problem is created by the existence of the welfare state. It is immoral to force one person to labour for another against his will, with the welfare state, all working people are, in fact, slaves.

[I Miss Trudeau]

Government makes the law and government should punish those who break it? Replace "government" with "Mafia" and you have a good description of organized crime. And please, don't tell me that law is democratic or the will of the people. Law in our society lacks a price mechanism and is therefore quite detached from what people actually want.

So you believe we should live in a lawless society? Or?

That problem is created by the existence of the welfare state. It is immoral to force one person to labour for another against his will, with the welfare state, all working people are, in fact, slaves.

So those people who are paying increased taxes to subsidize Walmart wouldn't fall under this category?

[daniel]

And for this you're happy? You're not a very nice person are you?

I am happy for Walmart, not the victims & I am, in fact quite a nice guy, ask my non union employees.

I'll take your word for it.

One would hope that in a civilzed society, everybody can be treated with respect.

The same respect that union members quite often show their employers ?

Jim

I would agree that's half the problem. Everybody (on both sides) is doing too good a job representing its members. Hence, we always end up with these confrontations.

[August1991]

I find it amazing that so many people who are outspoken in favour of social and sexual freedoms are utterly disgusted by the notion of economic freedom.

Well said, Hugo. It seems "progressive" to respect other people's sexual choices but somehow "regressive" to respect their economic choices. Why?

[I Miss Trudeau]

I find it amazing that so many people who are outspoken in favour of social and sexual freedoms are utterly disgusted by the notion of economic freedom.

Well said, Hugo. It seems "progressive" to respect other people's sexual choices but somehow "regressive" to respect their economic choices. Why?

Where is the respect for the economic choice of the workers? Secondly, Walmart does not have any rights or freedoms. Corporations are not entities of the type capable of possessing rights.

Furthermore, I would suggest that there is a large difference between actions which hurt no one (ie SSM), and actions which have a negative effect on the community. But I suppose the government shouldn't be in the business of preventing people from screwing each other over, eh?

[August1991]

Where is the respect for the economic choice of the workers?

Precisely. If people freely choose to work for WalMart, then that is their choice. It is no different from a person's choice of spouse. And what right do you have to interfere?

Walmart does not have any rights or freedoms. Corporations are not entities of the type capable of possessing rights.

The employees, managers and shareholders are all human beings. A corporation is similar to a "marriage" or a "market".

Furthermore, I would suggest that there is a large difference between actions which hurt no one (ie SSM), and actions which have a negative effect on the community.

There you have perhaps touched the key issue. What effect does WalMart have on people that don't shop there and don't work there? And what effect does gay marriage have on people that are not gay?

[Guest eureka]

WalMart does not thrive because of any better use of its "economic freedom." It thrives because of economic licesnse: it thrives because society is still organized so as to favour the pirates over their victims. You, Hugo, should, of all people, understand this. It is the authority in the anarchical world of retail.

Workers, August, do not exercise their "free choice" to work at WalMart. They have no choice but to work somewhere and, in this age, it is anywhere they can find employment. Where WalMart is, other choices disappear.

Neither do customers exercise "free choice." Customers may be buying where they can find the lowest prices in their perception. But, those lower prices are an illusion. They pay more in the other ways that have been noted.

And, we are not all wealthier when wages are forced down to create greater profit rather than lower prices: we would not be even if it were for the sole purpose of lowering prices. The likening of this to Commodore ets, is not valid. Those corporations were in the business of supplying something specific and lost out to competition not to an oligopical situation in the broad range of the necessities of life. WalMart has become both oligopoly and pligopsony on a scale unrivalled

[Hugo]

So you believe we should live in a lawless society? Or?

Or a legally polycentric society.

So those people who are paying increased taxes to subsidize Walmart wouldn't fall under this category?

Who makes them pay the taxes - Wal-Mart, or the government?

They have no choice but to work somewhere and, in this age, it is anywhere they can find employment. Where WalMart is, other choices disappear.

Wrong again, Eureka. There is always one alternative in the free market, to wit abstention, which is not the case with genuine monopolies such as government programmes. In any case there are actually many alternatives to Wal-Mart, and the problem is not Wal-Mart as an employer but its employees as underqualified, underskilled and inexperienced. Wal-Mart is offering a better alternative to these people, otherwise they wouldn't take the job. If the only thing that Wal-Mart is better than is no job at all, and no job at all is the only other option, then Wal-Mart has managed to create jobs where there were none. And if Wal-Mart becomes dominant in a region, it is because the consumers have willed it. I don't see anybody being led into Wal-Mart to buy at gunpoint. It is also the case that Wal-Mart can be broken just as quickly if the consumers will it.

Neither do customers exercise "free choice." Customers may be buying where they can find the lowest prices in their perception. But, those lower prices are an illusion. They pay more in the other ways that have been noted.

They have not been noted! How are they paying higher prices? I've read an economic study that shows (for instance) that for every dollar the US "outsources" they get a return of about $1.18. Lowering prices serves to raise real income. Are you going to tell me that higher real income makes us poorer?

According to this argument the denizens of Bangladesh are inestimably richer than us. You are required to explain that a lot further, since the empirical evidence is unanimously against you.

The likening of this to Commodore ets, is not valid. Those corporations were in the business of supplying something specific and lost out to competition not to an oligopical situation in the broad range of the necessities of life. WalMart has become both oligopoly and pligopsony on a scale unrivalled

No more so than the companies that Wal-Mart pushed aside were, and no more so than the companies that will push Wal-Mart aside in the future will be. Monopoly is unsustainable, Eureka, and the only thing that can keep a monopoly going is violence (i.e. government), like the postal service. Even the companies that left-wingers lambast as monopolies (Wal-Mart, Microsoft et al) are actually no such thing. The only monopolies in our economy are run by the government.

This is where you have some serious cognitive dissonance. You claim to abhor monopoly and want freedom and choice, but you are attacking those who don't hold a monopoly and offer choice, and advocating their destruction by an entity that holds a monopoly by the exercise of violence and offers absolutely no choice at all.

Your argument is completely backwards and self-contradictory.

WalMart does not thrive because of any better use of its "economic freedom." It thrives because of economic licesnse: it thrives because society is still organized so as to favour the pirates over their victims.

Mindless rhetorical drivel. Make an argument or cite a fact, don't just mindlessly recite this left-wing mumbo jumbo. After all, according to Marx's definition we are all "pirates" now.

[rzentelaw]

When this story broke I said, "God bless Wal-Mart," and hurried out and bought some windshield washer fluid at my local Wal-Mart. Unions only serve unions.