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les Moiass Register ST
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OPINION
By NEAL PEIRCE
Why would the WOrld's biggest
retail firm, America's largest
private employer, a company
adding "Supercenters" at pell-mell
Ce
~.67 and registering a staggering
billion in profits last year,
knowingly stoop -- as a federal jury
in Pennsylvania is being told -- to
hiring janitorial firms
staffed by meagerly
paid, benefit-denied, il-
legal immigrants?
Last month's raids
and the charges that
Wal-Mart broke feder-
al hw with knowledge
of high executives ought to be ~/total
surprise. But they aren't. Call it the
priCe -- or consequenCe -- of a nm
holds-burred drive for supremacy.
This corporation employing 1.4
million Americans is the dominant
We all pay for Wal-Mart
it's just a question out of
which
pocket
Critics groused that Wal-Mart
storeS imperil Ma~n Street retail areas
and exacerbate sprawling deyelol>
ment patterns. But Americans' love of
retail forCe in most of the regions
where its 1,512 retail stores, 53 Iow costs -- goods as much as 40
"neighborhood markets,' 1,344 Su- percent cheaper than the competi-
percenters and 528 Sam s Clubs Op. fion'S ' has rated oPPusitior~
~ate. With assets of about $20.5 bil- Still, as Wal-Mart grows, its im-
lion each, the widow and four
children of founder Sam Walton
constitute the richest family on .F2rth,
Forbes magazine mperts.
Not since the 19th-century robber
barons, whose ruthless bids for mo-
nopely power paved the way for an-
fitrust laws, has any single firm af-
fected America quite so deeply.
Communities were drawn like
moths to a flame by Wal-Mart prom-
ises of phenomenally low prices, new
jobs and enriched local tax coffers.
Many communities cough up fi-
nancial incentives to attract
Wal-Mart.
pacts -- such as the alleged employ-
mant of miserably paid illegal immi*
grants -- are likely to get much more
attentian.
Begun in the early ~Os, rapid
perCenter expansions make Wal-Mart
not just America's prime retailer but
its prime grocer. The vimually tot,,/
geographic coverage of superstores
saggast$ disturb'ag single-firm dom-
inance in the nation's food chain.
Then there's pay. Known for its
dead-end jobs, Wal-Mart is dearly
dragging down pay and benefits for
millions of workers. The company
doesn,t release figures, but start-up
Wal-Mart workers aren't likely to get
more than $625 to $8 an hour. Most
workers are part-time -- dearly by
design -- and an ama~irg 500,000 qnit
each year. Nearly half the company's
workers make less than $15,300 a
year, the federal annual poverty in-
come for a family of three.
The result:Wai-Mart workers must
often turn to food stamps, apply for
the federal government's earned-
income tax credit, and turn to states
for abild-support payments. Wal-
Mart gets to "sell for less" because it
shifts the costs to all taxpayers. When
you buy for less at Wal-Mart, you're
paying: It's just a question out of
which pocket.
Then there's health. Part-time
Wal-Mart workers have to wait two
years, full-time employees six
months, for insurance ~- and cover-
age has high premiums and deduct-
[bleS. The result, charges United Food
STE~/E BENSON/ARIZONA REPUBLIC
and Commercial Workers (AFL
CIO), which has been trying to orga.
nize Wal-Mart: "Nearly 700,000 Wal.
Mart workers are forced to get healtl:
insuranCe from government
through spouseS' plans, drivLng
health costs for all of us."
Realism says it will be tough
deter a retailer so huge it's able tc
pressure suppliers for extra-low
priceS. Globally, Wal-Mart buys sc
many goods produced by inexponslv~
foreign labor that it's become th~
world's largest importer of Chinese
made gueds.
Nor will it be easy to prevent po
tential "Wall-Mart-ization" of fooc
retailing -- now eSpecially acute ir
Southern California, where 70,00(
grocery workers struck major loca
chains (Vans, Pavitlions, Ralphs ant
Albertsons). The companieS are de
mandiug a 50 percent cut in workers
medical coverage, plus a two-tie!
wage system denying new amployee~,
the rather solid middle-class wage2
now paid the regioffs grocery work
ers. Though still highly profitable, ~
companieS claim potential Wal-Mart
competition is forcing their hand.
Unionists fear that Wal-Mart, glo
baiized anddominant, is primed to lea~
a downward spiral of worker wage~,
and benefits. Labor's chances of or.
ganizing Wal-Mart itself seem dirt
given the firm's overwhelmingly un
skilled, fast-turnover work force.
But the raids by federal immigra.
tion authoritieS are a reminder
Everaually, through all of Americar
bJstory~ unfettered power get~
curbed.
NEAL PEIRCE s column is distributed by the
Washington Post Writem Group,