Morley Safer Sees A Landscape of Irony in Walton’s New Painting

Nicely said.

I thoroughly agree with Mr. Safer.  In Seattle at the present time, a radio ad is running supposedly by a WalMart employee whose name is S..., a female from another country who extols the virtues of WalMart.  I swear if I hear that commercial once more, I will lose my lunch.  The damage that’s been done simply by their low paid workers using our welfare medical system is bad enough but when she spends 35 million dollars that would be better spent helping their employees with a living wage and better medical benefits, it is truely sickening.

“ “Jack Loveall, the president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union 588 in Roseville, makes so much money that some union members dubbed his headquarters in a business park just miles from his home in an upscale neighborhood along Folsom Lake “the western White House.”

That’s because for years Loveall has outearned even the president of the UFCW international union in Washington, D.C. Joe Hansen, who in March became president of the 1.4-million member union, makes about $296,000, a union official said.

In 2003, Loveall collected a base salary of $486,734 plus $60,036 in disbursements for official business from UFCW 588 and an additional $20,000 as a senior vice president with the UFCW international union.

Even in 2002, when Loveall made $377,994, he was the highest-paid officer in the UFCW. That year, he made more than John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, who grossed $247,500, and 70 percent more than the average pay for the presidents of the 20 largest international unions, according to analysis from the Bureau of National Affairs, a private research group.

The only local union officer in the country whose base salary topped Loveall in 2002 was a Chicago Teamster who made $588,491, according to the Bureau of National Affairs. Even Bay Area union leaders heading larger organizations with higher-earning members made far less than Loveall. For example, Donald Doser, president of the 40,000-plus-member Operating Engineers in Alameda, earned $169,179 in 2002.

...

Indeed, Loveall had a lot of company in the UFCW top-earner bracket in 2002. Douglas Dority, then president of the UFCW international union, earned $329,792. Although it is only the fifth-largest labor group, the UFCW had 30 officers earning $200,000 or more that year, the highest of any union, according to the Bureau of National Affairs.

Twenty-five of those officers worked, not at the international level, but for local or affiliated unions. For example, John Sperry of the 22,148-member UFCW 324 in Buena Park earned $342,898, and Ricardo Icaza of the 25,695-member UFCW 770 in Los Angeles earned $273,404 in 2002.”

-- I wonder what those guys buy with the millions of dollars they suck from blindly-trusting, hard working union members.  What a great scam.  Way to go UFCW!

The news reports that I saw said that Alice Walton is founding a new museum, and that this painting will be a certerpiece of it.  I’m not sure I understand how you can criticize someone for using their wealth for the public good.

Safer is alleging that Wal-Mart has somehow destroyed America by destroying family businesses and creating sweatshop jobs.  Ludicrous.  How many people here have actually worked at one of these Mom and Pop retail jobs?  I have.  I barely made minimum wage, with no benefits. 

I guess everyone needs to put a face on something they don’t like.  But blaming Wal-Mart for globalization of our economy is like blaming Ford Motor Company for the demise of the horse and carriage. 

Bonnie, I understand that you hate Wal-Mart, but ask yourself how much those workers would cost if they didn’t have jobs?  If not Wal-Mart, they’d be working at 7-11, Target, McDonalds, etc.  How do you think their benefits stack up?

Well said, indeed. The irony is staggering.

Actually it smacks of the Carnegies and the Morgans etc. of
the late 19th century targeting the well to do with a kind of
cultural elitism. You should read Upton Sinclair or even
Dreiser or Farrell or Richard Wright. Or maybe not. Sinclair’s
stockyard and slaughterhouse workers certainly didn’t have
the time or energy or the status for that matter to visit the
museums and opera houses that those do-gooders gave to
the bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers of the time as works
of charity.

As far as the locally owned retailer is concerned you can’t
be serious to think that these kind of people often operating
by the skin of their teeth can compare to a monolith like
Wal-Mart making billions in profit every year.

For crying out loud, the painting is for a museum.  Get over yourselves Wal-Mart Watch and Mr. Safer!

You guys will find anything and use it against Wal-Mart, won’t you?

Does it really matter that Alice Walton paid $35 million for a painting? Ms. Walton owns less than 8% of Wal-Mart’s outstanding stock. Ms. Walton does not directly own the stock. She owns it through a family partnership. If the Waltons were trying to take advantage of Wal-Mart’s employees, customers and vendors, they would have sold their 38% of Wal-Mart years ago. Their stock has declined in value by tens of billions of dollars yet they do not sell their stock to fund lavish lifestyles. The family deserves the benefits derived from their holdings just as surely as the other 50 million Americans who own stock. Wal-Mart did not put Mom and Pop out of business. Mom and Pop were dying off due to the post World War II economic boom which included new highways, better cars, suburban homes and suburban shopping centers. Wal-Mart was not even founded until 1962 (same year as Target and K-Mart). K-Mart, for two decades, was many times larger than Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart did not even expand into the northeast until the 1980’s. By then, I think we all know that mom and pop were dead. If you want to pine for the good old days of limited selection, limited shopping hours, high prices and poor service, fine. Just don’t blame Wal-Mart for the death of something that started dying long before Wal-Mart arrived on the scene. Remember that you too were responsible for Mom and Pop going away through your continued indifference over the estate tax and your willingness to get in your car and drive to the shopping plaza where you could get everything cheaper and in one stop. You, as a consumer, are the ultimate arbiter of a stores fate. If you decide that Wal-Mart should not exist, don’t shop there. If enough people in a community don’t want Wal-Mart, it will close. It baffles me to hear the UFCW saying “Wal-Mart destroys communities and bullies its way into town over the protests of the men and women of the community”.  If that were true, the local Wal-Mart would close in less than 2 years. After all, if EVERYONE in town hates Wal-Mart, then they will have no customers, no revenue and thus, no profit. In fact, they will lose millions of dollars and they will be forced to close. Obviously, with more than 3,000 stores nationwide and $285 billion in sales, someone in your anti-Wal-Mart community is shopping there, aren’t they?

Bottom line: It is not your money paying for a $35 million painting. It is the money you gave to Wal-Mart when you bought that new lawnmower or that bottle of shampoo or that box of cereal. You give Wal-Mart money, Wal-Mart gives you items that you choose to buy and you both walk away with something of value. That is a legitimate transaction. This site would have you believe there is something inherently evil about a business transaction. Get a clue.

Actually I don’t buy from them. And I don’t buy your post
WWII economic boom suburban mall sprawl argument.
Where I live you could see it that way--but not so far away
in Corning it’s a little different.  In any case I find it interest-
ing that some see the decline of the Mom and Pop store as
something akin to progress but these big box stores are
off limits to criticism.
As far as Alice and her lavish or not lifestyle. No-- buying
paintings for $35 million doesn’t sound the least bit osten-
acious to me.

Larry,

You’ve admitted here that Mom and Pop’s wages and benefits can’t compete with big box stores.  If that’s the case, aren’t their workers better off in terms of real wages and benefits working for the Wal-Marts of the world?  If that’s the case, then big boxes do represent progress for retail workers.  But this is retail.  It isn’t a union manufacturing job.  You could just as easily blame unions for speeding those jobs overseas by their bloated salaries and benefits.  In reality it is a globalized economy.  Consumers are going to go for the lowest cost provider.  100 million or so will do it at Wal-Mart.

Regarding Alice’s “lavish” lifestyle--the painting is for a museum, not her personal home.  That’s called philanthropy, not ostentation.

I don’t recall admitting that at all. Actually I think its unfair
to compare the two. I would expect Wal-Mart pays a little
better than most small businesses--on the other hand how-
ever they’re not making billions in profit every year.  A local
economy is a diverse thing. Part of what makes America
American. And so are the people that run them.
I don’t know if you have a connection to Wal-Mart and if you do why you would
have anything against earning a living wage. It’s the
right thing to do for a company that’s making billions in profits every year. Let Alice buy all the paintings she wants
then.
You may see this museum as philanthropy but I don’t. If
she truly wants to help somebody out there’s all kinds of
opportunities for her. This is a rich persons hobby that
doesn’t do anything concrete for anyone.

I’m not sure how it is unfair to compare the two.  If you’re a retail employee, you’re going to want to make the most you can and get the best benefits that you can.  So for the employee, I would suggest that it’s better at big box versus Mom and Pop.

What you said above was, “ As far as the locally owned retailer is concerned you can’t be serious to think that these kind of people often operating by the skin of their teeth can compare to a monolith like Wal-Mart making billions in profit every year.” You’ve therefore admitted that Mom and Pop can’t compete.

I just happen to admire Wal-Mart.  Sam Walton founded the company roughly a generation ago with one small store.  Now it is the largest retailer on Earth.  This is pure Horatio Alger stuff.

As stated above by different people Wal-Mart was a Mom and Pop. Wal-Mart was started in 1962 with one store. Sam Walton owned a handful of Ben Franklin stores when he started Wal-Mart. He had to put all of these Ben Franklins, the land they sat on and his own house up for collateral just start the first Wal-Mart.
K-Mart was started by Kresge which had 800 stores, Target was started by Dayton-Hudson and Woolco was started by Wool-Worth the largest variety chain at the time. Wal-Mart was definitely the underdog!
Sam Walton’s determination and his belief in three basic beliefs turned that one store into the world’s largest retailer. Mom and Pop had the same chance that Sam had. If they wanted to do better all they had to do was try. They wanted to stay with the small store, limited selection and banker hours. Wal-Mart didn’t kill Mom and Pop; they faded away by their own complacency.

On the one you have an employer working with tight fiscal
restraints--and many of these will do whatever they possibly can for their employee(s) and on the other hand you have a huge multi-national making huge profits and deliberately doing as little as possible for theirs. No I don’t see any difference between the two at all.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart is a big easy target. 

What about all the smaller companies that pay no more than Wal-Mart? 

What about the military where some of the junior ranks qualify for food stamps?

A big easy target in one sense. A difficult and determined
one in another. Military personnel also have on base meals
and housing. Free health and dental care. In fact if someone
were to ask me and I’m not a fan of the situation in Iraq at
all that they’d had a chocie between the military and Wal-Mart I’d be inclined to advise the military route.
As far as smaller companies I think it is better to tackle the
biggest right now and worry about the rest later. Keep in
mind that nobody else is driving the China idea harder than
them. Nobody else is making the kind of profits that they are
while at the same time not sharing them with their employee
associates.

Also according to the federal government’s Dept. of Home-
land security. Federal poverty level wages (2005) are set
at the following. 2 person homes. $12830. 3 persons $16090.
4 persons $19350. Looking at that I would say that the wages
paid by retailers--not just Wal-Mart tend to be anti-family.
Again though Wal-Mart’s profits are in the billions each and
every year--they seem to me in a position to rectify that
situation for their own employee(associates). Why don’t they?
The fact is they need to be pushed or they’re not going to do
anything but continue to keep their own workers down while
at the same time continuing to abet a situation that forces
usually much better paying manufacturing jobs offshore.

Larry,

There you go again. If Wal-Mart raised wages by $3 an hour for its’ employees, Wal-Mart would be out of business. Assume Wal-Mart’s employees work 25 hours a week. That is 32.5 million man hours per week. That is an additional wage cost of $97.5 million per week or more than $5 billion per year. Now, before payroll taxes are figured or a single dollar more of revenue is collected, you have cut Wal-Mart’s annual profit by 50%. To the people on this site who say “Boo-Hoo” to that scanerio: try cutting your annual income by 50% right now. Of course, the UFCW people on this site would not only not accept a pay cut to stay profitable-they would demand a 10% increase instead.

Yes, Wal-Mart is the world’s largest company, in terms of number of employees and amount of sales but in assets, market cap, profits and stockholder equity, they are nowhere near the top. Yes, they had sales of $285 billion last year. Yes they had profits of just over $10 billion. Do the math. This means that Wal-Mart has profits of just over 3% as a percentage of revenues-hardly greedy stuff. If Wal-Mart were really greedy and evil, we would expect their margins to rise. Wal-Mart has consistantly maintained a margin in the 3% range for more than a decade. And their suppliers who get the shaft? Their margins have GROWN over the past decade while Wal-Mart’s have remained relatively steady. Hardly the stuff of a predatory company.

Does anyone complain when Home Depot operates on a 7+% margin? Didn’t think so. Of course, Home Depot is not the world’s largest employer either.