You know what the truly big business interest in this story is? Unions. Union organizers stand to make hundreds of millions off the backs their "members" while providing them with infantecimal wage and benefit increases, which will then (logically and necessarily) be offset by higher prices for everyone at the register.

Yes, let's attack one of the few US corporations who have been steadily hiring throughout the economic recession and who haven't laid off one solitary person. At a WalMart distribution center the starting salary for an "order filler" is $14.65. After production incentives and over-time, you're talking about people without, in some cases, high school educations making up to $27/hr.

As usual with liberal rhetoric, both in the laughably presumptuous article and the comments that follow, I have yet to see any actual evidence of "worker exploitation."

The hard fact is that union organizers have been trying to crack the golden goose egg that is WM for DECADES and have never been able to get enough employees to sign their petitions to even begin the unionization process, so *they* exploit disgruntled ex-employees by filing class-action suits right and left.

I can't imagine why WM wouldn't want to deal with union thugs. I mean, look how awesome the Teacher's Union does making the American education system worse that your run-of-the-mill third world country's. Heck, even in the People's Republic of Wisconsin they wised up and elected a politician who campaigned on a pro-business, anti-Union platform.

The commenter above got it right when he observed that unless WM is paying sub-minimum wages to its employees, the charge of exploitation is ridiculous. Being able to discipline and ultimately fire employees who are lazy, incompetent or habitually absent without being mired in a sea of union-created bureaucracy should be the right of every American company.

Finally, WM is evil because it puts the mom and pop shops out of business... Really? Atlas Shrugged anyone? We should punish innovation and success because it's not fair to the little guy? What's your solution? Force WM to raise their prices to match those of these cherished local businesses? No, better yet, let's dissolve WM entirely. That will be an effective warning to other American innovators who have that evil capitalistic bug and dream of success. In liberal America success comes with a price called "dues."

He looks like the typical East New York resident

I'll take these one at a time:
1) Minimum wage jobs don't normally go to head of household workers, so multiplying it to get a livable wage is moot. Numerous studies have been conducted showing that raising minimum wage puts 18-35 single workers out of jobs. This is the opposite to combating unemployment.
2) Walmart won't put 99 cent stores out of business, in fact recently it's been the otherway around, with 99 cent stores hurting walmart's bottom line (see WSJ article)
3) The only difference between Target and Walmart is truly size (and marketing). Their labor practices and anti-union stances are similar. Walmart just gets more attention because it's bigger
4) Walmart entering a market lowers prices of the goods it sells. Yes, this may put some stores out of business, however, it will lower the prices for a lot more people than the impacted 5 small business that it put out of business that we're charging 1.5x what walmart does.
5) Walmart employees over 2 million people in the US per year. It's extremely unfortunate that women were paid less at the company. But the class action lawsuit is a joke. With 4,000 stores in the US, predominately in the south, managed by different store managers over the course of 20 years, of course there's going to be gender discrimination by some of these managers. There's probably been some racism, and anti-gay practices as well. All of these things are terrible. However, this is less of a walmart culture issue and more of the company having thousands of stores managers each with their own prejudices. Will 10s of thousands of managers, you can be certain that some of them will treat their employees poorly. Just like if you took 10 thousand managers of grocery stores and grouped them together

aha...cool stuff Wal-Mart ...i wish I could do somthing like u..

I don't like anyone that targets individual businesses. If you think Wal-mart's wages are too low get the minimum wage raised for everyone. The state is free to make it higher than federal law. Not sure if the city is allowed to set its own without approval of the New York assembly but for example, SF has a higher rate than California which is already higher than the Federal. If Wal-mart then chooses to not open a store so be it.

The Federal minimum wage should be raised. $7.25 an hour/$15K a year is not a living wage, it's a mere $430 above the national poverty line. I don't know what the equivalent adjusted poverty line would be for NYC: anyone know?

SF has set the min at $9.92. In restaurants with 20+ employees there is also a small health care surcharge (usually less than $3 on the bill or baked into the prices) so that employees also get much-needed insurance. And lo-and-behold the city hasn't collapsed (at least no more so than any other in this crappy economy).

NY should follow suit.

Well, I agree the minimum wage should be higher but I think it's funny that you say And lo-and-behold the city hasn't collapsed. Of course it hasn't. SF is just like New York. It's a playground for the wealthy - bankers, VCs, lawyers, etc. They keep buying things even if the price ticks up a little bit because they know their income is secure. And little by little the poor get pushed to the fringes of the city and beyond. Small victory when the larger picture is kind of bleak.

Agreed. It's bleak. The SF healthcare surcharge was intended an example of how a miniscule tax on the haves can help the have-lesses. This model has proven that it can be successfully implemented in big cities like NY.

Wal-mart targets individual businesses. They also pay politicians to keep the minimum wage far below a living wage.

1 walmart would kill 1000 99 cent stores.

Is that a bad thing?

"Hey, we are spending tons of cash telling everyone how we aren't an evil megacorp! Would we do that if we were an evil megacorp? WOULD WE?"

Yep!

The Building Trades Union is an exception that proves the rule. They never met a building project they didn't like. Hell, these people would build Death Camps if they had the opportunity; they've been on the wrong side of every issue in New York in recent years. Look to the unions that represent cashiers, stockmen, and janitorial, and you'll find out where the REAL Labor movement stands: firmly against WalMart.

Heh you're right - have the Building Trades ever been against any proposed project in this city - West Side stadium, Atlantic Yards, etc?

They'd tear down the Empire State Building and put up a 1000 story statue of Bin Ladin as long as they got their union minimum and guaranteed overtime.

Self preservation, yes?

Everyone does it; the difference is some try to create dubious justification by claiming they're 'too big to fail'.

Walmart is also doing some heavy-duty TV ads on stations such as NY1 and pointing viewers toward their NYC specific website.

Ugh, we received one of these mailers yesterday.

people who are against walmart are fighting a lost war. Targets are everywhere in the city, oh yeah they may be friendlier to unions, but unions are what's holding this entire country back by decades.

time to wake the f up.

actually, Target is NOT friendly to unions. very anti-union actually. Target's brand may present it to be a more "chic, high end" of the big box retailers, but really, they're all just the same - below poverty level wages, poorly managed, not exactly wonderful to their employees...but they'll donate millions each week to nonprofit organizations across the country plus the united way (which spends more on overhead compared to other organizations) for the good PR.

can you tell i'm bitter? i worked at a Target for 5 years becoming an assistant manager before quitting.