April 20, 2005

Teflon Target

I'm glad people will be noticing that Target's compensation policies are little different from Wal-Mart's:

Finally, Wal-Mart's critics lambaste the retailer's pay and health benefits policies, alleging that the retailer doesn't adequately pay or provide medical coverage for its non-managerial employees.

Oddly, these same critics confess that they can't prove Target's wage and benefits are significantly better. And Wal-Mart maintains that its wage and benefits are comparable to Target.

"We think that Target and Wal-Mart are both guilty of wage suppression," said Bernie Hess, the union organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 789 chapter in St. Paul, Minn....

The St. Paul union office estimates that Target's hourly employees typically make around $6.75 to $7.25 and that less than half the company's workers are covered by its health insurance plan.

Target's defense is the same as Wal-Mart's -- "We regularly complete wage surveys in all of our markets to ensure that we pay competitive wages."

I haven't seen any reporter try to explain that there's a fundamental difference in the way that Wal-Mart & Target figure out appropriate wages versus the way that unions determine appropriate wages. WM and T figure they're paying enough when enough people of the required quality can be found to work at the store. Unions figure that workers deserve X amount based on some a multitude of considerations, none of which equates supply and demand.

Posted by Kevin on April, 20 2005 at 08:23 PM

Comments & Trackbacks
James Grimes wrote:

Wal~Mart isn't guilty of "guilty of wage suppression". It all depends on the person. For example, take me. When I applied to work in January, I had quite a $6.90/hr job that had started at $6.25/hr just 3 years prior to that at a Harris Teeter (http://www.harristeeter.com). When Wal~Mart hired me on January 21, 2005, they gave me credit for my prior work, decided to pay me what HT was paying me, and then raised to an even $7/hr. Here it is three months later to the day and because I have met all of Wal~Mart's standards of me as a cartpusher (being punctual, dress code, etc...) they have decided to give me a raise to $7.40/hr. On top of that, on my 1st anniversary next January, if all goes well, I may get another raise. My first raise at WM is bigger than either of the two raises I got at HT. Wal~Mart is a great company to work for. I have a store manager who can talk to me, not down to me; he knows my first name; knows my name without looking at my name tag; isn't afraid of working with us in the parking lot too; doesn't have to be told by the company when to be out on the sales floor to help his associates with the customers; is a great friend; and I can go on and on. Overall, I love working for Wal~Mart, where "our people make the difference" and "we are working overtime to save you even more"!!

-- April 21, 2005 11:42 AM ∞

eRobin wrote:

If Target controlled the percentage of the market that WalMart does, we'd go after them.

-- April 25, 2005 11:48 AM ∞

J. C. wrote:

Congratulations, "James Grimes," you know how to write propoganda! You might get a call from the State Dept. rather soon!

-- April 25, 2005 12:39 PM ∞