Saturday, January 21, 2006

It's easy to tell that George doesn't get it either...

Not when it comes to Wal-Mart. Mr. Will is under the impression that the retail giant is a target for the angry left, the angry left alone, and that is as far from the truth as he has been to an actual Wal-Mart store. Hunters, trapshooters, plinkers, and 2nd Amendment supporters are nearly unanimous in their condemnation of Wal-Marts pandering to the same angry left when it comes to firearms and munitions, and far more boycotts are called by them than ANY liberal organization.

Now George is sounding off on the admittedly silly Maryland plan to force Wal-Mart to provide an additional 8% of it's profits to it's workers via health care benefits, and in this instance he is at least somewhat correct. BUT, Wal-Mart is NOT competitive in the salary or benefits area and for some reason this fact has escaped him. Management gets good health care and a good salary. The management turnover approximates 9% annually and part of the reason is the relatively generous pay and benefit scale. But the floor workers, the drones, they have a turnover rate nearly 70% and here's where the situation gets sticky. Many are fired before they reach the point of acquiring benefits, and this is not coincidence. For others, Wal-Mart is a way station on the road to a real job and they leave upon finding one. Attrition handles another percentile...retirements, deaths, injuries, etc. but the bottom line remains the fact that the workers despise the company but are quite afraid to enter into anything resembling a union. The training seminars Wal-Mart provides each and every new employee make it quite clear that unions are a no-no, and in not so veiled terms make it perfectly clear that a union means the store closes. Case closed. You unionize, you find another job. They'll fire you all and hire new workers in the blink of an eye, and they've done just that each time a union challenge has arisen.

Amazingly, all of this escapes Mr. Will in his analysis. All of it. For him, it's liberals versus conservatives, and it might very well be time for George to descend his lofty perch and venture into the real world. And try and buy some ammo at a local Wal-Mart without being hassled by employees who WANT him to take his business elsewhere as they do their best to drive customers away.

This simply does not pass the smell test, George and Wal-Mart, and there MUST be more to it than just his kneejerk response to good health care for those unfortunates who've not been to the same Ivy League schools as he. He cannot be this clueless without an agenda lurking somewhere and were the nutcases running PJ Media to be REAL journalists they'd sic one of the the Scintillating 70 on his ass to see what's up. Lots 'a GRAVITAS to be had there.

In the interim, please read George's seemingly weekly defense of the morally indefensible.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great blog I hope we can work to build a better health care system as we are in a major crisis and health insurance is a major aspect to many.