The Waltons Build a Museum
I was browsing a great new site I found (via a link on Jack Yan’s blog) called CorpWatch and managed to cross paths with one of my favorite companies that I have been neglecting to write about recently. Yes, I’m talking about Wal*Mart.
If you noticed that I didn’t write about the recent Wal*Mart blog fiasco that the New York Times covered, all I have to say for myself is that sometimes I tire of following companies like Wal*Mart. Being exposed to far too much content that challenges my opinion that there hope for companies like Wal*Mart more or less pushes me to a not so comfortable place. So I have to take periodic breaks in order to regroup in an attempt to maintain some level of optimism for them.
My dry Wal*Mart streak was ended today, however, when I read CorpWatch’s post, “Wal-Mart Waltons Get All Cultural.” It seems the Waltons are developing a museum in Bentonville (which, from a cultural standpoint, is fantastic) yet for a disturbingly high cost. The post, which references an article on Alternet, points out the inane-ness of the move considering the wages that most of Wal*Mart’s employees are paid.
On the surface, I would almost always get behind any effort to build museums, libraries, or other culturally important projects. However, even without pursuing the details of the issue further (I highly recommend that everyone read the Alternet article as well), I find it very difficult to praise the Walton’s efforts as there is such a deep divide between the profits Wal*Mart makes (and thus the gains her major shareholders, the Waltons, subsequently realize) and the compensation it provides the majority of its employees. I won’t rehash the details but would urge anyone who is unfamiliar with this obscene imbalance to do some serious research. There are several previous posts on this blog that will help, but a more general search of the internet will produce an overwhelming amount of information.
Here’s a particularly interesting clip from the Alternet article in reference to the $35 million Alice Walton plopped down for a painting pegged for the museum’s collection:
“It might not even be, as Wal-MartWatch.com points out, that the price of the painting equals what the state of Arkansas spends every two years providing for Wal-Mart’s 3,971 employees on public assistance; or that the average Wal-Mart cashier makes $7.92 an hour and, since Wal Mart likes to keep people on less than full-time schedules, works only 29 hours a week for an annual income of $11,948–so a Wal-Mart cashier would have to work a little under 3,000 years to earn the price of the painting without taking any salary out for food, housing, or other expenses (and a few hundred more years to pay the taxes, if the state legislature didn’t exempt our semi-immortal worker).”
I would be interested to know what some of Wal*Mart’s employees have to say…
TAGS: This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 at 3:43 am and is filed under Business Ethics, Business Strategy, CalPoly MBA, Corporate Social Responsibility, Interesting News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 15th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Wow, this really shows how that place has lost its lovin’ feeling in a rapid way. At B-school they were the darlings; no more today. I’d like to link this post.
March 21st, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Check out Jack’s post on his blog. There is a great discussion that follows in the comments!