If It’s a Choice Between WalMart or Target, Please Choose Target and Here’s Why

My initial decision to never shop at WalMart again came in 2001 when I read he book Nickel and Dimed – On (NOT) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.  Then the book was made into a play which I saw that next year which further concretized my decision.

Ms. Ehrenreich went undercover for three months in three different cities doing three different minimum wage jobs to try to figure out how non-skilled workers made ends meet.  She was a waitress, a maid and worked at WalMart.

She experienced the term “working poor” and found that wages are kept low by reinforcing the low-self esteem portion she found inherent in each job, being treated like a child rather than the 50 something year old woman that she was.

When it came time for her stint at WalMart, I read about and then saw a practice that you hear about often from WalMart workers where they are made to “clock out” but then come back to work the floor for another couple of hours.  And today, there are so many people in line for those jobs, one complaint or a little grumbling could mean losing your job and the next person in line would just step up.  So you work for minimum wage and then you actually work for free, which effectively means you are working for well under minimum wage.  By the way minimum wage right now in Ohio is $7.35/ hour.  If a person works 40 hours, they would make $1176.00 BEFORE taxes.  Take home, as we all know, is significantly less.  And from this you have to pay your rent, car and food. 

Recently there was a story in the LA Times that further underlined why I don’t shop at WalMart but know that there are some ethical big box stores that are really trying to do the right thing by their employees.  The article by Andrea Chang was headlined Target in Compton helps store employees tackle their personal problems.  It chronicles the fact that the bog box stores like WalMart, Target, Kmart, and Costco are seeing one avenue of growth in building urban stores right in the downtowns of major cities.  They all knew, given where they were located, that they would have to pay more for “risk management” or “shrinkage”, a fancy way of talking about theft both by customers and employees.  So they all spent the dollars necessary to beef up security.

However, only one, Target, understood that when you hire folks for these urban stores you hire folks with urban problems.  Domestic violence, homelessness, no transportation and the list goes on.  So rather than try to recruit suburban folks to come work in the city or just realize and accept that you will have a huge employee turnover rate, Target did something that made so much sense and speaks to the kind of company that they are.  They hired a full time social worker to “man” the stores and help where they could.

In Compton that person was Sandra Edwards.  Her only job is to come in the morning, drop off her coat and personal items and then walk the store, engaging as many employees as possible in conversation about what’s going on.  In the past year she was able to find temporary housing for an abused employee.  One young man was battling depression and she was able to find medical resources for him.  Obviously employee turnover was reduced and employee retention was on the increase.  And Sandra only comes to Compton twice a week.  Based on her success, she now splits her time between three stores.  They had to deal with domestic violence, teenage pregnancy.  They had situations where folks were homeless and living in their cars.  According to Barbara, it is not about giving advise, it’s about giving assistance.

And it is good business.  Everyone who owns a small business knows that it is MUCH less expensive to retain good employees than to keep hiring new folks.  WalMart just keeps churning though the people since they see them as no more than cogs and VERY replaceable.

I know the deals are sometimes better at WalMart and I, like everyone else is looking for ways to save, but there are still some small choices that we can make that will make a difference in people’s lives.  Please shop Target.  Shop where they care enough about people to hire people to help people.  It just makes sense!!

PS  By the way, I participate in Ad Sense through this blog site and last week the Ad was for WalMart.  I have no say over what is advertised other than IO was able to check "no adult content" so.... I'm sorry if this blog is directly above a WalMart Ad.  Irony is not intended.