Wal-Mart Makes It Easy!

My decision, that is.

Avid Fans of this blog (all both of you) will doubtless recall my position on Wal-Mart. I feel about Big-ass Retail Senior much the way the Jewish community felt about Yasser Arafat.

So it may come as a surprise to find that I was actually considering returning to see what bargains were in-store for me.

For the past two years I've confined myself to the purchase of compact fluorescent light bulbs at Wal-Mart because the price was very good compared to other outlets. But as a rule I avoid the place like the plague.

What made me reconsider? Simple: They're making a conscious effort at being "green" (although I'm strongly considering moving to "brown" as the desirable descriptor. Earth is mostly brown, under a light coating of what on a cosmic scale must be considered fungus--or possibly slime mold).

That's right, of all the retailers they seem to be the only major label in Canada that's realized that a) "Green" tends to be cheaper, b) Green can bring in customers--some of whom would otherwise like to burn down Wal-Marts everywhere, and c) that it has to be more than just reusable bags for sale.

But then they went this week and £µ©λed it all up.

I can't be sure who they DO support, but they don't support their employees:

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'"

Yeah, because what Wal-Mart employee in their right mind would actually want a union?

I mean, what did unions ever do for the workers, eh? All they ever did was stop us working seven days a week sometimes, and make us stop working after forty hours if the boss didn't need us to. And we all know how those measures dismasted the economy. No--people are clearly better off without unions.

It's surely not co-incidence that the only unionized Wal-Mart in the world suddenly shut down shortly after the union was certified, is it?

I'm not entirely sure about the pros or cons of the Employee Free Choice Act. But to connect it to how you vote in a federal election, and specifically to whether or not you pick Obama or that other dude as president?



On balance, I'm glad they've given me a reason to return to my prior level of patronage--after all, I still have major issues about their labour practices and social and corporate behaviour.

Wal-Mart needs to take a lesson from Spider-Man: "With great power comes great responsibility."