Saturday, September 27, 2008

WalMart and AC/DC

There are many reasons not to like WalMart, they take over small towns, they force suppliers to slash prices to a level lower than the cost of production, they help to fill the world's landfills with more junk...and so on and so forth.

The main reason I won't shop at WalMart is due to unfair labor practices. A large percentage of WalMart employees are given less than 30 hours a week of work. Typically an employee needs to work 32 hours a week or more to qualify for health insurance. This means that WalMart doesn't need to provide insurance to a fair number of employees. It means that employees are then insured by the state, so the taxpayers get to subsidize health insurance for the world's largest retailer. The other unfair practice is keeping employees working near 30 hours a week, making it more difficult to secure a second job to close the gap in hours.

People can tell me that WalMart is now doing all of these environmentally helpful things. This is, in my opinion, a last ditch effort in their losing efforts to compete with Target and is too little, too late.


Now what does this have to do with AC/DC? This is a band that is too "principled" to put their music on iTunes, yet they partner with WalMart making them the only retailer to sell their new album. I have tickets to an upcoming AC/DC concert in my area. I would love to hear the new album, I won't go to WalMart to get it. In fact, until I see some leading changes in the areas of environmental, social, and economic concern, I won't go to WalMart to get anything.

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