Why all of a sudden? Because of this video. You don't have to watch it all but the first thirty minutes or so will change your life if you give it the chance.
The movie starts off with the owners of a small hardware store in middle-America, whose small town has been taken over by a Wal-Mart. Pre-Wal-Mart, this store was thriving and it was a little family business that involved everyone, there were many stores just like it of different variety in this small town until, WAL-MART. Small businesses simply cannot compete with what this massive store has to offer and tons of the stores end up closing down because they aren't doing the business they need to be to survive. It's really sad.
That's not all though...
Wal-Mart is basically a fascist state. For real. They guilt their workers into staying longer, without pay. For instance, in the video they show a single mother of two who had a job at Wal-Mart. Because she needed the money, Wal-Mart was a big deal for her, she need the job so, when she was about to get off managers would come up to her and say things like, "you know, we really need all those clothes put away before you leave," and because she needed the job she would have to stay longer but without pay. An ex-manager for Wal-Mart is interviewed in the movie and he says that they were told not to pay extra, and one even says that they would skim hours off their paycheques so if I person worked for 41 or 42 hours that week, they would only pay the worker 40 hours. Because these people needed the jobs, they weren't able to stand up for themselves or else they'd be fired.
The managers are also very sexist. There are over 1000 claims of sexism from Wal-Mart employees across America. At one point there's a woman on and she tells the story of when she was trying to move up the manager ladder, and she had done everything her manager told her to and he had promised her a higher position but, once she finished her tasks he decided not to. She says, "so what is it? Is it because I'm black or because I'm a woman?" and he says, "two out of two ain't bad."
ALSO, this huge company that makes billions every year, doesn't even offer their employees good health care. They actually give their employees the information of where they can apply for help through the government like, food stamps and welfare. Can you believe it? This company doesn't even care enough about their "associates," as they call them in the film, to give them a decent health care plan and because they can't afford health care, they just get sicker and sicker. Not to mention, that means that you, me, everyone is paying for their welfare and their healthcare through OUR TAX DOLLARS. Wal-mart is strategically using the country's tax dollars to pay for their employees health!
Wal-mart is just a bunch of rich, white men who don't care about anything other than making money. Don't bother giving your money to people who don't even have even respect to pay their own employees overtime.
I definitely think our generation is less accustomed to huge corporations and more likely to shop at smaller businesses. Good customer service and unique products are becoming important again. I was at Ikea yesterday and it was a complete ghost town, they have been cutting back on costs and their kitchen workers have been on strike for 4 1/2 months. It's was so peculiar.
ReplyDeleteDid you go to the Ikea in Richmond? I know that one is always empty because no one wants to cross picket lines.
ReplyDeleteWell, you see, I think that shopping at small businesses has become part of our culture now due to hegemonic values. Helping out small businesses, finding unique products, that's all totally part of the hipster sub-culture, which is turning into mainstream culture because it's so popular and everyone wants to be hip, to put it in the most blatant way.
Don't get me wrong though, helping out small businesses is definitely the way to go.