On Tuesday,
Wal-Mart lost a showdown with community leaders in Inglewood,
Calif., where the company hoped to build a Supercenter in the working-class
suburb of 112,000 mostly black and Hispanic residents. The mega-retailer
is
building Supercenters across America (including one just blocks from my house),
selling everything from toys to groceries in complexes the size of a dozen
football fields. In some cases, they're being welcomed. Other times, including
in Chicago and San Diego recently, the 'Mart is getting the thumbs down.
Wal-Mart
promised to bring 1,500 jobs to Inglewood. The mayor approved store's
arrival, saying that complaints were mostly from unions that couldn't
stand
the competition. Opponents -- including the City Council, U.S. Rep. Maxine
Waters, even the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- said that the
company pulled an end-run by going directly to the public for a vote and
skirting the usual zoning and environmental regulations and public hearings.
Meager
benefits
While
the company lost that battle, it may yet win the war: America is
in
many ways becoming a Wal-Mart nation.
Americans
love bargains, and Wal-Mart means low prices. But it also means low
wages and meager benefits. Low wages are one reason Wal-Mart can undercut
the
competition. Cheap products manufactured overseas -- mostly in China -- are
another. When Wal-Mart comes to town, it often crushes competitors -- from
big,
unionized retailers to local mom-and-pops -- and that can depress wages
everywhere. The California grocery strike certainly had Wal-Mart written
all
over it.
Fairly
or not, Wal-Mart has become a symbol for a larger phenomenon: a kind
of downward migration of middle-class work -- or the fear of it -- that has
huge
implications in an election year.
Remember
the rosy (though preliminary) Labor Department report saying that
the United States added 308,000 jobs in March? The figure included 71,000
construction jobs, 47,000 in retail (including 13,000 striking California
supermarket workers who went back to work), 42,000 professional and business
service jobs (including 11,000 in credit mediation and mortgage refinancing),
39,000 in health and education, 28,000 in leisure and hospitality and 31,000
in
government. New manufacturing jobs: zero.
Nation
of part-timers
So, yes,
jobs are slowly coming back, but the truth is that America is losing
-- probably forever -- many higher-wage jobs, particularly in technology
and
manufacturing, that were a ''given'' in prior recoveries.
Increasingly,
the ''old jobs'' are being replaced by another Wal-Mart staple:
part-time work. According to the Labor Department, 4.7 million Americans
worked
part-time in March, up from 4.4 million the month before. That includes three
million people who became part-timers due to "slack work or business
conditions
" plus 1.4 million who couldn't find any other work. (Another 19 million
Americans work part-time for noneconomic reasons, i.e., to attend school
or take
care of a child.) From March 2003 to March 2004, the number of nonfarm workers
who could find only part-time employment was up 17.8 percent.
With
part-time work comes part-time wages. The hourly earnings in the
private
sector rose just 2 cents in March, while average weekly wages declined 88
cents
to $523.70. This while corporate profits surged -- up a record 14.8 percent
in
2003, including a 31.8 percent profit gain for manufacturers.
Where
are corporations getting their profits? If you said sales, no prize
for
you. They're getting the profits from lower taxes, worker layoffs and by
getting
higher productivity out of the workers who remain. Since the recession ended
in
November 2001, wage growth has averaged just 0.6 percent per year. Meanwhile,
last year CEOs raked in 16 percent higher salaries and 20 percent higher
bonuses. A Northeastern University study found that in 2002-03, American
workers
got the lowest share of the nation's income growth of any economic recovery
since World War II.
No middle-class
jobs
America
became a 20th century economic powerhouse by creating high wage,
middle-class jobs that could support a family, often with just one adult
working. In the 21st century, with global worker competition heating up and
investors demanding ever-higher profits, wages seem to have nowhere to go
but
down.
That's
probably good news for Wal-Mart, because it's the largest U.S.
employer and the most affordable place to shop. But what's good for Wal-Mart
isn't always good for America.
