Orgainized Labor and Wal-Mart

Whenever I head over to Blue Grass Report, I find interesting, well thought out posts that are either quite ahead of the main stream media or covering topics they won't touch. Today I read a post set around organized labor and Wal-Mart. I agree with him on many points, but I of course have my own views on the topic.

Organized labor was needed when it began, and over the years it has helped the working man. Today we live in an international corporate world and to compete, wheter union or not, companies in the U.S. have to offer the same working conditions, pay, and benefits to gain desirable employees. The big one around here is Toyota. They are still not part of UAW, though there have been pushes for it over the years. When I was working there, there were red shirt Wednesdays to show your support for the union and many other things people where doing to get workers to sign up. Then it fizzled for a few years, and it came back again recently. The thing is, to all of us who are not Toyota employees, we don't get it. They have the best pay and benefits for their jobs in the state. Get over yourselves. We'd all love to get what y'all get, and this is at a non-union company.

Wal-Mart came into my little hometown of Mt. Sterling and pushed out all the little stores that sold the same wares. We had a handful of places you could go to get what you need for school supplies, and if one was out, then you could go to 3 more places in town and hopefully find what you needed. When Wal-Mart came, if there was no more white posterboard at Wal-Mart, you were screwed. You couldn't get it anywhere else. You had to drive to Winchester to see if maybe they had some at their Wal-Mart or K-Mart, since we weren't big enough for K-Mart to take over before Wal-Mart came around. It was this way for years. A few weeks ago I was helping my mom put together some gift bags for our out of town wedding guests, and she needed some nice gift bags that would hold everything. We did not go to Wal-Mart. We went to the Dollar Tree, Big Lots, and Dollar General and found what we needed there. I then realized that we had attracted some more stores and that Wal-Mart hadn't won. We have a choice again.