Corporations aren’t staffed by faceless machines. They’re staffed by men and women.
And those men and women take their marching orders from the man (usually) or woman at the top.
Thus, you can learn a great deal about a CEO–and his company–by the way his employees are treated.
Consider the differences between Walmart and Costco.
REVENUES:
Costco: In 2011, its revenues stood at $89 billion.
Walmart: In 2011, its revenues stood at $447 billion. But profits declined by 4.6%, to $15.7 billion.
HEALTH INSURANCE:
Costco: About 88% of Costco employees have company-supplied health insurance. “I just think people need to make a living wage with health benefits,” Craig Jelinek, Costco’s CEO and president, told Bloomberg. “It also puts more money back into the economy and creates a healthier country. It’s really that simple.”
Walmart: In January, 2014, the nation’s largest private employer will deny health insurance to newly hired employees who work less than 30 hours a week.
Walmart eliminates healthcare coverage for certain workers if their average work-week falls below 30 hours–which regularly happens at the direction of company managers.
Walmart has refused to say how many of its roughly 1.4 million U.S. workers are likely to lose medical insurance under its new policy.
Many of the Walmart workers who might be dropped from the company’s health care plans earn so little that they would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program.
Of course, if they live in any of the 26 Republican-controlled states refusing to expand Medicaid coverage, they’ll wind up with nothing.
“Walmart is effectively shifting the costs of paying for its employees onto the federal government with this new plan, which is one of the problems with the way the law is structured,” said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2005, Susan Chambers, Walmart’s then-Vice President of Benefits, outlined how the company could remove sick workers from payrolls and avoid paying healthcare benefits.
Three major studies–in Georgia, Massachusetts and California–found Walmart employees to be the ones most reliant on government aid. Annually, Walmart employees cost taxpayers more than $1 billion nationwide.
WAGES:
Costco: Pays a living wage, with its employees starting as $11.50 per hour. The average employee wage is $21 per hour, not including overtime.
Walmart: Most Walmart workers earn less than $20,000 a year. According to Bloomberg News, the average Walmart Associate makes just $8.81 per hour.
CEO SALARY:
Costco: Its CEO and president, Craig Jelinek, made about $4.83 million in 2012.
Walmart: CEO Mike Duke made roughly $19.3 million in 2012.
According to CNN Money: Walmart’s CEO makes as much as 796 average employees. Costco’s CEO makes 48 times more than the company’s median wage.
HOLIDAYS:
Costco: Costco closed for Thanksgiving, giving its employees time to spend with their families.
Walmart: Forced its employees–on pain of being fired–to open its stores nationwide at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
The results: Multiple instances of fistfights, taserings and knifings among shoppers whose greed had been roused to fever pitch by Walmart advertising.
PROMOTINS:
Costco: Hires from within. More than 70% percent of its warehouse managers began their careers working the floor or the register.
Walmart: Facing mounting criticism for its low salaries, Walmart, on October 29, announced that it would promote more than 25,000 employees by the end of January, 2014.
STABILITY:
Costco: The annual turnover rate for employees who have worked at the company for more than one year is less than six percent. For executives, the turnover rate is less than one percent.
Walmart: Since 2008, Walmart has fired or lost 120,000 American workers, while opening more than 500 new U.S. stores.
Many workers quit to find better-paying jobs. As a result, turnover at Walmart has been correspondingly high.
ADVERTISING:
Costco: Doesn’t advertise or rely on a public relations staff.
Walmart: By contrast, Walmart spent $1.89 billion on self-glorifying ads in 2011.
Recently, Walmart has been forced to launch a massive PR campaign to counteract its notoriety for low pay, employment of illegal aliens, lack of health benefits and union-busting tactics.
* * * * *
Some things can’t be quantified.
Goodwill, which is created by taking care of one’s employees–paying them a living wage and providing them with medical care–is one of them.
Similarly, ill will–created by paying the lowest possible wages and forcing employees to essentially become welfare clients–is another.
And some things that can be quantified don’t necessarily make for Nirvana.
In 2012, the Forbes 400 stated that the six wealthiest heirs to the Walmart empire were collectively worth $115 billion.
Yet this has not protected the Walton family from bad publicity–such as from striking workers and news media hungry for scandal.
Nor has it shielded the Waltons from ridicule–comedians like Jay Leno routinely joke about the hordes if illegal aliens Walmart “accidentally” hires.
Americans face a stark choice between two types of corporate employer–one that protects its employees, and another that essentially preys on them.
Which direction the nation chooses to go in will largely determine its course for long-term prosperity or short-term ruin.
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WHO WAS THAT UNMASKED MAN?: PART ONE (OF THREE)
In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 22, 2020 at 12:24 amThe United States is now into the seventh month of a deadly plague. More than 3.9 million Americans have become infected with COVID-19 and at least 142,028 have died.
Wearing a mask and “social distancing”—keeping at least six feet between yourself and others while in public—have been the Golden Rules urged by public health officials for months.
And yet vast numbers of Americans still refuse to do either.
Surgical mask
In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, cloth face masks weren’t universally endorsed, even by public health experts.
“One, we didn’t know whether they were actually helpful, and two, there was a lot of concern that if people were using medical masks then people like myself, were not going to have access to them,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.
No less an authority than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said in March that “people should not be walking around with masks.”
Only in early June did the World Health Organization (WHO) urge non-healthcare workers to mask up. The WHO advised people to don masks when social distancing was not possible, such as when visiting stores and using public transportation.
According to Dr. Jeremy Faust, the change in attitudes toward masks should be seen as the nature of science, and not as a flaw.
“That is what experts, in fact, do. They don’t just have an opinion and stick to it,” said Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts. “They actually let their opinions develop and evolve as better information becomes available.”
Scientists have learned, for example, that COVID-19 can be spread by those who show no symptom of the disease. And mounting evidence has proven that masks are essential for protecting people from the virus.
Coronavirus is spread by respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks—especially if large numbers of people are packed indoors. The danger goes up if the talker is shouting or singing loudly.
If not blocked by a face covering, the droplets can travel six to 13 feet.
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University found that some masks were more effective than others. One study showed that well-fitted homemade masks with multiple layers of fabric, as well as off-the-shelf cone style masks, were the most effective in reducing droplet dispersal.
Bandannas turned out to be the least effective in reducing transmission.
Coronavirus
In cases involving SARS, MERS and COVID, the chance of transmission of an infection was significantly reduced when a mask was worn.
So why do so many Americans refuse to wear a mask?
Start at the top: With Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.
From the outset, Trump refused to wear a mask in public.
A colossal egotist, Trump is orange-skinned, morbidly obese and lacking a neck. (His head seems to pop right out of his shoulders.) Yet he still thinks of himself as dangerously handsome. And he fears that covering his face would diminish his power and appeal.
“Appearing to play it safe contradicts a core principle of masculinity: show no weakness,” wrote social sciences professor Peter Glick at Scientific American magazine. “Defying experts’ warnings about personal danger signals ‘I’m a tough guy, bring it on.’”
On May 21, Trump refused to wear a face mask as he toured a Ford facility in Michigan that’s manufacturing ventilators and personal protective equipment. This violated the policies of the facility, the governor’s executive order and warnings from the state’s attorney general.
Once states across the country began “reopening,” Trump scheduled his first 2020 re-election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It was held on June 20 at the BOK Center. Scientists had learned that Coronavirus is more likely to be transmitted indoors than outdoors, when masses of people are packed together, and when people are loudly talking—or, worse, shouting.
Masks were available for those who wanted them, but Trump made it clear that his supporters shouldn’t wear masks, as a sign of support for him. Photos of the rally show men and women densely packed together, with none of them wearing masks.
A Trump rally
The Tulsa event was followed by another indoor rally in Phoenix on June 23. “Students for Trump” featured a packed crowd, with almost no one wearing masks.
After staging COVID-spreading rallies at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Phoenix, Arizona, Trump scheduled another one for July 3 at Mount Rushmore, in Keystone, South Dakota.
Such rallies had been put on hold since March, due to the issuing of stay-at-home orders across the country by states’ mayors and governors.
Although health experts expressed fears about a large gathering during the Coronavirus pandemic, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said people would “not be social distancing” during the celebration:
“In South Dakota, we’ve told people to focus on personal responsibility….Those who want to come and join us, we’ll be giving out free face masks, if they choose to wear one. But we won’t be social distancing.”
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