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Wal-Mart is eyeing plans to bring up to three massive superstores to Ontario, according to a published report.

A Wal-Mart Canada spokesperson said that the company plans to open up to three superstores by early 2007. The company is seeking municipal approval for superstore sites in the east end of Toronto and London, the Globe and Mail reported Wednesday. The location of a potential third store was not specified.

Wal-Mart already carries some groceries at most of its outlets, but superstores are seen as a threat to Canada's existing grocery chains. In addition to the merchandise and dry groceries carried in regular Wal-Mart, the new superstores will also sell fresh produce, meat and bakery goods.

Wal-Mart superstores are almost twice as large as a regular Wal-Mart outlet. The Canadian superstores will be about 190,000 square feet, the Globe reported.

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http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2005/12/14/walmart-051214.html

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Wal-Mart's move into the supermarket business has been widely anticipated but long delayed by the strength of Canada's existing grocery store industry, analysts said.

In the U.S., the powerful discounter has wreaked havoc on the relatively weak regionalized supermarket industry south of the border, and in the United Kingdom, where Wal-Mart's purchase of the second-ranked Asda chain has sparked a price war.

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[ 19 December 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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In addition to the merchandise and dry groceries carried in regular Wal-Mart, the new superstores will also sell fresh produce, meat and bakery goods.

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Not that I'm a competition-fiend, but is it any better if there's 'Canadian' in the name and a maple leaf tacked on the end?

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Originally posted by aRoused:
Hmph.

On the flip side, this sounds like a reasonable description of the Great Canadian Superstores (aka Stuporstore), which already exist.

Not that I'm a competition-fiend, but is it any better if there's 'Canadian' in the name and a maple leaf tacked on the end?

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Originally posted by Lard tunderin' jeesus:
Marginally better, as there's Canadian ownership and profits accruing here rather than in Arkansas.

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And while it's not the most agressive one, Loblaws Superstore employees are unionized. The general merchandise employees get the same wages as Wal-Mart's top rate, while the grocery workers get the same as Loblaws.

[ 19 December 2005: Message edited by: RealityBites ]

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Originally posted by Lard tunderin' jeesus:
Marginally better, as there's Canadian ownership and profits accruing here rather than in Arkansas.

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The profits actually accrue to the shareholders, who can be (and are) spread around the world.

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Originally posted by Lard tunderin' jeesus:
...more ignorance from the neocon fringe.

~ yawn ~

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Wal-Mart (WMT) drew broad scrutiny last year as its political spending soared in nationwide battles over health care, labor and other hot-button issues threatening the giant retailer's growth.

Now, in a little-noticed move, the company's founding family has plunged into a fight to pass income tax changes and other legislation that could preserve its grip on the USA's biggest business and the family's $84 billion fortune.

Led by Sam Walton's only daughter, Alice, the family spent $3.2 million on lobbying, conservative causes and candidates for last year's federal elections. That's more than double what it spent in the previous two elections combined, public documents show.

The Waltons have joined a coterie of wealthy families trying to save fortunes through permanent repeal of the estate tax, government watchdogs say. The election of President Bush and more conservatives to Congress gave momentum to the long-fought effort. The Waltons add more.
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Originally posted by Sven:
Then where do profits go?

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Part of them go towards CEO bonuses after the company has chopped its labour force by another thousand workers.

Think globally; act locally. Small is beautiful.

[ 19 December 2005: Message edited by: Albireo ]

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Originally posted by tallyho:
If a company based in Arkansas wants to compete with a company based in Ontario, let them go at it. Well buy our cats their kitty treats wherever it's cheapest. Working folks will vote with their feet.

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
So what happens when the "working folks" are laid off from their well-paying jobs because the company they work for has to send those jobs overseas to be able to price its own products cheaply enough for the big retailers like Wal-Mart to buy? What if the only jobs they then find available to them are Wal-Mart type jobs that pay less than what they made before and with no benefits?

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
Then they better be prepared to put in the work to re-train or improve their skills so as to find another well-paying job - and the state should have some safety-net in place to help them do that. We can't just coast through life and assume that we're entitled to some well-paying job, regardless of whether a worker elsewhere can do that job better and for cheaper.

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
Then they better be prepared to put in the work to re-train or improve their skills so as to find another well-paying job - and the state should have some safety-net in place to help them do that.

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So how useful would that advice be to a worker in his or her late 40s/early 50s with a high school education who took a job at the factory because at the time that's where the jobs would be? How many people will hire someone that old? What if the younger generation of workers is willing to be on call for their employers 24/7 and not have any sort of personal life?

And BTW Andrew, how is education going to help someone if the only jobs available are Wal-Mart type jobs?

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Originally posted by tallyho:
When Loblaws superstore and Walmart superstore and Canadian tire and Home Depot, etc. all compete and buy offshore merchandise, why wouldn't the working family buy their goods from the one that they feel provides the best service and prices? What's it have to do with Canadian jobs if Walmart sells a flashlight made in China or Canadian tire sells the same flashlight?

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That's the point I was trying to make earlier. Now using your flashlight example, if I work in a flashlight factory, and this factory sends my job overseas because they need to make flashlights cheaply enough to sell to all the big box retailers you mentioned, what impacts does that have on my personal situation (or the working family you like to sanctimoniously invoke)? Do people consider the impacts that their purchasing decisions have, or are they selfishly focused on finding items at the best price without regard for the consequences?

[ 19 December 2005: Message edited by: Aristotleded24 ]

I was in Walmart and there must have been a thousand working class people in the store. What are you going to do? Advise them that an NDP government would restrict their buying options?

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
So how useful would that advice be to a worker in his or her late 40s/early 50s with a high school education who took a job at the factory because at the time that's where the jobs would be? How many people will hire someone that old?

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It's certainly a crappy position to be in when you lose your job and I don't take it lightly. However, what's your solution? Ban imports from China?

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
Perhaps not too useful, but that's all you can do. The older workers can take their retirement, others can look for other jobs, etc. No economy contains only Wal-Mart type jobs.

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Assuming the company has the decency to offer said employees retirement in the firs place, which they may not be.

I really don't understand your point about the typewriter analogy. Are you suggesting that we should just accept "progress" and not worry about the people "progress" leaves behind? We've abandoned people to "progress" before, and it's caused a great deal of problems. (First Nations communities come to mind.)

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
We've abandoned people to "progress" before, and it's caused a great deal of problems. (First Nations communities come to mind.)

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I said that workers themselves can decide and don't need Big Brother telling them where to shop or not. The NDP and your fellow ideologues would do much better at th polls if you learned to respect the millions of Canadian workers and not turn your nose down at them.

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Originally posted by tallyho:
Will you start issuing ration cards and herding folks like cattle through 'Canadian content' stores?

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The NDP and your fellow ideologues would do much better at th polls if you learned to respect the millions of Canadian workers and not turn your nose down at them.

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Originally posted by Makwa:
Hence the value of 'reservations' for the unemployed. Huh? Whaddaya think?

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Originally posted by tallyho:
Aristotle. You ask a question but don't have an answer. What is it?

When Loblaws superstore and Walmart superstore and Canadian tire and Home Depot, etc. all compete and buy offshore merchandise, why wouldn't the working family buy their goods from the one that they feel provides the best service and prices? What's it have to do with Canadian jobs if Walmart sells a flashlight made in China or Canadian tire sells the same flashlight?

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I seldom agree with you on anything, but on this point I do agree. Stores all the way from a thousand square feet up to the Superstores - I use that term loosely here - benefit from offshore slave-labour. Until the mentality of the average citizen changes toward NOT supporting the exploitation of humans around the globe, it makes no difference whether the slave-made goods are bought at Wal-Mart or at a specialty store on Whyte Ave. Society as a whole is disrespectful of the humanity of 'foreigners' and people are willing to buy the cheapest crap, not even once thinking of the working conditions, the starvation 'wages' or the impact on the environment that went into the making of that product. If you want to make a real difference, I suggest it is not where you buy, but what you buy. Wal-Mart et al isn't ruining 'the West'. 'The West' is ruining itself and eliminates its own jobs by buying cheap foreign goods without thinking of the eventual consequences of lost jobs. There is a price to be paid for 'savings'. In the short run it will stretch the budget, but in the long run it will reduce standard of living.

[ 20 December 2005: Message edited by: Red Albertan ]

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
Personal computers probably put a lot of typewriter repair people or factory workers out of work - should we have done something to prevent their jobs from being lost? Maybe we should have taken action against those computers that were putting them out of work? I wonder if people think of the impacts while they selfishly type away on their personal computers?

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Originally posted by Red Albertan:
"The West" is ruining itself and eliminates its own jobs by buying cheap foreign goods without thinking of the eventual consequences of lost jobs.

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Since colonialism and "Indians" have, strangely enough, made their way into the discussion here; a little history about British rule in India:

The main reason the British initially took control of India was to stop it from taking "their" jobs - the Indian textile industry was growing and innovating rapdily, and was beginning to be able to compete with Britain and Europe. The British "solution" was to take over the land, dismantle the manufacturing industry and ensure that these so-called "British" textile jobs stayed in Britain and did not face any competition from foreign producers who might have put them out of business. Things worked quite well for Britain - no British workers lost their jobs and the British owned and operated factories prospered. However, I think we all know what happened to the Indians.

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
These aren't "our" jobs, nobody owns them, they should go to whomever can do them best. I'm not going to begrudge the Indian or Chinese worker a chance at employment. Conditions aren't very good, but that's a job for domestic political reformers. Wages are low because that's the reality of a global economy - things are usually cheaper in developing countries.

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Is cheapness the only thing that should matter?

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

If you want to increase Chinese workers' bargaining power, increase the demand for Chinese workers.

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Now that's what the world needs: two billion Chinese working in factory sweatshops with no labour laws or environmental standards. As soon as they need twobillionandone, the 'invisible hand' will surely take care of the problem.

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Originally posted by tallyho:
Will you start issuing ration cards and herding folks like cattle through 'Canadian content' stores?

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Originally posted by Michelle:

Okay, really, that's pretty much enough, I think. I've been reluctant to get rid of you because you're really good at trolling while staying just this side of babble policy, but it's time for you to go. There are lots of other sites where your neo-con stuff will go over well. This isn't one of them. You're just pissing people off here.

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You freely admit that Tallyho stayed within Babble policy, but he erred because he pissed folks off. So it's really the pissing people off that got him banned. So is the Babble posting policy now to be expanded to include no pissing off of people? That would make for a very dull and self-censored news group.

But what will probably happen is that regulars or long-term members (those with numbers below 5000 or so) will be able to piss people off at will.

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Originally posted by freeThinker:
But what will probably happen is that regulars or long-term members (those with numbers below 5000 or so) will be able to piss people off at will.

Are you going to retaliate against me for bringing this up?

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Not likely, but this post about policy doesn't really belong in this thread.

Does anybody honestly think conditions in Chinese factories would improve if we suddenly stopped giving them our business? Most likely they'd only get worse in an effort to make Chinese labour that much more attractive for western consumers.

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
How do people think conditions in the west improved? The demand for workers increased their bargainning power, and domestic political reformers pushed for better laws and regulations. The appaling conditions in British cotton mills weren't reformed because of a boycott, or some attempt to appeal to the consumers' supposed "responsibilities".

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Demand for labour had nothing to do with it. It was because people joined unions, and fought for better conditions. Many people died as a result of that fight. It should also be noted that the big businesses don't mind the laws in the Third World which allow the governments and the police to repress people.

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What is a developing country to export if rich countries deny access to their markets for both goods and services? The professionals in India working in accounting, engineering, and medicine may earn low wages by our standards, but they are among the highest-paid in their country.

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It’s one thing to protect the poorest of the third world from ruthless exploitation in sweatshops, but it’s another to stop the educated from using their abilities to leave poverty behind. They will stay mired in poverty forever if developed nations refuse to buy their non-traditional exports.

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
Or let them join labour unions. That's worked before.

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It's pretty hard when the only real Chinese socialist with any iota of political power is a pragmatic Trotskyist Legislative Councillor from Hong Kong who's busy working with both radical social groups and more moderate liberal and social democratic politicians, to bring about a social-market economy, full protection of human rights and civil liberties, and complete democratisation in his own back yard.

(Knowing that I'm NDP Newbie, guess who I'm talking about...)

[ 20 December 2005: Message edited by: Ghost of the Navigator ]

[ 20 December 2005: Message edited by: Ghost of the Navigator ]

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Wal-Mart representatives will ask the West Des Moines City Council on Monday to reconsider an earlier decision that limits the hours of a planned supercenter, hinting the company might take legal action if the city does not allow the store to be open 24 hours a day.
William J. Lillis, a Des Moines real estate attorney who represents the retail giant, said, "We are going to ask that they reconsider what they did. We believe what they did is not legal. Obviously, they think what they did is legal on advice of their attorney. We are going to advise them that in our opinion it is not legal and ask them to reconsider." ...

Wal-Mart spokesman Roderick Scott said stores that request 24-hour operations do so "because it's needed. Anything less would inhibit the effectiveness of the store."

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Originally posted by faith:
I hear the same rationalisations concerning the plight of workers from our financial advisor as I do from Andrew_Jay, and it is depressing.
Each time I bring up the concern of ethical investment for our paltry RRSP savings, I get a condescending verbal equivalent of a pat on the head. I hear that workers are better off even if the wages are not great- and then you check that out and find out that Amnesty and other labour watch dogs find that a worker in Indonesia who needs about2-3 dollars a day to feed themselves does not have that much left over after paying the company for their lodgings and working a 60- 70 hour week.
I hear about the Indian workers 'right' to a job but funny enough no word on the worker's right to organise, or an explanation for armed guards outside some of the factories in Bangladesh and South China.
This is why I believe that the huge trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO have been colossal failures, they do not address the rights of humanity. Labour standards would have been easy to negotiate along with the rights of corporations but they were left out for a reason.

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