Watched "Walmart, The Cost of Low Prices"

RawAlex · 2006-02-21, 10:14 AM

Lenny, airlines and car companies are interesting choices. In both cases, they are industries where the existing "big guys" are all suffering because of thing they have given during past labor negotiations.

In GM's case, legacy labor costs (the cost of retiree benefits) are costing the company huge amounts of money each year, which would be the difference between profit and loss in most cases.

In airline cases, many, many of those companies have gone bankrupt in the US over the last 10 years, and the usual solution is MASSIVE rollbacks in employee wages and benefits.

If they put those costs into tickets or cars, we would be paying 30% to 50% more.

If every Walmart employee wanted to make stocking shelves into a family supporting career, I would suspect that prices at the store would go up rather dramatically (because not only would wages go up, but because shop rules would probably double the amount of staff required to run the stores).

Alex

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2006-02-21, 10:14 AM	#33
RawAlex Took the hint. Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,597	Lenny, airlines and car companies are interesting choices. In both cases, they are industries where the existing "big guys" are all suffering because of thing they have given during past labor negotiations. In GM's case, legacy labor costs (the cost of retiree benefits) are costing the company huge amounts of money each year, which would be the difference between profit and loss in most cases. In airline cases, many, many of those companies have gone bankrupt in the US over the last 10 years, and the usual solution is MASSIVE rollbacks in employee wages and benefits. If they put those costs into tickets or cars, we would be paying 30% to 50% more. If every Walmart employee wanted to make stocking shelves into a family supporting career, I would suspect that prices at the store would go up rather dramatically (because not only would wages go up, but because shop rules would probably double the amount of staff required to run the stores). Alex