Undercover at Wal-Mart

I’m a fan of Wal-Mart.

There I said it. Nope. Not afraid to admit it.

Of course, I’m not some hypocritically social-conscious Liberal that believes that low prices, variety, and convenience are somehow “evil”.

Charles Pratt from the New York Post has a fantastic story on his time spent under-cover working as a cashier in Flagstaff, AZ.

From his article:

Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the chain. I, meanwhile, am in awe of it.

Like I said…the people who hate Wal-mart the most are those who don’t need to or have to shop there. Yet.

Considering this is a company that is helping families ride out the economic downturn, which is providing jobs and stimulus while Congress bickers, which had sales growth of 2% this last quarter while other companies struggled, you have to wonder why. At least, I wondered why. And in that spirit of curiosity, I applied for an entry-level position at my local Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart has done more to help working families and those on tight/diminishing budgets than Congress or a ship-full of idiot Liberals has ever done.

Mr. Pratt goes on to talk about how difficult it was to get hired. Apparently a lot of  “exploited” workers were lining up and praying for the opportunity to be exploited by Wal-Mart.  At the end of which Mr. Pratt noted:

[I] went through two additional interviews, followed by a drug test, before I received formal approval. It may have been one of the most intense hiring processes I’ve been through; hardly the schedule of a company that didn’t care who it hired, or employees who didn’t care about getting a job.

To further debunk the “exploitation” meme Liberals like to spread about Wal-Mart, Pratt writes:

I found myself reaching an inescapable conclusion. Low wages are not a Wal-Mart problem. They are an industry-wide problem, afflicting all unskilled entry-level jobs, and the reason should be obvious.

In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.

So where does all of the demonization of Wal-Mart come from? Unions. Who are pissed that Wal-Mart has managed to become one of the most successful and profitable companies in the world without them.

Of course it would never occur to these mental midgets that Wal-Mart is successful precisely because they are not unionized.