Wal-Mart is still not welcome in Boston despite a recent push to remake its public image, said city and labor union officials.
“Wal-Mart’s announcement of improved benefits was a public relations sham,” said Richard Rogers, vice president of the Greater Boston Labor Council. “The day Wal-Mart allows their workers to have a free choice concerning unionization we will back down. Until then we plan on mobilizing our members, our community allies and our friends in the political community to keep them out of the city.”
Wal-Mart attempted to further its image-polishing campaign last week by proposing a lower-cost, wider-coverage health care plan for its employees, promising an environmental initiative and calling for a boost in the minimum wage.
Financial analysts at The Wall Street Journal said Wal-Mart’s growth hinges on expansion into the urban areas most hostile to the company’s business model, including the East Coast, Chicago and California. Wal-Mart’s new public relations bid is an attempt to win over those new consumers, the analysts said.
Wal-Mart considered moving into Downtown Crossing in September of this year, yet decided against it after its executives met with Boston officials for undisclosed reasons. Wal-Mart said they were still strongly interested in Boston, though, and would continue to monitor the city for an opportunity to bring in one of their flagship stores.
“In the long term, we will be looking at Boston,” Phillip Serghini, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said. “We see no reason why our customers in Boston should be denied access to our low-priced goods.”
But Mayor Thomas Menino found a reason to bar Wal-Mart from coming to Boston at an event on Sept. 6, citing concerns about their labor policies.
“Wal-Mart is not fair to labor,” Menino said. “I think it’s important to be fair to workers, and until this takes place Wal-Mart shouldn’t be in downtown Boston.”
The mayor was unavailable for comment on Wal-Mart’s pledges to create friendlier polices for their employees and for the environment.
City Councilor-At-Large Felix Arroyo, who opposed Wal-Mart moving into Downtown Crossing in September, said he was not convinced that Wal-Mart had genuinely changed, and still would fight to prevent them from moving into Boston.
“I will not support them moving into Boston until they allow their workers to have free choice concerning unionization, give equal pay for equal work, and increase their health benefits,” said Arroyo. “Until I see this happening with my own eyes, I am very suspicious of Wal-Mart’s promises to change. Right now, it is just PR maneuvering until we see the changes manifest in their actual policy.”
Many college students in Boston do not seem to share the same concerns as the councilors and labor unions, and prefer to focus on the possible benefits a Wal-Mart would bring the college community.
“I think a Wal-Mart would be perfect here. With its prices and the amount of products available in one place, it’s a college student’s dream,” said Albert Rappaport, a junior at Emerson College. “If it were accessible I know students at all universities in the area would take advantage of it very quickly.”
When asked if they were concerned with the way Wal-Mart treats its workers, students said that it wouldn’t affect their use of Wal-Mart.
“I dont think many college students pay too much attention to these claims that they treat their employees poorly,” said Chris Pasquale, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“Some liberals might try to make a big deal out of these unsubstantiated claims just so that they can have something to complain about, but the sensible college students would definitely shop at a Wal-Mart if it is close to campus.”
Although Wal-Mart believes its proposed policy changes are appealing to the public, critics continue to find inadequacies in them, especially in Wal-Mart’s health care plan.
“This is a desperate attempt to remake their faltering image,” said Chris Kofinis, spokesman for Wake Up Wal-Mart, an anti-Wal-Mart organization. “Even with their proposed environmental friendly policies, their health care plan is still sorely lacking.”
David West, executive director for The Center for a Changing Workforce, a nonprofit research group, says the company’s new health care alternative — which lets employees pay between 40 and 60 percent less in premiums than under the current plan — is inadequate because it still has a $1,000 deductible. Costco’s deductible is $200. Currently, less than half of Wal-Mart employees are on old company health insurance, compared with more than 80 percent at Costco Wholesale Corp.
Another issue facing Wal-Mart is its policy against allowing workers to unionize, which is a policy that the Greater Boston Labor Council says must change before the mega-store will be allowed in Boston. If such a change were made, then benefits for Wal-Mart employees would substantially increase.
Burt Flickinger, managing director of consulting firm Strategic Marketing, estimates that Wal-Mart spends 70 percent less per employee on all benefits, including health care and pension plans, than unionized retailers. Union shops, which include supermarkets and wholesale clubs, pay anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 in benefits per full-time employee.
In what may be a crippling blow to Wal-Mart’s push to better its reputation, the New York Times obtained a copy of a leaked company memo last Wednesday that revealed “bold steps” to actually decrease Wal-Mart’s employee benefit costs.
Among the recommendations: using more part-time workers, cutting life insurance payouts, pushing spouses off health plans through higher premiums and trying to dissuade unhealthy people from seeking jobs by, among other things, requiring cashiers to gather carts in Wal-Mart’s vast parking lots.
In response to the leaked Wal-Mart memo, Rogers of the GBLC said, “Their own internal documents verify that they have no intention of creating a better work environment. The statements they made this week promising changes were a joke.”