Walmart is not welcome in South Africa? What is Walmart?

www.timeslive.co.za...
OK, I've read of Walmart in magazines and heard references in US movies. Mostly the info seems dismissive, both for the people who shop there, and to the people who work there.
What exactly is Walmart - what can SA expect?
For some reason it reminds me of obese people.

Why is the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) so opposed to Walmart?
What have they done wrong?
Well, the deal is through, and it's only a matter of time before the stores open.
But why all the negativity and fuss?

It's like US entertainment has made it out as negative, but then why do they support it?

reply to post by halfoldman

But why all the negativity and fuss?

Places to start:

Frontline: is walmart good for america

Walmart movie FAQs

the high cost of low price - walmart movie

Originally posted by halfoldman

Why is the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) so opposed to Walmart?

Walmart does not allow their workers to unionize. So it's no surprise a union would be opposed to them.

Walmart is an american version of tesco or carfour.. But with much lower quality merchandise and a record of underpaying , abusing employees .. SA better off without walmart

"What is Wal-Mart?" you ask?

According to Paris Hilton, Wal-Mart is a place that sells walls....other than that, it's an evil corporation....

reply to post by LadySkadi

Thanks for that.

I only accessed the second and third link, and it seems very concerning.
However, here we have a minimum wage, and as long as a company pays just over that they are seen as providing much needed employment.
Whether they will offer some form of medical aid is not known to myself, but there are movements to provide that across the board.

Not to insult Chinese people, but that connection makes me worried about the quality of the goods on offer. Are they sub-standard?
Here we buy cheap goods that look normal, for example, bags and watches - but one day after purchase they fall apart.
It is so ironic, because the ANC promised everybody jobs, but many textile and other factories are closing because of cheap Chinese imports. Our ANC is well connected with China (some call them Africa's new colonists). It was quite a laugh, because all the ANC T-shirts in the last election were made in China - and then they promise our people jobs!
In any case, I see nothing particularly bad in Walmart from our perspective yet.

Walmart is a store that allows us poorer people to buy cheap things that we'd not be able to afford otherwise, usually at the cost of cheap overseas labor. Give and take I guess, usually the people that strongly oppose Walmart only shop at stores that rape them in prices yet still receive their merchandise from the same suppliers that Walmart uses. No matter where you buy stuff nowdays it seems that most everything comes from China anyways.

They had to shut down their stores in china, s.korea as they werent doing well. Its bad when they cant keep a store open in china or asia.. But then again asians are smart shoppers (sales are a full contact sport little old aunties are tough and ruthless when theres a sale on ended up banged up a couple times trying to shop during a sale .. I avoid sales now its safer.. Otherwise the aunties look/act like sweet little old ladies.. But during a sale they become godzilla.. ) Dont think walmart even has a store in asia now.. Though tesco showing up everywhere..

reply to post by Expat888

What, Walmart had stores in China?
Now that's interesting from the socialist labor unions' point of view.
Why did they close? Is there some kind of grudge?

Well the info is that they do not allow unionized labor, but their spokespeople in SA deny this.

Coming from the UK, the first time I ever set foot in a Wallmart was like entering some kind of other dimension.

Basically it's like a shop but so big that if you look from one end to the other you can see the curvature of the earth.

They have EVERYTHING inside and I do mean EVERYTHING you can buy a Gun a Rabbit Hutch some embroidery wool and a can of beans all from the same store. (If you need those things of course)
The stuff inside is CHEAP and I mean CHEAP I seem to remember that you could buy a pair of jeans for $10 and shoes for $15. Were they horrible.... Yes they were.

Also they seem to be open ALL the time,

Originally posted by Carseller4

Walmart does not allow their workers to unionize. So it's no surprise a union would be opposed to them.

Unfortunately for Walmart, the Labour Law of South Africa allows any worker to join a union - an employer would be breaking the law if it tried to stop them.

The main problem is that the Unions are worried that Walmart will only pay minimum prescribed wages as well as the fact that they prefer protesting over reasonable negotiation - to have to send 10 000 people to the US Headquarterd to toi-toi (ie. dance, sing and burn cars) might be a slight logistical problem

Walmart is not welcome in South Africa

I dont know about all that but I do like playing a good game of Walmart BINGO
Walmart BINGO

reply to post by davespanners

Thanks so much, that gives me the nitty-gritty description or idea I was seeking.
It doesn't sound entirely different to big shooping complexes here, but yet it also sounds very different.
Sounds like a panic attack waiting to happen (agoraphobia).

reply to post by deltaalphanovember

Well the unionist ivory tower aren't happy, but despite that it's going ahead.
So labor problems is something this company is willing to deal with.
Somehow I think it won't be an issue. Grease some palms from China to the union bosses within ANC ideology and presto - all will run smoothly.

Besides the Zimbabweans will be happy to have a job, if the locals are too snooty and full of bs.

One of the big problems with Wal-Mart is that it drives out all other businesses when it comes to a place. They are such a huge corporation, and can buy things in such enormous bulk that even the price they sell things for undercuts their competitors wholesale costs.

It's not such a big problem when they are located in large cities, but in small towns they put everyone else out of business and then it literally becomes the only place one can buy most anything (and everything - they sell EVERYTHING). Small business, especially, have no chance against them, but even other large chains usually die in their wake. Even big chains like K-Mart and Woolworth, which were doing the same thing but at a much smaller scale, have been either pushed out of a lot of places or, in the case of Woolworth, gone out of business altogether.

There have been economic studies about the effect of Wal-Mart on the U.S. economy, and while in the short run it makes for cheap goods for a lot of people, it ultimately has a very depressive effect on the economy as fewer people make as much money because, well, too many of them are now working at Wal-Mart making very little money. The company has over 2 million employees, mind you there are just under 300 million people in the U.S., so we're talking about a company that employs nearly 1 out of every 100 people in America. It's really scary. It's such a big company, with so many employees, that its effects are actually quite significant on the macro-economic scale. It's been called "a stone around the neck of the American economy."

reply to post by LifeInDeath

Just wondring considering our laws, do they sell alcohol and do they have pharmacies?

reply to post by halfoldman


For a short time they did.. But due to both lack of business from the chinese and inability to compete against locally owned shops they shut down as werent making any profit..

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by LifeInDeath

 

Just wondring considering our laws, do they sell alcohol and do they have pharmacies?

I'm pretty sure they sell alcohol - they all have a full-sized grocery store inside (though I've never shopped in that part of one), and they definitely have pharmacies, too.

One of the things I also really dislike about them, they will often only carry censored versions of music or movies, or refuse to carry them at all (same goes with books). That wouldn't be such a problem if in many places they weren't the only store where one can buy these things. I guess with the internet that's less of a problem than it was in years past, but it still reduces the access of these things to many people.

Any supermarket in my opinion is bad news! They destroy communities, local shops, markets etc... A supermarket is probably the worst thing that could happen to a small village / town other than natural disasters & disease...

Sounds alot like checkers.Paying their employees little and selling goods for cheap.