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John Harris said: "As for workers at Walmart. no one is forcing them to work there. Walmart is able to pay the wage it does because there is an ample number of people willing to work for that wage. If you don't like the $8 an hour or whatever it is they pay, go to mcdonalds and get $8.25. The mobility of workers plays a large part in earning potential."
I am almost at a loss as to how to respond. It is as if you are saying that no one was forcing the residents of Iraq to live there, or that no one is forcing me to pay taxes or refrain from murdering various folks I don't like. On a certain level, this is true, but when you live in the real world, you realize there are trade offs that make the "force" issue irrelevant.
People work at Wal-Mart for the same reason they work anywhere else. I'm sure there are people out there "willing" to work for $1 or $2 an hour, just as there are people out there who rent their bodies for sexual services. That doesn't mean they are happy doing so or that they think it's a good job or fair wage. The idea that just because a person will do something reprehensible, grueling, difficult, demeaning or unfair somehow makes it right to ask is outrageous. Just because you can put the gun of family starvation to a man or woman's head and make them slave for you or some corporation does not make it right for you to do so.
And before you say that doesn't happen in the US, there's always welfare, there's always charity, there's always this or that - I'm sure there's not. Not always, not for everyone. These services are difficult to find, difficult to receive. There are barriers erected at every step of the way to make sure that it's not easy. To cull out those who aren't smart enough to figure out the system. Why are so many mentally ill in St. Paul homeless and without assistance? No mystery to me! I've been on welfare. It's incredibly tough to get on even when you meet all the criteria.
To me the reason why we have minimum wage is so that the lowest paying job out there should be better than whatever you can get on welfare. If McDonalds or Wal-Mart employees are routinely seeking a lot of governmental assistance services, then that's an indicator that the minimum wage is not high enough.
The mobility of workers is true in the same way that an affect that kills only 10% of the population per year is survivable. Workers are mobile. **As a group**, they will eventually find new work and be employed there. However, there is a cost to forcing workers to move constantly seeking new employment. Not only is it a cost in human effort and stress, but it also causes you to lose the weakest members of your work force. Some of them will be unable to move, unable to sell their house or find a new apartment near the new work. Some won't have access to public transportation or a car and when they were within walking distance of the Wal-Mart, but aren't in walking distance of the McDonalds, then they go unemployed. Maybe the new hours don't work with their previous child care arrangements or ride-share. Maybe all kinds of things. When you start talking about large groups of workers, you must be aware that not all of them will be equally mobile. When you require them to move from worksite to worksite, not all of them will be able. Sure, maybe 90% will move. But you have forced 10% into starvation just to satisfy a utopian ideal of free market economy which doesn't exist in the real world.
I realize some people think that's an acceptable loss. Having been one of those 10%, I do not.
Mary Baker, East Side
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