www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Wal-Mart Brings Back Christmas

InCogNeat3's:
I have not described a socialist agenda. Nowhere have I argued for the state ownership of the means of production or the elimination of private property. You are, of course, free to disagree with me. John may be correct in his assertion that my argument lacks common sense and takes Catholic social teaching out of its proper context, but I have not advocated for socialism.

Alexandr:
The basis of the opposition of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI to some Liberation Theology is the use of Marxist social analysis by those particular writings which have been rejected. However, the notion of "preferential option for the poor", which is a fundamental principle of much Liberation Theology has not been condemned and is actually taught by the Catholic Church. "The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church", which was written by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, states,

182. The principle of the universal destination of goods requires that the poor, the marginalized and in all cases those whose living conditions interfere with their proper growth should be the focus of particular concern. To this end, the preferential option for the poor should be reaffirmed in all its force[384]. �This is an option, or a special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness. It affects the life of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ, but it applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our manner of living, and to the logical decisions to be made concerning the ownership and use of goods. Today, furthermore, given the worldwide dimension which the social question has assumed, this love of preference for the poor, and the decisions which it inspires in us, cannot but embrace the immense multitudes of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without health care and, above all, those without hope of a better future�[385].

Ryan, how has WalMart failed to live up to the points you raised?
I know that the WalMart near me has hired some severly disabled people and people who would not otherwise have the opportunity to work. Also, please give me a definition of the word poor. Most Americans have a skewed view of what poor means.
Alexandr

2005

Asian Enterprise Magazine list top 10 Companies for Asian Americans.
Latinos Hispanic Magazine list top 50 Vendor Programs for Supplier Diversity.
Black Enterprise Magazine list Top 30 Companies for African Americans.
Hispanic Magazine list 2005 Corporate 100 - The 100 Companies Providing the Most Opportunities for Hispanic.
Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility (HACR) Corporate Index Top 10
DiversityInc's list of the Top 50 Companies for Diversity.
2004

Fortune magazine placed Wal-Mart in the top spot on its "Most Admired Companies" list for the second year in a row.
Wal-Mart was included in the annual Hispanic Corporate 100 by Hispanic Magazine
In a poll sponsored by Careers & the Disabled magazine, Wal-Mart was recognized as one of the best companies in the nation for providing a positive working environment for people with disabilities.
Wal-Mart was honored with the "Corporate Patriotism Award" which is sponsored by Employer Support for Guard and Reserve and presented to a company that exhibits exceptional dedication to raising awareness and support of U.S. service members and their families.
Wal-Mart was named one of the "Top Ten Companies for Asian Americans" by Asian Enterprise magazine, the largest Asian American business-focus publication in the country. The publication's "Celebrating Asian Entrepreneurs Awards Committee" selected the top ten to showcase corporations that have documented records of responsible and conscientious business practices.
DiversityBusiness.com named Wal-Mart on of the top corporations for multicultural business opportunities.
Latin Trade Reader named Wal-Mart among Latin America�s 25 Most Respected Employers.
Vista Magazine included Wal-Mart among its Top Family Friendly Companies for Hispanics.
2003

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., has been recognized as the "Largest Corporate Cash Giver" by Forbes magazine. The magazine cited The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual survey based on sales and cash donations for 2002.
Fortune magazine named Wal-Mart the 1st most admired company in America.
2002

Black Collegian Magazine named Wal-Mart one of the top diversity employers in 2002.
The Hispanic National Bar Association names Wal-Mart the 2002 Corporate Partner Of The Year.
Wal-Mart was presented with the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership, a presidential award that recognizes companies for outstanding achievement in employee and community relations.
FORTUNE magazine named Wal-Mart number one on the FORTUNE 500 list.
2001

FORTUNE magazine named Wal-Mart the 3rd most admired company in America.
Wal-Mart ranked by Training magazine as one of the 50 best U.S. companies for providing associate training.

Alexandr

Alexandr:
Collective bargaining and unions are legitimate tools to which employees have recourse, and I for one think that they have played a positive role. Do you prefer that workers be subjected to the sort of inhumane working conditions that existed prior to the formation of unions? In the USA, the legitimacy of unions and the legal obligation of employers to negotiate with unions where a majority of employees have chosen to join a union are established by law-laws that employers are obligated to obey. Furthermore, the Catholic Church affirms both the right to organize and the legitimacy of unions. Here are two paragraphs from "The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church."

301. The rights of workers, like all other rights, are based on the nature of the human person and on his transcendent dignity. The Church's social Magisterium has seen fit to list some of these rights, in the hope that they will be recognized in juridical systems: the right to a just wage; [651] the right to rest; [652] the right �to a working environment and to manufacturing processes which are not harmful to the workers' physical health or to their moral integrity�; [653] the right that one's personality in the workplace should be safeguarded �without suffering any affront to one's conscience or personal dignity�; [654] the right to appropriate subsidies that are necessary for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families; [655] the right to a pension and to insurance for old age, sickness, and in case of work-related accidents; [656] the right to social security connected with maternity; [657] the right to assemble and form associations.[658] These rights are often infringed, as is confirmed by the sad fact of workers who are underpaid and without protection or adequate representation. It often happens that work conditions for men, women and children, especially in developing countries, are so inhumane that they are an offence to their dignity and compromise their health.

305. The Magisterium recognizes the fundamental role played by labour unions, whose existence is connected with the right to form associations or unions to defend the vital interests of workers employed in the various professions. Unions �grew up from the struggle of the workers � workers in general but especially the industrial workers � to protect their just rights vis-�-vis the entrepreneurs and the owners of the means of production�.[667] Such organizations, while pursuing their specific purpose with regard to the common good, are a positive influence for social order and solidarity, and are therefore an indispensable element of social life. The recognition of workers' rights has always been a difficult problem to resolve because this recognition takes place within complex historical and institutional processes, and still today it remains incomplete. This makes the practice of authentic solidarity among workers more fitting and necessary than ever.

BTW, the entire text of "The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church" is available online on the Vatican web page. The link is below.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p..._doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html

Alexandr:

Well I do agree with you when you write "Most Americans have a skewed view of what poor means" if what you mean is that what is often termed poverty in the USA is not nearly so severe as the conditions that can be found elsewhere in the world. In fact, I have sometimes said that in the USA, we have a lot of relative poverty, that is, those who have the least here are poor relative to the wealthiest. However, I would insist that the huge disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest in the USA is not something to be celebrated. I would also say that I suspect very strongly that much of the actions for which Wal-Mart has been recognized in all the magazines you have pointed out are in response to a huge amount of very well-deserved negative press Wal-Mart has received over the last several years. I hardly think their actions are the result of altruism on the part of their executives. I also think that such behaviors will be short-lived without ongoing scrutiny. Working for large retail chains is not easy work-I've worked for several over the years-includeing Wal-Mart. The pay is low, you are expected to be available to work on holidays and weekends (something not expected of many people who hold jobs in other sectors), you are expected to work a variety different shifts and you may not know your schedule more than a few days in advance (which makes planning your life outside of work difficult), you may be coerced into giving up break periods to which you are legally entitled, you are exposed to abuse by a section of the clientele on a regular basis, etc. Having said that, if I were in a situation where I had little choice but to take a job with a retailer, I would do so, but Wal-Mart is the last of my former employers I would consider. Wal-Mart, of all retailers, can affort to be more generous with its employees and remain very profitable. They refuse to do so because they are motivated by sin-the sin of greed.
Ryan

Alexandr:
Collective bargaining and unions are legitimate tools to which employees have recourse, and I for one think that they have played a positive role. Do you prefer that workers be subjected to the sort of inhumane working conditions that existed prior to the formation of unions? [/QB][/QUOTE]

Ryan,
is this what you personally have observed, or is this what you have been told/taught? I am getting the strong impression that you are quite a young man, burning with zeal for social justice. And that is a good thing. Unfortunately, that very zeal makes you a target of those who would turn your zeal towards an agenda that is neither just, nor Christian. May I suggest the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.

Alexandr

Ryan,
is this what you personally have observed, or is this what you have been told/taught? I am getting the strong impression that you are quite a young man, burning with zeal for social justice. And that is a good thing. Unfortunately, that very zeal makes you a target of those who would turn your zeal towards an agenda that is neither just, nor Christian. May I suggest the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.

Alexandr [/QB][/QUOTE]

Alexandr:

I really could do without the patronizing. I don't know what you consider to be "quite a young man." I'm 35, and I have worked for somewhere around ten employers over the years. In only one of those workplaces was I represented by a union. That is the one workplace where I feel like I was fairly compensated and where you could count on having legitimate recourse when management acted unethically or illegally. Also, my father is a railroad worker who is represented by a union. His father was a railroad worker represented by a union. Just wages that were negotiated by the union lifted my family out of poverty. My dear late maternal grandmother was a postal worker who was prevented from falling into poverty when she became a widow at the age of 47 because of fair wages that were negotiated by her union. My father's sister is a retired postal worker whose late husband was a retired railroad worker. She has a union-negotiated pension and other union-negotiated benefits from her tenure as a postal worker. Also, she has the benefit of collecting a portion of the pension her husband would be collecting were he still alive-a pension that was union-negotiated. These union-negotiated benefits enable her to live out her retirement in a dignified, albeit modest, existence. Unions certainly are not perfect, as they are made up of people-who are not perfect. However, I would hate to think what life would be like in industrialized nations were it not for the role unions have played in bargaining for just wages, safer working conditions, and limiting the number of hours employers may require employees to work. Again, I would point out that the Catholic Church affirms both the legitimacy of unions and the positive role that they have played.
Sincerely,
Ryan

I'm 64 years old, and I certainly consider trade unions to be a quite legitimate and positive aspect of society. My mother was a librarian and belonged to a trade union - and collected both sick benefits and (later, of course) a pension, which the union had negotiated.

I have often read Animal Farm with considerable enjoyment. But it is a satire of the USSR, not of trade unions. I am reliably informed that members of trade unions have not been forbidden to sing Solidarity Forever and that Stakhanovite working conditions are not encouraged by the AFL-CIO.

Father Serge

But while all Wal-Mart employees are equal, some Wal-Mart employees are more equal than others...

Gordo

Ask Jimmy Hoffa if unions have outlived their usefulness.

I am the "product" of the unions. My mother's side are all union laborers and carpenters, in fact my godfather, (he he) who is my mom's first cousin, is a very powerful union boss for the carpenters. My father's side are all railroaders.

In both cases the unions have not protected the workers' rights at all. The UTU has let the crew on a train fall from 5 men to only 2. The caboose has been stripped from the train and now there is only the concuctor and the engineer. They can only ride on the engine and that leads to many more derailments.

My uncle had to sue to have his knee replaced after it had obviously been hurt on the job. He used to walk like a total "gimp" because of the injury. His working conditions were very unsafe as he had to work on an unstable knee.

I think that the Holy Father of blessed memory Leo XIII was right on for his time. But since the encyclicals in question are not infallible statements, I think they can and have to be modified to suit today's problems.

And again, I'm going to apologize to Katie G for the hijacking of this thread.

Gentlemen, where's our chivalry?

Dr. Eric,

The failure of unions to fulfill their mission is not an argument against them in principle, though.

Collective bargaining and trade unions certainly do play a vital role both within and outside of the United States. Many of the laws in our country protecting the rights of workers came about thanks to the unions, and I say this as one who has had first hand experience doing labor relations with a union. In my experience, the union was a necessity to protect the rights of the employees which would have been (and sometimes were) trampled by an irresponsible management team - the same management team who authorized the dumping of raw chemical sewage into a public lake, BTW. (This was in the 90's...)

With that said, unions need reform, especially in the age where individual accomplishment needs to be recognized, valued and rewarded in the corporation.

God bless,

Gordo

Chilvalry is dead Dr Eric. I can take criticism but it's not cool when the topic of a thread does a complete 180 from what it was originally intended for. Merry Christmas.
-Katie g

The teaching of the Popes on unions and a just wage (if you have actually read them) does not have anything to do with Marxism or trends in Liberation theology. Please don't try and put the Pope on your side in conservative economics.. As said before, they are most definitely not on that side.

Amen, Brian. The tyranny of the State or tyranny of the Marketplace...both are evil. So where is the middle ground? Perhaps distributism?

Katie - very, very happy about Wal-Marts change on this policy. Also about their growing shift into organic foods.

Gordo, a Crunchy Con