In the recent article “Wal-Mart exploits American Workers,” Laura Rayburn accused people who shop at Wal-Mart of being “closet socialists.” I shop at Wal-Mart, and I am an unabashed and unapologetic capitalist.
First, employees are not entitled to their jobs. In fact, the job is the private property of the employer. As such, the employer has certain rights that come with owning private property. Among these rights is the ability to locate that job anywhere they choose, including overseas. Also among these rights is the ability to set employee wages according to criterion such as quantity and quality of work performed by the employee.
Wal-Mart does not destroy jobs. Competition does. I’m old enough to remember my parents buying eight-track tapes. Then someone came out with the cassette tapes. What happened to the jobs of the people who made the eight-track tapes? They went away because somebody introduced a better product to the market. The same will happen with the people who currently make the cassette tapes.
Miss Rayburn stated that she would be left to fend for herself as far as health insurance coverage goes. As an individual, this is her responsibility. The only legal obligation that an employer operating in a capitalistic market should have toward its employee is to provide a safe working place and to live up to the terms of a voluntarily entered employment contract with that employee. Laws like the one passed, by overriding the governor’s veto, last month by the Maryland Legislature are in direct and absolute violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
For those who don’t know, the Maryland law requires any business in Maryland that employs more than 10,000 people to spend no less than 8 percent of its payroll on medical benefits. If Wal-Mart chooses to fight the Maryland law, it will not even need the Fourth Amendment argument. Wal-Mart is the only employer in the state of Maryland who meets the 10,000-employee criterion. That alone is sufficient for Wal-Mart to win in court.
To this point Wal-Mart employees have voluntarily rejected unionization. The fact is, if Wal-Mart employees want unions, the store managers can’t stop them from voting one in. Thank God they’re smart enough to know the union bosses don’t sign the lower right corner of their paychecks.
If Miss Rayburn is truly interested in not only stopping, but also reversing the trend of job outsourcing by Wal-Mart and others, she’ll be happy to know that there is a bill before Congress that, if passed, would do just that without violating anyone’s civil rights. It’s called the Fair Tax Bill.
Kerry Hunt is a parking services officer. He can be reached at [email protected].