Bastards.

Kevin Drum (following up on Ezra Klein) has the right kind of liberal take here:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009545.php

I have no problem with this as long as it is for generic drugs. Let generic drug manufacturer's be forced to migrate operations offshore, but let's keep the research and development side of the pharmaceutical industry here, please.

Oh, but that's still too expensive. And "stuff being expensive"... is all the fault of Wal-Mart.

They're evil, I tell you.

Jason... huh?

Philosopher --

Many people blame Wal-Mart for its employees' low salaries, entirely neglecting other factors -- like having to offer low prices to stay competitive, or like the employees' tendency to be low-skilled or temporary workers. Whose fault is it? Wal-Mart's, because the company happens to be large and nearby. I just applied the same thinking here.

Sorry if it didn't make sense.

I'm for higher wages too, and I think employees should work for those employers that offer it....

...what? No one else will pay them higher wages either? Hmmm.

The low wages per se are not the issue but, as Drum observes, the draconian and generally illegal means that Walmart pursues to keep them that way. If it can't keep the wages that low within the bounds of the law and of basic human decency, then it shouldn't keep wages that low at all. And if Walmart was suddenly a bit less competitive, I doubt that that would wildly hurt the American consumer -- there'd still be significant downward price pressure from the competition that would exist, without having to have Walmart exercise monopsony power to get it there.

... the draconian and generally illegal means that Walmart pursues to keep them that way."

Please illuminate me on Wal-Mart's illegal activities.

If it can't keep the wages that low within the bounds of the law and of basic human decency, then it shouldn't keep wages that low at all.

What are your recommendations, then, for businesses in the developing world? Should they all just close down and give up?

... the draconian and generally illegal means that Walmart pursues to keep them that way."

Please illuminate me on Wal-Mart's illegal activities.

The comments system doesn’t let me stack, but WalMart does run some videos in store against unions that walk a fine line with regards to legality.

Also, they have had multiple cases brought against them (results vary, many settlements) indicating that managers will cut hours from the electronic time clock in order to make targeted payroll numbers.

The most common way this occurs is that someone will work through lunch so their punch-in and out times show only gaps for break, meaning they work a full 9 hours during their shift. A manager can (and I've personally seen this occur) and automatically assume the person took a lunch and manually add one into their timecard.

Now I doubt this a corporate conspiracy to trim resource costs, but rather the result of higher executives pressuring lower managers to meet cost expectations and those managers making questionable decisions. In either event Wal-Mart as a whole is responsible for those actions.

Additionally, some districts outsource their maintenance crew to outside firms and usually those teams are of questionable citizenship status.

Your Wal-Mart:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4146540/

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/national/18WALM.html?ex=1389762000&en=659ee9a0025b35de&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/national/19LABO.html?ex=1371441600&en=e8f1b02da187e325&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

And here's a good one complete with the good, the bad and the ugly.

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/77/walmart.html

And here's something to consider. Does Wal-Mart really have any competition any more? Any company that can really steal enough customers to hurt their bottom line? No, they don't. Not really. So if Wal-Mart decided to jack up prices of about 65% of their merchandise (Just to pull some numbers out of the air.) by 3 cents and put that money to employee pay and benefits, would it hurt their competitive standing in the retail world? Not one bit. But they still would never do it.

On the other hand, even the planet seems to want to get away from Walmarts:

A landslide caused by construction of a new Wal-Mart and strip mall closes a major traffic artery from the northern suburbs for at least a week.

The inexpensive generic drugs does serve as a de facto health benefit for Wal-Mart employees (and everyone else).

And now Target is following suit, which I find quite amusing.

Others have already answered JC's question, but Jason's still needs a response. The short answer is, I think, simply that what both decency and the law demand of us depends more than a little on the circumstances we are in. Labor laws are obviously not the same here as in developing countries, and that's a good thing. Moreover, where an economy is so impoverished that the fundamental choice is between crap-jobs-or-no-jobs-at-all, then perhaps decency demands that we allow the crap jobs. But that is, thankfully, not the case in this country. So to say, "look, Walmart's labor practices would be _progressive_ by the standard of the developing world" is about as good an argument as the "eat your brussel sprouts -- there are starving children in China!" argument so beloved by parents everywhere.

And of course as per usual the devil's in the details. One of those details is that this price cut doesn't cover nearly all generics, including the most profitable ones that are most widely prescribed.

Too bad pharma companies can't enjoy efficiencies of scale similar to those of Wal-Mart.