--- On Fri, 6/27/08, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> <http://www.slate.com/id/2194332/>
>
> Wage Against the Machine
> IF COSTCO'S WORKER GENEROSITY IS SO GREAT, WHY
> DOESN'T WAL-MART
> IMITATE IT?
> By Liza Featherstone
>
[WS:] An interesting piece. It argues that presence of a union makes all that difference. I would like to belive that, but I have an alternative explanation - expectations linked to the social class that forms the bulk of a business's customer base. Costo serves mainly middle class customers, and thus offers a image and overall quality of product that suits middle class sensibilities. Walmart serves mainly trailer trash and shapes its image and overall quality of product accordingly.
The same holds for other retailoutlets, even ones owned by the same chain. Greyhound serves mainly trailer trash and offers one of the shittiest services in this country. Numerous commuter services (e.g. Veolia) serve middle class riders and offer better quality services. There is a marked difference in quality among the same chain supermarkets serving mainly trailer trash and those serving middle class suburban communities. The same holds true for McDonald joints.
There is a theory of labor relations called "segmented labor market" that makes a similar argument - shitty dead end jobs for trailer trash, women and minoritis, career jobs for middle class (mostly make and white) employees. I would go even further and caim that social class is not a product of employment relations (e.g. low paying jobs producing lower social class) but h eother way around - employment relations are a product of social class or rathr status relations (i.e. low class/status producing low paying jobs deemed "suitable" for this category of people.) A similar argument was advanced by Reskin & Roos in their study of segmented labor market titles "Job queues, gender queues" (Roos was my prof at Rutgers.)
Wojtek