As part of an ongoing series of papers about Walmart, Big Box retail, and economic change, I’m reading a lot of criticism of big companies that pay low wages and offer skimpy benefits. For Walmart’s critics, this is pretty easy to explain. Some argue that this is part and parcel of the capitalist mode of production. Like every other capitalist firm, Walmart extracts surplus value from its employees. Others might argue that Walmart has disproportionate power in local labor markets.
The reality is a lot more complex. There are a lot of aspects of employee compensation that don’t go into the wage bargain. Some might seem trivial, but they are important nonetheless. Scheduling flexibility is a big one. This is particularly valuable for teenagers and parents of small children. Collegiality is another. As I read a lot of the first-hand accounts in Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God and Wal-Mart, for example, I read of people who really enjoyed their jobs, who valued the challenges the presented, and who valued the people with whom they worked.
Comfortable working conditions are also valuable. I would guess that Walmart would have a much more difficult time hiring workers if their stores weren’t air conditioned. It’s important to note too that comparing a job at Walmart today to a job at Macy’s in 1960 is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Retail technology has changed in such a way as to draw the Walmart workforce from the same part of the population that probably would have been working in agriculture fifty years ago. Jobs in retail or in food service are often derided as dead-end “McJobs.”
McJobs are crucial, though, for several reasons. First, they offer the opportunity to acquire the skills associated with successful participation in the labor market. This is valuable; indeed, for many teenagers who are flipping burgers at McDonald’s or stocking shelves at Walmart, the most valuable thing they are getting is not wages and benefits, but work experience.
