Wal-Mart still doesn't get it

From today's Wall Street Journal (reg. required):

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., under pressure to boost productivity at its Sam's Club wholesale unit, is cutting a small number of store-management jobs at the operation as part of a rare nationwide job cut.

The world's largest retailer by revenue plans to consolidate about 3,000 salaried-manager positions at some 580 U.S. Sam's Club stores, according to people briefed on the situation. It isn't clear how many people will lose their jobs. The unit has more than 100,000 employees world-wide.

According to the Consumerist, they're cutting the department-level managers -- basically, the people in charge of the, say, the bakery or the photo department. But this isn't a cost-cutting move. Oh no siree. It's an effort to improve customer service.

Wal-mart: Penny-wise and pound-foolish

A Forbes article explains why short-changing workers actually increases costs for employers. I'm not convinced Wal-Mart's poor stock performance is solely a matter of labor costs; once a company hits a certain size, the law of large numbers begins to take its toll and dampens the growth shareholders demand. But it is nice to see that sometimes, it pays to do the right thing.

In almost all industries, productive, higher-paid workers can more than cover the costs of their salaries and benefits, if they are managed appropriately. For example, Costco Wholesale (nasdaq: COST - news - people ) pays its workers $17 an hour on average, while its competitor, Wal-Mart's Sam's Club, pays only $10 an hour on average; 85% of Costco employees enjoy company-provided health insurance, compared with less than half of the workers at Sam's Club. Significantly, these high wages and benefits do not come out of the pockets of Costco's shareholders. In fact, Costco has outperformed Wal-Mart on the stock market over the last five years. The real reason for the difference in compensation and benefits is that Costco employees have much lower turnover, better interaction with customers and are more productive than Wal-Mart's workers.

Source: Forbes.com

Confused again

Bush on Congress' recently passed troop funding bill:

“Instead of fashioning a bill I could sign, the Democratic leaders chose to further delay funding our troops, and they chose to make a political statement,” Mr. Bush said Tuesday morning before leaving for New York. “That’s their right. But it is wrong for our troops and it’s wrong for our country.”

Someone should probably tell our decider-in-chief that making political statements is precisely what politicians are supposed to do. And in a democracy, it's not the job of Congress to pass only the bills the president agrees with. You know, separation of powers and all that civics 101 nonsense.

Someone also should clue him in on that pesky federal law known as the War Powers Act.

Source: New York Times