The Rural Voice, 2004-01, Page 8BARN
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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Having the bullg on hour side
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He
lives near
Blyth, ON.
There's a scene in one of my
favourite Christmas movies that
strikes me as true. not just from my
own childhood memories. but from
experience today.
The young hero of A Christmas
Story and his friends are terrorized on
their way home from school each day
by a bigger, older boy and his
shrimpy sidekick. The bully is
frightening but the sidekick is
despicable because he doesn't have
the nerve to be a bully on his own but
can do vicious things because he's
always got the big guy at his side.
While few of us would want to be
identified with that slimy sidekick,
the sad reality is many people are
cozying up to big bullies these days.
In the tough realities of the modern
economy, people want to be on the
side of the people with clout.
Take shoppers, for instance. The
biggest clout belongs to Wal-Mart
with its $245 billion in annual sales
and it is reshaping, not just our local
main streets, but the world economy.
As consumers buy into the idea that
they owe loyalty to no one but their
own pocket book, Wal-Mart is the
standard-bearer for the new reality of
modern business. Even before Wal-
Mart entered Canada, the threat of its
arrival was reshaping commerce in
the country, at least partly helping to
bury the venerable T. Eaton
company. (Back when A Christmas
Story was set in the late 1940s who
could have imagined Eaton's, the
symbol of wealth and power in
Canada, would one day be bankrupt.)
Loblaws, part of George Weston
Limited, one of the world's biggest
food companies, is busy restructuring
preparing for the entry of Wal-Mart
into the food industry.
Few shoppers think of what they
are part of when they side with Wal-
Mart. Since 2001 the U.S. has lost 2.8
million jobs, many of them to
companies that make products for
North American markets at Third
World wage costs. Wal-Mart alone
accounts for 10 per cent of U.S.
imports from China.
There's a saying in consumer
manufacturing that the second worst
thing a manufacturer can do is sign a
Wal-Mart contract, so stringent are its;
cost demands. The one thing worse is
failing to sign a contract with Wal -
Man because being on its shelves is
nearly essential for success.
To get the low prices huge
companies like Wal-Mart want.
suppliers must cut costs to the bone
and that means putting the squeeze on
their suppliers. So, for instance, if
Wal-Mart enters the food business in
a big way, expect pressure for farm-
ers to take less for their products.
Expect Loblaws also to want cheaper
prices in order to be able to compete.
If. for instance, these companies feel
the cost of milk or eggs are too high
for their liking, expect them to start
pressuring governments to abandon
supply management and allow imports
from the lowest -cost source. If you're
under contract to a packing company.
expect pressure to lower your costs.
If you're a farmer being squeezed,
don't expect much sympathy from
consumers.
"At Wal-Mart, the customer is
king, everybody else be damned:
competitprs, employers and the
domestic manufacturing base," says
U.S. business columnist Daniel
Gross. "Everything Wal-Mart does
— particularly its low prices — is
done in the name of slavish devotion
to consumer demand. And every day,
millions of Americans (and Cana-
dians) ratify Wal -Mart's strategy by
shopping there. Stores don't kill
economies, consumers do."
The problem with sucking up to
the bully, as in A Christmas Story, is
the bully doesn't really need you.
Similarly it's nice to be on the side of
the powerful whether buying cheap
Christmas presents or selling your
farm products but what happens
when the same "me -first" philosophy
is turned against you?0