Taking Your Skills Into the Marketplace

Re “At What Cost Bargains?” editorial, Nov. 26: There is no reason to show concern over Wal-Mart’s practice of paying workers fairly low wages. If Wal-Mart’s workers truly deplore their wages, they will find ample economic incentives to find work elsewhere. Supermarket grocery workers, on the other hand, have not had any economic incentive to change jobs or improve their marketable skills for years. For years their unionized salaries and lavish benefits have made them immune to market incentives that would have encouraged them to find higher-paying work elsewhere. As a result, they don’t have many marketable skills.

But soon there will be a pricing war for consumers -- between Wal-Mart and the supermarket grocery stores, and the unions are crying foul. What is my answer? Join the economic marketplace: If you have many skills, ample education and an entrepreneurial drive, then you can maintain higher wages and benefits. If not, then you’ll be stuck at $9 an hour, and I’m not going to empathize.

Michael Gordon

Los Angeles