Wal-Mart’s practices are no bargain

Re “A healthy memo,” editorial, Nov. 5

People don’t “despise the world’s largest retailer merely because it is successful.” Critics of Wal-Mart are appalled by the business tactics that cause it to be the largest retailer in the world. These include squeezing Third World suppliers for lower prices each year, paying low wages and running locally operated competition out of business.

You celebrate Wal-Mart’s new health insurance plan without noting that the new health plan only happened because of widespread publicity about poor coverage of employees.

The editorial says that almost half of Wal-Mart employees are enrolled in a health insurance plan, compared to 36% of employees in the retail industry as a whole, without noting that the vast majority of retail operations are small or moderately sized businesses. Wal-Mart’s employee benefits have to be compared to comparably sized businesses to evaluate how much it “cares” about its employees.

CAROL J. SMITH

Cerritos

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I was more than a little shocked to read The Times tacitly condoning Wal-Mart’s slave-labor practices because its prices might benefit low-income people and create jobs for Americans who might not otherwise have jobs. There is no moral justification for buying a product sold at the expense of human beings working under abusive conditions, as in Wal-Mart’s infamous foreign sweatshops, no matter how much of a bargain it might be.

STEVEN LYLE

Montrose