On July 26, 2013, Nathaniel Downes writes on AddictingInfo.org:
Walmart, its very name brings with it an image of a soulless corporation, a company which abuses its employees down so much that they will rip the company to shreds on their own internal website when asked. A company reliant on government assistance to keep its employees able to even eat. It is a recipe for disaster. And those who follow the teachings of Milton Friedman and other objectivist economists would try and explain that this is absolutely required for a successful company. But don’t tell that to Publix, which now sits as the most profitable grocer in the United States, holding a remarkable 52.8% of the grocery market in highly competitive Florida, against Walmart’s 14.5%.
How does Publix do it? Are they even more soul crushing, seeking to demoralize employees to the point that they are wage slaves, like McDonald’s does? The opposite, Publix is an employee owned corporation. You read that right, employee owned. The company does well, then the employees do well. This gives your average employee of Publix a stake in improving the companies bottom line, thanks to regular dividends. They do this by retaining customers, through excellent customer service. Even Forbes magazine has come to recognize that the Publix business model is a “Walmart Slayer.” And to add to the fears of the Beast of Bentonville, Publix is expanding into new markets, just as other companies are copying the Publix model.
Publix, through its focus on its staff and customer service, is able to beat Walmart’s shareholder returns, with a compound growth of 18% per year, as opposed to Walmart’s 10.5%. Of course, Walmart is a publicly traded company, while Publix is owned by its employees, so if someone wishes to invest in Publix, they would first need to begin working for Publix, and their rate of ownership is based on their wages. This encourages the hardest workers, those who dedicate themselves to the company, giving them a real stake in the company as they labor.
The tragedy for Walmart is that the very model which Publix is an excellent example of, was once touted by Sam Walton himself. He firmly believed that workers who were invested in the company became more motivated, and motivated employees brought in happy customers. Sam Walton would be spinning in his grave if he were to read what the employees of his company thought of it today.
One may think that Walmart may operate a higher profit margin, but then they would be wrong. Forbes covers how Publix has a net profit margin of 5.6%, far higher than Walmart’s 3.8%. Other companies engage in an employee-first approach, such as Trader Joes and Costco, but Publix does this with an employee-owned focus, giving them a leg up over the competition.
Walmart may have met its match, and its name is Publix.
Publix is a company EVERY American should support!!
Publix only operates in Florida and some southeastern states.
Unfortunately we have 20 million who have lost jobs and are now in poverty (and many millions not being accounted for). So how many Corporations are making a profit in all of this at our expense? –– Robert Bell Nice
Sadly, in the U.S., they don’t give the bulk of their workers benefits, and pay below the poverty level, so as part of the employee sign on process, they help them apply for food stamps and medicaid. I would prefer a bit higher prices at Wallmart, and a realistic minimum wage that truly reflected costs, and not have Wal-mart fobbing off the cost of benefits on the tax payer. –– William Tetzlaff
This is an expression of the trap that one-factor labor worker thinking puts those in who do not acknowledge that the productive power of the United States will continue to exponentially diminished human labor. Over the past century there has been an ever-accelerating shift to productive capital––which reflects tectonic shifts in the technologies of production. Wal-mart has not yet fully transitioned because it relies on “slave labor” in China and on “serf labor” in the United States to minimize the costs of producing and delivering products and services.
While there is a call for increasing the minimum wage in the United States, the REAL call should be to broaden private, individual ownership in companies as they expand, empowering their employees to acquire ownership stakes in the company’s future and pay for their acquisition out of the profit dividend earnings that result. This can be accomplished through the financial mechanism known as the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) trust (see http://foreconomicjustice.com/11/economic-justice/ and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/creditvehicles/cha-esop.htm.
When the employees are owners, dependent on their income from the company’s bottom line rather than through ordinary labor wages and benefits, the workers’ economic interests are more invested to see that their company succeeds. In this way, each person in the company is empowered as a labor worker and as a capital worker (owner) and inspired to work together as a team to make better operational decisions to serve and maximize value to their customers.
The working man’s or woman’s creed should be Ownership NOW!
See http://www.cesj.org/homestead/creditvehicles/cha-esop.htm for how an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) works.
