Trying to Create A Gentler Giant
By NANCY GIBBS
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| LEE BLANKENSHIP EMMERT FOR TIME |
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This was the
year the empire struck back. It's no easy task putting a human face on the
world's biggest company and its 1.4 million employees, but that was the goal
when Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, 56, set off on a charm offensive to make the case
that the discount giant is a force for good. Tired of being nibbled to death by
guppies, as he put it, Scott took out ads in 100 newspapers and made his case.
For everyone poised to blame him for outsourcing, wage depression, traffic jams
and the ruin of small-town America, he has an argument that takes credit for
gains in U.S. productivity and living standards and low inflation—not least
because people can live better if they are spending less for sneakers and T
shirts and Cocoa Puffs. In the face of charges of sex discrimination and unfair
labor practices, Scott argued that his full-time "associates" earn well over
the minimum wage (though typically not enough to lift a family of four above
the poverty line) and have 401(k)s and that even part-timers get health
benefits (though they are not eligible until they work for two years).
It has not been a perfect year: Scott tried—and for the time being has
failed—to infiltrate big cities, attempting to build stores near Los Angeles
and Washington. But Wal-Mart has more than 5,200 outlets, with $285 billion in
sales last year. That means Scott's decisions touch more and more of what we
see, hear, wear and eat, as well as what we pay for all of it.
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FROM THE ARCHIVE
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