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Originally Posted by Perfectlap
He's not talking about the employees/employer relationship. He's talking about the employer/tax payer connection.
Obviously the employee is free to walk out anytime he chooses, that's how the free market works. The problem for tax payers is that the unemployment rate after economic crisis has reset to a new reality (but this was actually here for well over a decade, the credit bubble of 2002-2007 just temporarily eased falling unemployment and wage growth). This new reality means that workers at the very bottom of the education and skills totem pole are plentiful. This is helpful for small business owners struggling to recover from the collapse. However Low-wage corporate employers are frankly taking advantage of this situation. They know full well that an above-average number of their full time workers will not be able to live on what they pay them unless they turn to the tax payers for assistance. In the event that you were to cut the food stamps and other forms of assistance, the pool of low income workers does not decrease (contrary to the argument that they will all quit for higher paying jobs at Goldman Sachs the next day). The bulk of them do not have the means to pay for educational training for higher paying jobs, and if they had the skills component to move up the ladder they wouldn't be in that job in the first place. It's a vicious cycle at the very bottom and large corporate employers know these low income workers aren't going anywhere. In general, the U.S. worker is becoming less and and less relevant to these corporations (look at ther stock prices -- all time highs) more and more of their revenue and earnings come from offshore operations. The irony is that even an increase of a few dollars an hour (say an extra $70-80 a week for that household) would greatly reduce the need for the state and federal govt's assistance, and do little as far as raising prices for these large corporations, they can easily absorb marginal wage increases without losing very much in earnings.
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What's missing here is that businesses don't have the operating margins to pay more. They will be undersold, and go bankrupt. If a business does not turn a profit, it ceases to exist. If the owners don't get the required return on investment and risk, they go elsewhere or perish. Stock prices are no indicator of business health, I cite the tech bubble, Long and short, if Walmart employees or any employees want to make a point, leave. If you can not do that, stay. I have personally done that on more than one occasion. Vote with your feet. If every "low pay" Walmart employee walked out today, Walmart would cease to exist tomorrow.