The Hightower Report

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WAL-MART'S NEW LOOK

The modest, working-class persona is passé. Wal-Mart … is on the way up!

Deciding to market to a more affluent clientele, the retailing behemoth is working up a new, fancier look for its workers. Instead of wearing the somewhat-dowdy blue vests with "How May I Help You?" emblazoned on the back, the new dress code features a decidedly preppy garb of khaki pants and navy blue polo shirts.

Wal-Mart hired an upscale designer who sneers at the company's old-look smocks, calling them "the lowest guppy in the pool" of retail fashion. The new polo/khaki combo, he says, "is much more business casual" than working class, asserting that Wal-Mart's crisp, preppy look "will raise the status of 1.3 million Americans" who work there.

No doubt the employees, who are paid an average of barely $17,000 a year for full-time work, would rather see their wages raised than their "status." In fact, these low-paid workers are miffed that they are having to dig into their own pockets for the new-look khakis, which retail at Wal-Mart for about $15 each.

Let me note, though, that workers are being given one uniform choice. A big issue was whether the workers could leave the new polo shirts untucked for an even more casual feel. Yes, came the ruling from on high: "If they want to tuck it in they can," says a spokesman. "If not, they can leave it out." Ah … workplace democracy!

Meanwhile, the formerly downscale chain is also doing a merchandise makeover, stocking more expensive goods, creating a line of urban fashions, and moving so upscale that it is even advertising in Vogue magazine!

One wonders – now that Wal-Mart is selling at higher prices to higher-dollar shoppers, will it finally stop buying its goods on the cheap, from Asian sweatshops, and start paying fair wages to its workers? Nah … the bosses want a new look – not a new ethic.

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GOOD NEIGHBORS, BAD FENCE

By gollies, our Congress critters have finally done something about illegal immigration! Just in time for November's congressional elections, the Republican leaders passed a bill to erect a 700-mile wall along the Mexico border, which President Bush subsequently signed into law. That'll slam the door on the problem, won't it?

No. First of all, the border is 2,000 miles long, not 700. Does it not occur to our stalwart leaders that the "coyotes" (the border-crossing guides who hire out to escort Mexicans across the border) will merely move into the gaps?

Second, while our lawmakers loudly crowed about passing their bill, they provided no money to build the wall. Not a dime! Nor did they deal with such touchy problems as having to condemn private property for the fence and coping with rough terrain that's not suitable for sustaining such a massive structure. Also, they didn't actually mandate that the thing be built, instead delegating that decision to the homeland security czar.

Third, and most significant, a fence does nothing about the root causes of immigration. "It's a waste of money," says a South Texas rancher with long experience seeing people cross the border. "They'll either go through it, over it, or under it," he says flatly. That's because the combo of staggering poverty and innovative human spirit will propel people to seek a better life. Until that poverty is addressed, no fence and no amount of congressional hot air will make a difference in the desperate flow of immigration.

Indeed, all along the border area, the very idea of the fence is so despised by Anglos and Mexicans alike that it's angrily referred to as the Berlin Wall, designed to keep Mexicans in and divide friends, family, neighbors, and trading partners from one another. Meanwhile, local folks are doubly riled by the bitter irony that, if the fence is ever built, the job will probably go to Halliburton and be constructed by illegal Mexican labor.