The Great Divide

Our book study this week is discussing Barbara Ehrenreich's experience of working for Wal Mart in her non-fiction expose of the working poor. I have thought for several hours about what I wanted to share in the group in that our discussion first is to elicit each person's personal response to the literary selection of the week. My experience has been enriched somewhat because I have been exposed to both sides of the great divide in America; I am a representative of both the privileged and the poor.

As a faculty member for twenty-two years at John Brown University, I have been privileged to attend women's leadership conferences at Greystone Estates in Rogers, Arkansas--just a few miles from the Wal Mart company headquarters. The house is currently owned by the Don Soderquist family. Don was chairman of the Board of Trustees at John Brown for many years and retired several years ago as CEO of the company. The sumptuous house and executive conference center sits on Beaver Lake surrounded by many tree-covered acres. Inside, one finds a number of bedrooms accompanied by luxurious bathrooms. The meeting area often occurs in a gigantic cathedral ceiling living room with a stone fireplace and a view of the swimming pool. The house, built in the 70's, even boasts a bomb shelter with an escape route in a national or personal emergency of some type. I have eaten several catered gourmet meals there and even (here I show my lower class background) slipped into my purse upon departure a single bar of the unopened goat milk spa soap from the bathroom.

My other experience with the company, other than as a rare consumer of its products, comes from our daughter's two temporary jobs there. It was 1992 when Garlan and I drove out to Los Angeles to move our daughter home to Arkansas. She had been a graduate student at the University of Southern California majoring in film and literature. She was simply burned out after reaching the "all but dissertation" stage of her Ph.D. She wanted time to evaluate her life and her direction. When she arrived home, she interviewed for several jobs only to be told she was way over-qualified for the positions and likely would not stay long if hired. As a result of being unable to find professional work, she turned to a temporary job agency. One of her first jobs was to work at the Wal Mart headquarters retrieving computer disks for those who needed them at any given time. Since the area she worked in was like a warehouse, the workers were provided skates to increase their productivity as they dashed madly around to locate the desired disks. Her second job was with Sam's Club where she spent hours doing telemarketing for the auto club part of the company. I don't remember her salary since the job agency received the largest majority of it, but I am sure she made the required minimum wage.

Having lived in Northwest Arkansas for the past thirty-four years, I believe most people there have a love-hate relationship with the company. On the one hand, we feel tremendous pride that one of our own in one of the poorest states in the union, Sam Walton, was able to "make it big" as we say in the South. On the other hand, practically everyone has his or her own personal story to share about relatives or others being on welfare because of the thirty hour workweek (just below the legal requirement to provide company benefits like health coverage, 401 K's, and so on). We also worry about the mom and pop stores in the almost empty small downtowns because of their inability to compete with price and product.

What is the answer to the great economic divide in our country, not just Wal Mart employees, of course, but countless others throughout our country? Will we continue, as the privileged middle class, to enjoy the fruit of our labor for just ourselves and our families while we continue to ignore the inability of the working poor to provide for their families?