As the movie "WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price" is debated and promoted on every media news source, I wanted to respond from my OWN experience with the retail giant. I was an employee there for 9 months, not long enough to be a career employee, but long enough to gain some insight into the corporation, which is a far cry more than what most WalMart critics possess.

What I saw at WalMart was a business with a plan, a purpose, and a well thought out approach to what they do.  One of the first things you will note after you are hired at WalMart is that they will show you a video that strongly discourages unionizing. This would seem to be outrageous to union advocates, but I suggest a closer look.

Unions were meant to provide bargaining power for SKILLED labor. They are the modern equivalent of the guilds, and meant to ensure that your labor isn't undervalued. The vast majority of WalMart workers are unskilled, and many of their skilled labor learned their trade FROM WalMart.

Unions drive UP the cost of the product to the end user, and are one of the primary catalysts for loss of American jobs. Don't believe me? Ask any GM worker.

As to the assertion that WalMart managers teach their employees how to apply for welfare and medical benefits from the state, I have to say that, while that may be the case with individual managers, it is NOT universally true.

WalMart DOES offer medical benefits to all full time and a fair number of part time employees who've been employed long enough to be eligible. Although the premiums are high, they are FAR below the cost of what you would pay for your own insurance out of pocket. Frankly, I think this is one point where WalMart could improve, but not for the reasons most critics suggest. WalMart should use the same principles it uses in purchasing goods to "bid out" the lowest possible health insurance premiums from prospective insurers. They could further increase their purchasing power by using the same company to offer small business insurance for the small businesses that use Sam's Club as their primary supplier.

WalMart's management policy offers incentive for the managers to use POSITIVE reinforcement techniques to encourage better productivity from their employers. When management jobs are open, employees are notified and given the opportunity to apply for the positions on the same computers that are used for their training (their CBL -- Computer Based Learning -- training system, by the way, is a very good system).

Employees also have an opportunity to increase their earning potential through a generous stock match program offered to ALL employees. They can have the purchase of stock deducted from their paychecks, and the company matches a portion (if I remember right, it was 15%). There are also profit sharing opportunities and a 401k program.

WalMart offers a Cost of Living Raise to their employees (from 3-5% based on their performance) every year, and offers merit based increases at the discretion of management. Very few quality employees remain at the pay level at which they were hired.

Critics will point to businesses that downsize and close doors because WalMart comes to town, but will fail to point out that most of those businesses downsized BEFORE WalMart opened their doors, in ANTICIPATION of WalMart stealing their business. It's my personal belief (and experience) that the resulting poor customer service makes the decline of their business a self fulfilling prophecy (in our community, one store replace all but one register with self checkout lanes. It's virtually impossible to get a real life cashier. I don't shop there for THAT reason alone, as I personally rarely shop at WalMart for groceries...but I digress).

Critics further argue that WalMart receives huge tax benefits for locating within a community. While that may appear to be a legitimate contention at the surface, the bulk of the blame lies on the communities that PAY the tax benefits, rather than WalMart. Their method of reducing costs is just common sense, from a stockholder's perspective.

As for WalMart buying goods from overseas, this is to me perhaps one of the most ridiculous complaints because it comes from liberals who insist that we need to industrialize third world nations. We obviously cannot industrialize third world nations unless we buy their products.

What I found in my time at WalMart was a corporation with a solid business model and a plan for growth that could well be used as an instructive for other businesses. While I am less than pleased with the end results of WalMart's growth within communities, I'm less inclined to put the blame on WalMart and FAR more inclined to blame the local stores that have failed to adapt to the times and that have neglected the customer service and philosophies that drive good businesses.

When I spend my dollars, very few go to WalMart. The quality of WalMart's goods is usually inferior to that which I can find at specialty stores, and the customer service that often accompanies specialty store purchases is frankly acking at the retail giant. But when my primary purchasing consideration is savings, if WalMart has what I need, I have zero problem buying there.

WalMart is not a perfect company. But, for that matter, perfection is an impossibility, even among businesses with a FRACTION of the employees that WalMart hires. But WalMart has done more to reduce prices for the working poor than just about any other corporation worldwide.