Target Ups The Ante While Macy’s Blows
February 11th, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Capitalism, CorporationsWhile Macy’s sucks wind, Target is raising the stakes in the retail game. The stores don’t compete directly, and these days Macy’s doesn’t appear to compete at all, but the times they are a changin’. Within hours of each other, Macy’s announced it was cutting 2,300 jobs while Target broadcast that it would be building better, bigger and greener stores. I’m not a fan of super-sized big box retail but if it smacks around Wal-Mart, then all that asphalt might be worth paving.
Macy’s merged with my hometown May Co. a while back making all kinds of promises. None of these have held true and I can’t imagine anyone is surprised. In its announcement last week, Macy’s said that 950 jobs in Minneapolis-St. Paul (Target’s headquarters), 850 jobs in St. Louis (May Co.’s former headquarters), and 750 jobs in Seattle would be cut and consolidated into other cities (New York, Atlanta and San Francisco, respectively). Insiders in the Lou believe the cuts will be significantly higher than what was publicized. Again, hopefully there’s no surprise. In St. Louis, American Airlines did it to TWA, Wachovia did it to AG Edwards and now Macy’s is doing it to May Co. Anyone notice a pattern? Some people think this is one of the first dominos in the death of the department store. I say, good riddance. The job losses are going to hurt many families, and hopefully they’ll find good jobs at better companies.
Now, if we could only get the Targets and Whole Foods of the world to anchor better-designed shopping centers all (in retail) would be good. Make them close to public transit, walkable, handicap accessible and limit or charge for parking, which should be built underground or above the stores. Target’s announcement already mentioned construction of greener stores. The company plans to LEED-certify its new design and replicate it throughout the country.
When Macy’s first announced its job cuts in St. Louis, quite a few people left town to work for Target in Minneapolis. I hated to see the exodus but I’m glad they found employment at a company that gives a shit. In the latest round of cuts, apparently severance is being calculated as one week of pay for every year of tenure. Funny thing happened with the merger though. Every May Co. employee’s tenure clock was reset, meaning most folks are getting only a couple weeks of severance even though they haven’t switched jobs in over a decade. Macy’s should at least customize their severance checks to say “Fuck you [name of employee]“. No?
Capitalism has dehumanized us enough. It’s time to humanize capitalism.
One Response to “Target Ups The Ante While Macy’s Blows”
By Amy on Mar 28, 2008
Eight years ago, I signed up with Target to give a % of my purchases to my son’s middle school. They have signs up by cash registers giving the dollar amounts to date given to local schools. Sure is an incentive to get my return-buying bucks.