The balance of power for the employee is simple – it’s called a skill. The more skilled you are the higher your wage – right? People who work at Wal-Mart are largely unskilled. $9/hr (or whatever the wage is) is certainly fair. I have no problem with Wal-Mart’s workers organizing and asking for higher wages etc but Wal-Mart shouldn’t have to make any concessions if they don’t feel it’s in the best interest of the business. In Wal-Mart’s case their selling point is low prices, not customer service or quickly stocked shelves or good looking employees. There are tens of millions of people qualified to work at Wal-Mart in this country. Why would Wal-Mart raise wages when they could easily replace their employees?

Our government has required that employers bargain with unions – based on everything you’ve said so far it sounds like you’d agree this is anti “free market”? Now if people came to Walmart to see Dick, Jane and Harry or if those employees were somehow vital to Wal-Mart’s success you’d see Walmart bending over backwards to keep them happy – same thing you see with more skilled and highly skilled workers.

And I hope you are not suggesting that if government benefits somehow disappeared tomorrow that Wal-Mart would be forced to pay a higher wage. That is not the case, but again it would be more like the “free market” you seem to want.