Tag Archives: walmart

10 most common jobs: public vs. private sector and the Republican agenda

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WHAT MIDDLE CLASS? If you’re a teapartier who claims to be worried about your children’s (and grandchildren’s) futures because of the national debt, you might want to re-examine the priorities that Fox and the Koch brothers are selling you. Would you recognize a class war if you saw one?

Here are the 10 most common jobs in the public sector (federal, state, and local):

Tables above: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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And here are the 10 most common jobs in the private sector:

Table: GovExec

Here are the mean wages earned for the most common private-sector jobs.  NOTE: The poverty level for 2012 was set at $23,050 (total yearly income):

Did you know these were the 10 most common jobs? This is what we have after America’s manufacturing / retail industry was Reaganized / Bain-Capitalized. The bottom line is that out of 10 of the most common private-sector jobs in America, three pay BELOW the poverty level, and three more pay just above the poverty level — that’s 6 out of 10 of the most common jobs that pay wages near the poverty level!

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So while the 1% wealthy-elites are busy funneling all available profits and cash into their off-shore accounts (from the ever-increasing productivity and labor of their employees and from executive bonuses, corporate welfare, loopholes, and exemptions), the rest of America is transforming into a nation of Walmart workers, waitresses, and janitors who earn poverty-level wages for full-time work.

Conversely, it’s probably safe to presume that the most common public-sector jobs listed above pay a little better than poverty-level.  So when Republicans and the wealthy want to eviscerate government (and government workers) at all levels, it’s not really about spending and the deficit or fiscal responsibility. It’s about how (and to whom) tax revenue will be distributed, and it’s about engineering our expectations for employment in the private-sector.

If you employ less government workers and take tax revenue away from the social safety net, you now have a bunch of money you can funnel over to corporations and the wealthy through loopholes, corporate welfare, and exemptions (those off-shore accounts don’t fund themselves!). In turn, corporations and wealthy individuals will continue to reward their politicians with a steady supply of hefty campaign contributions and a seat on their board after retirement.

Additionally, instead of increasing private-sector wages to be more in line with public-sector wages (which would be reasonable since costs increase and so should wages), the goal of the wealthy-elite and their career politicians is to bring government wages down to more closely match what Walmart workers and janitors earn. But remember: labor unions are The Evil. Plus if there are less government jobs, there will be more competition for shitty-paying private sector jobs. Not only do they want to pay poverty-level wages to a majority of Americans (more money for themselves), but they want people to believe it’s the only fair solution.  And that’s where Fox, Rush, and astroturfs like Tea Party Patriots come into play.

To the teapartiers: look at those tables above and think about what wages you hope your kid or your grandkid will be able to earn in the future. Doesn’t that resonate more personally for you? Shouldn’t this be as important as the non-issue of the national debt? I call the debt a non-issue because if/when a Republican is seated in the White House again, it will in fact be a Non-Issue to that political party’s agenda once more. And when that day comes that they move on – because they will move on – you’ll be earning poverty-level wages, watching Fox ‘news’ and, spittle flying, defending more tax cuts and some newly manufactured reason to go to war in some other country. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Always low prices. Always. (With a little E. Coli for good measure.)

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CDC Confirms Multistate E. coli Outbreak from Farm Rich Products | Food Safety News

Update (March 29, 5:30 PM PST): The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service has posted a distribution list of where affected products were sent. That list includes Wal Mart stores nationwide, Winn-Dixie stores in Florida, and a variety of retailers in Michigan.

At least 24 people in 15 states have fallen ill with E. coli O121 in an outbreak traced back to Farm Rich brand frozen pizzas, quesadillas, philly cheese steaks and mozzarella bites, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed, following initial reports Thursday evening. Seven people have been hospitalized in connection to the products, which were sold nationwide. One patient has developed hemolytic uremic syndrome…

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When Capitalism trumps Democracy: 

  • Sequester may lead to less safe food, FDA Commissioner says: Fewer food safety inspections and an increased risk to consumers will result from the lack of a new 2013 budget from Congress and the upcoming across-the-board spending cuts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Thursday. The cuts are scheduled to take effect Friday unless the White House and Congress can come to a budget agreement. The reduced inspections and budget cuts could delay a new food safety law which requires the agency to boost inspections and directs farms and food facilities to ensure their food is safe. The FDA has said the so-called sequestration cuts will mean 2,100 fewer food safety inspections this year, though Hamburg said in an interview with The Associated Press that the number is an estimate. She said most of the effects wouldn’t be felt for a while, and the agency won’t have to furlough workers.
  • How ALEC Has Undermined Food Safety By Pushing ‘Ag Gag’ Laws Across The Country: Two more states are considering bills that would prevent whistleblowers from exposing cruel or unsafe practices in factory farms, joining five other states with similar “ag gag” bills. [...]  it turns out the real basis for the bills has its origins in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative think tank that has been behind such legislative pushes as “stand your ground” gun laws, voter ID laws and laws mandating states teach climate change denial in schools. Several of the lawmakers who are pushing ag gag laws have agriculture industry ties and ties to ALEC — nearly one in four Iowa lawmakers who voted for Iowa’s ag gag law, for example, are members of ALEC. In 2002, ALEC introduced a piece of mock legislation titled the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which labels people who interfere with any animal operations “terrorists” and made it illegal for anyone to enter “an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or defame the facility or its owner.” ALEC began pushing the legislation in 2004, and several of the bills currently being considered borrow language from AETA — Indiana’s bill aims to keep farming operations “free from the threat of terrorism and interference from unauthorized third persons,” for instance.
  • Food Safety Modernization Act Testing Requirement Axed:  At the very beginning of 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released its proposals for the most important food safety regulations in a generation. The proposed rule on “Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls For Human Food,” lays out the procedures that food manufacturers — cookie factories, grocery warehouses, frozen foods packagers — would need to implement in order to reduce the risk that their products would harbor pathogens. The proposal grew out of the landmark Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) passed exactly two years earlier, and it aimed to prevent one million illnesses a year. One strange quirk of the proposed rule, though, is that it doesn’t require facilities to conduct microbiological testing to confirm that their food safety programs are working. It says that manufacturers can swab surfaces or test samples of finished goods for microbes if they like, but it puts them under no obligation to do so. [... The FDA] is accepting public comments on the regulations until May 15, so if you want them to require food manufacturers to test their facilities and products for pathogens, speak up soon.

Labor organization and job growth: our national McDonald’s / Walmart problem

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Robert Reich discusses how low wages are strangling the economy and why job growth, and not the deficit, needs to be the nation’s #1 priority:

Yesterday in New York, hundreds of workers at dozens of fast-food chain stores went on strike, demanding a raise to $15-an-hour from their current pay of $8 to $10 an hour (the median hourly wage for food service and prep workers in New York is $8.90 an hour)… These workers are not teenagers. Most have to support their families. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median age of fast-food workers is over 28; and women, who comprise two-thirds of the industry, are over 32. The median age of big-box retail workers is over 30.

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McDonald’s — bellwether for the fast-food industry — posted strong results during the recession by attracting cash-strapped customers, and its sales have continued to rise.

Its CEO, Jim Skinner, got $8.8 million last year. In addition to annual bonuses, McDonald’s also gives its executives a long-term bonus once every three years; Skinner received an $8.3 million long-term bonus in 2009 and is due for another this year. The value of Skinner’s other perks — including personal use of the company aircraft, physical exams and security — rose 19% to $752,000.

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Wal-Mart – the trendsetter for big-box retailers – is also doing well. And it pays its executives handsomely. The total compensation for Wal-Mart’s CEO, Michael Duke, was $18.7 million last year – putting him at number 82 on Forbes’ list.

The wealth of the Walton family – which still owns the lion’s share of Wal-Mart stock — now exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of American families combined, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

Last week, Wal-Mart announced that the next Wal-Mart dividend will be issued on December 27 instead of January 2, after the Bush tax cut for dividends expires — thereby saving the Wal-Mart family as much as $180 million. (According to the online weekly “Too Much,” this $180 million would be enough to give 72,000 Wal-Mart workers now making $8 an hour a 20-percent annual pay hike. That hike would still leave those workers under the poverty line for a family of three.)

America is becoming more unequal by the day. So wouldn’t it be sensible to encourage unionization at fast-food and big-box retailers?

Yes, but here’s the problem.

The unemployment rate among people with just a high school degree – which describes most (but not all) fast-food and big-box retail workers – is still in the stratosphere. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts it at 12.2 percent, and that’s conservative estimate. It was 7.7 percent at the start of 2008.

High unemployment makes it much harder to organize a union because workers are even more fearful than usual of losing their jobs. Eight dollars an hour is better than no dollars an hour. And employers at big-box and fast-food chains have not been reluctant to give the boot to employees associated with attempts to organize for higher wages.

Meanwhile, only half of the people who lose their jobs qualify for unemployment insurance these days. Retail workers in big-boxes and fast-food chains rarely qualify because they hadn’t been on the job long enough or were there only part-time. This makes the risk of job loss even greater.

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Washington’s obsession with deficit reduction makes it all the more likely these workers will face continuing high unemployment – even higher if the nation succumbs to deficit hysteria. That’s because cutting government spending reduces overall demand, which hits low-wage workers hardest. They and their families are the biggest casualties of austerity economics.

And if the spending cuts Washington is contemplating fall on low-wage workers whose families are under the poverty line – reducing not only the availability of unemployment insurance but also food stamps, housing assistance, infant and child nutrition, child health care and Medicaid – it will be even worse. (It’s worth recalling, in this regard, that 62 percent of the cuts in the Republican budget engineered by Paul Ryan fell on America’s poor.)

By contrast, low levels of unemployment invite wage gains and make it easier to organize unions. The last time America’s low-wage workers got a real raise (apart from the last hike in the minimum wage) was in the late 1990s, when unemployment dropped to 4 percent nationally – compelling employers to raise wages in order to recruit and retain them, and prompting a round of labor organizing.

That’s one reason why job growth must be the nation’s number one priority. Not deficit reduction.

Continue reading: Wal-Mart and McDonald’s: What’s wrong with U.S. employment

Welfare Queen Business Model: Walmart is ‘the largest recipient of public aid in the country’

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No wonder the Walton family’s personal wealth is equal to the combined wealth of 40% of American families. Walmart is the anti-American dream… it’s the American nightmare. Why would any American shop at Walmart?

“Representative-elect Alan Grayson (D-FL) said Monday that he will put mega-retailer Walmart squarely in his sights during the next Congress for the company’s liberal use of public assistance programs to supplement their workers’ wages… Grayson called Walmart “the largest recipient of public aid in the country,” saying their low wages force workers to take food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid just to get by.

“The taxpayer pays for the earned income credit,” he said. “The taxpayer pays for Medicaid. The taxpayer pays for unemployment insurance when they cut hours down. And the taxpayer pays for other forms of public assistance like food stamps. I think the taxpayer is getting fed up of paying these things when, in fact, Walmart could give every employee its got, even the CEO, a 30 percent raise and still be profitable.”

He added that while the health care mandate in the Affordable Care Act will help, “that’s just the start. In state after state after state, Walmart employees represent the largest group of Medicaid recipients, the largest group of food stamp recipients, and taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear that burden,” Grayson said. “It should be Walmart. So, we’re going to take that burden and put it where it belongs: on Walmart.”

— Continue reading…

And this is a GREAT point: 

abaldwin360: It goes even further than this, those Walmart employees who make so little that they need to be on food stamps more than likely spend their food stamps at Walmart.

In fact, Walmart and other retailers make a killing off of food stamps.

Related: 

Costco: the anti-Walmart

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You won’t find Costco employees having to rely on food stamps and other taxpayer-subsidized programs like health care and housing, subsidies which Walmart employees must use. Costco is a net positive for any community, with employees who can afford to actually add to their local economies and support growth — Costco is the antithesis of Walmart and the greedy plutocrats who own it.

“But not everyone is happy with Costco’s business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco’s customers but to its workers as well.

Costco’s average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam’s Club. And Costco’s health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco “it’s better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder.”

Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street’s assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street’s profit demands.

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco’s customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers’ expense. “This is not altruistic,” he said. “This is good business.”

He also dismisses calls to increase Costco’s product markups. Mr. Sinegal, who has been in the retailing business for more than a half-century, said that heeding Wall Street’s advice to raise some prices would bring Costco’s downfall…”

— How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart – New York Times


image: recall-all-republicans-2012

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The high price we all pay for low-wage workers

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The consumer is the true job creator — not the one-percent business owners who hoard their profits instead of fairly compensating their workers.

“The more that we can have a conversation about the employer role, it takes business, it takes government, it takes individuals to sort of create a social contract, a middle class in this country, and employers have simply walked away from that bargain,” and from accountability, said Heather McGee, vice president of policy and outreach of Demos. She claimed one Demos study found that increasing minimum wages at the biggest retailers to $25,000 year would create 130,000 new jobs by putting more money in the pockets of the “real job creators in this country, the low-wage workers who spend every dime that they get.” It would also “lift a million and a half people out of poverty or near poverty” and that if the retailers passed the entire cost of those wage increases to consumers, it would cost an additional thirty cents per shopping trip, she said. —  The real job creators are ‘low-wage workers who spend every dime that they get’

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average full-time retail worker earns between $18,000 and $21,000 per year. But if retail workers got a raise, would consumers have to pay higher prices to make up for it? A new study by the think tank Demos reports that raising the salary of all full-time workers at large retailers to $25,000 per year would lift more than 700,000 people out of poverty, at a cost of only a 1 percent price increase for customers. And, in the end, retailers would benefit. According to the study, the cost of the wage increases to major retailers would be $20.8 billion — about one percent of the sector’s $2.17 trillion in total annual sales. But the study also estimates the increased purchasing power of lower-wage workers as a result of the pay raises would generate $4 billion to $5 billion in additional retail sales. — Robert Reich

Tax-paying consumers are paying a high price now:

Walmart and Fox report only 50 employees demonstrated on Black Friday: is that true?

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Wal-Mart: Just 50 Workers Participated in Protests | Fox Business: “Despite concerns about pro-union protests hampering Black Friday sales, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) said Friday that fewer than 50 of its employees nationwide participated in the demonstrations while about 22 million customers flooded into its stores.”

Could they be lying?

Corporate Action Network: Below is a visual representation of all the events at Walmarts today organized through the Corporate Action Network (plus a couple in Alaska that wouldn’t fit on the image very well)

Historic Walmart Strikes Hit 100 Cities (Final Update: 9:20 PM) | The Nation:

2:35 pm: According to a spokesperson for Making Change at Walmart, a group tied to the United Food & Commerical Workers union, hundreds of Walmart retail workers have now gone on strike. He added that there are Black Friday strikers in at least 100 cities and protests in forty-six states. The spokesperson accused Walmart of making up numbers to minimize the strike, and said that it will take time to tally more exact figures because many strikers are walking off the job on their own in stores that haven’t seen past OUR Walmart actions. He reiterated the group’s position that the strike is legally protected, and pledged support for any workers who face illegal retaliation for participating.

2:15 pm: In an 8:42 am statement, Walmart declared it had “reported its best ever Black Friday events,” including “larger crowds than last year and a huge response to its first-ever one-hour guarantee on key electronic items.” Walmart US President Bill Simon wrote that “Only 26 protests occurred at stores last night and many of them did not include any Walmart associates,” and offered an “estimate that less than 50 associates participated in the protest nationwide. In fact, this year, roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year.” The statement also touted Walmart’s 10 percent employee discount and “an additional 10 percent discount on an entire basket of goods” for workers who showed up on Black Friday.

[...] 12:30 pm: Hanover and Severn, MD—Four hundred–some activists, union members and striking Walmart workers marched down streets and through a shopping center parking lot this morning before being met by a Walmart manager, and police, across from Hanover, Maryland’s Capital Plaza Walmart at 10 this morning. Jobs With Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta and local Reverend Edwin L. Jones Jr. asked the manager to commit not to punish the workers striking today; they say he replied that Walmart won’t retaliate, said it never does, and denied that national Vice President David Tovar’s comments that “there could be consequences” constituted a threat.

Omaha.com: At its height, authorities said, the Paramount, Calif. protest drew about 1,000 people. “A lot more people showed up than I anticipated, but that just shows you the kind of support we have,” said Wal-Mart employee Carlton Smith, who added he was one of 19 store employees taking part. “We have a common interest in making this great company better.” …The union group [OUR Walmart] estimated that “hundreds” of employees participated nationwide.

The Nation: Security at stores was excessive, even taking into consideration the sometimes chaotic scenes associated with Black Friday sales. After the morning crowd surge had come and gone, a weird mix of local police, state police and officers from the Sheriff’s department still patrolled the aisles of a Walmart in Kearny, New Jersey, occasionally communicating with store management about the presence of pesky protesters. Walmart was definitely the largest private recipient of taxpayer-funded policing today.

CBS News: Wal-Mart protests draw hundreds: Hundreds of people — including some employees — have taken part in Black Friday demonstrations at Wal-Mart stores nationwide, protesting what they say is the retailer’s retaliation against speaking out for better pay, fair schedules and affordable health care. According to organizers from the union-backed group OUR Walmart, hundreds of workers and thousands of supporters rallied across 100 cities, including Landover Hills, Md., Miami, Oakland, Calif., Chicago, Danville, Ky., Dallas and Kenosha, Wis. [...] In an effort to stop the protests, Wal-Mart filed a complaint last week with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming that the demonstrations violated labor laws. The retailer said the actions have disrupted business, and that the workers’ ongoing actions violate the National Labor Relations Act, which prohibits picketing for any period over 30 days without filing a petition to form a union…

There is one general consensus in the news, however, that is very unfortunate: 

Reuters: Walmart protests draw crowds but shoppers undeterred: Protesters demanding higher wages and better healthcare for hourly workers thronged to Walmart stores across the country, though there was no evidence they disrupted operations for the start of the crucial holiday shopping season.

Businessweek: Wal-Mart Union Protests Fail to Deter Bargain-Seekers: Jamie Walsh faced a Black Friday dilemma: take advantage of Wal-Mart’s deals at the Salem, New Hampshire, store or support union-backed protesters demanding better pay and benefits. In the end, the deals won the day.

Chicago Tribune: Walmart protests draw crowds, shoppers largely unfazed: Dozens of local workers, and hundreds nationally, took advantage of Black Friday crowds and camera crews at major retailers like Walmart to call for wage increases. But there was little evidence that the chanting disrupted holiday shoppers.

What’s more important than your fellow human beings earning a living wage? Cheap towels and Xboxes, duh!


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Let the eagle soar, ‘Merica!

Costco and Walmart: a good American employer vs. a shitty American employer

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Costco charges charges low prices, makes a ton of money & still treats its employees well.

For Costco, treating workers well has led to increased motivation, higher quality service, greater productivity and lower turnover. After the first year of employment, turnover was less than 6 percent, one of the lowest rates in the industry. The combination of good wages and the knowledge that there were opportunities for advancement was an important incentive for employees to work hard and build a career with the firm. The high quality of service provided by motivated, engaged employees at Costco, combined with the low prices, meant that customers returned and were willing to pay the membership fees. Costco’s high-quality service also attracted a clientele that shopped not only for basic goods but also luxury items, which were still more profitable, even with the low markup. As a result, Costco had higher annual sales per square foot than its most direct competitor, Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club, ($795 versus $516), and higher annual profits per employee ($13,647 versus $11,039) even though Costco’s average wage was 42 percent higher. Over 16 years, Costco grew from 206 warehouses and $16 billion in sales to 554 warehouses and $69.9 billion in sales.

via: ericmortensen

Capitalism and the rights of men and women

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“If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

The Walton family and trickle-down

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Consider where you want your hard-earned money going on Black Friday. Maybe you don’t want it going straight into the already heavy-lined pockets of the Walton children and their over-paid CEO?

[Walmart's] role as [the] marginal employer [in many US counties] often serves to drive down workers’ wages county-wide. …Concretely, between 2007 and 2010, while median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion …In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families. And in 2010, as the Walton’s wealth has risen and most other Americans’ wealth declined, it is now the case that the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.

— Inequality, exhibit A: Walmart and the wealth of American families | Economic Policy Institute

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current: Before you hit the streets on Black Friday to shop till you drop here are some key figures about Wal-Mart’s powerful position compared to its employees that might make you think twice about what retailers to support.

1.3 million – Wal-Mart employees in the United States. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world.

$15.7 billion – Wal-Mart’s 2011 profits. The company is currently number 2 on the Fortune 500.

$8.75 per hour – average starting salary for a new Wal-Mart employee. That’s turns out to be an annual salary of $15,500, which is about even with the federal poverty level for a 2-person household.

$8,653 per hour – Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke’s $18 million annual salary converted to a 40 hour-a-week hourly wage.

$13 per hour – Hourly wage the OUR Walmart group is demanding from Wal-Mart.

$4.83 million – The fine Wal-Mart agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Labor in 2012 for failing to pay overtime wages to more than 4,500 employees nationwide, .

$56,068.58 – Online donations received to sponsor striking employees on Black Friday.

12 – number of cities where Wal-Mart is currently facing strikes since October 4, 2012.

0 – number of strikes Wal-Mart has faced since 1962.

$312 billion — Wal-Mart’s revenue in 2005.

4,700 – number of children of Wal-Mart’s Alabama employees receiving Medicare assistance in 2005.

16 million – the number of US children – that’s 1 in 6 – that struggle with hunger. As Current has previously reported, roughly 20 percent of American children live in a home with parents who are unable to regularly put food on the table.

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Michelle Malkin is a shitty person, but you already knew that

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C&L: Who was today’s official Fox puppet, with all the GEORGE SOROS talking points memorized, defending the “poor, oppressed millionaires and billionaires and standing up to those evil union thugs and Occupy protesters”? None other than good old twitchy, angry Michelle “Internment Camps were a great idea!” Malkin:

According to Michelle Malkin, these strikes aren’t about protecting workers, but are about protecting entrenched big labor power. During an appearance on Your World, Malkin called the protests a “toxic combination of these left-wing activist groups funded by George Soros … along with a rag tag group of Occupiers across the country who’ve been fomenting this kind of agitation for agitation’s sake for more than a year now.”

She stressed, “People really need to understand that these big labor thugs do not have workers interests at heart.”

I didn’t count how many times the words “Soros” and “thug” were used in the video clip, but it was enough to convince me that Fox has subliminal messaging down to an exact science. The thing about both of those words in the context of Walmart and Black Friday? It’s a flat-out lie about George Soros being involved with this strike / boycott — pure Fox creative fiction.

And secondly, if there’s a group of thugs in this current situation, it’s certainly not the unions or the workers or labor. I think the more accurate term we could use here would be corporate thugs – those people who intimidate and rob their workers (and the taxpayers) to keep all the profits for themselves.

I believe Michelle Malkin would defend the money changers in the Temple against Jesus and his 12 thugs — after Fox wrote the talking points for her.

Related: 

Stand with Walmart employees on Black Friday: do not shop at Walmart

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image: nohelp

Robert Reich: Why You Shouldn’t Shop at Walmart on Friday

A half century ago America’s largest private-sector employer was General Motors, whose full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50, in today’s dollars, including health and pension benefits.

Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, whose average employee earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart’s employees work less than 28 hours per week and don’t qualify for benefits.

There are many reasons for the difference – including globalization and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services, such as retail.

But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today fewer than 7 percent do. As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizeable share of corporate profits.

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Walmart earned $16 billion last year (it just reported a 9 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter of 2012, to $3.6 billion), the lion’s share of which went instead to Walmart’s shareholders — including the family of its founder, Sam Walton, who earned on their Walmart stock more than the combined earnings of the bottom 40 percent of American workers.

Is this about to change? Despite decades of failed unionization attempts, Walmart workers are planning to strike or conduct some other form of protest outside at least 1,000 locations across the United States this Friday – so-called “Black Friday,” the biggest shopping day in America when the Christmas holiday buying season begins.

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But if retail workers got a raise, would consumers have to pay higher prices to make up for it? A new study by the think tank Demos reports that raising the salary of all full-time workers at large retailers to $25,000 per year would lift more than 700,000 people out of poverty, at a cost of only a 1 percent price increase for customers.

And, in the end, retailers would benefit. According to the study, the cost of the wage increases to major retailers would be $20.8 billion — about one percent of the sector’s $2.17 trillion in total annual sales. But the study also estimates the increased purchasing power of lower-wage workers as a result of the pay raises would generate $4 billion to $5 billion in additional retail sales.

Continue reading….


changewalmart: From ArtistsVsWalmart.Tumblr.com


via: christopherstreet

Walmart’s employees aren’t compensated with a living wage or benefits, so we — the taxpayers — pick up the tab for what their greedy owners won’t pay for: food, shelter, medical care, etc.

This situation has worked out really well for CEO Michael Duke, upper management, and the Walton children for decades — but it hasn’t worked out so great for the rest of us.

What’s wrong with America? Walmart ethics.

Hard work and ingenuity: why the Waltons wouldn’t want you to see their tax returns either

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Related: The Walton’s wealth equals the bottom 40% of Americans: how the rich amass fortunes

via: silas216