Tannishblog

As I stated earlier, Wal-Mart needs to clean up its act. The world is watching. When a company rubs its metaphorical shoulders with the international business community, and it’s still wearing its motor-oil-stained coveralls and threadbare NASCAR Cap thick with finger grease, people will start snickering. NY Times has a nice graphic for the television crowd that illustrates the fate of 1.3 million of our neighbors. They also state the following:

A new group of Wal-Mart critics ran a full-page advertisement on April 20 contending that the company’s low pay had forced tens of thousands of its workers to resort to food stamps and Medicaid, costing taxpayers billions of dollars. On April 26, as part of a campaign called “Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart,” five members of Congress joined women’s advocates and labor leaders to assail the company for not paying its female employees more.

And in a book to be published this fall, a group of scholars will argue that Wal-Mart Stores, having replaced General Motors as the nation’s largest company, has an obligation to treat its employees better.

Among workers at Wal-Mart’s 3,700 stores across the United States, the debate is also heating up…

…Labor groups and their allies are focusing on Wal-Mart because they say that the campaign will not just benefit its workers but also reduce the existing pressure on unionized competitors to reduce their own wages and benefits.

“Wal-Mart should pay people at a minimum enough to go above the U.S. poverty line,” said Andrew Grossman, executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, the coalition of community, environmental and labor groups running the series of ads criticizing Wal-Mart. “A company this big and this wealthy has the ability to pay higher wages.”

H. Lee Scott Jr., Wal-Mart’s chief executive, vigorously defends his company, arguing that wages are primarily determined by market forces and that Wal-Mart pays more than most retailers and provides better opportunities for advancement.

“If people tell you that Wal-Mart is leading the so-called ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of job quality or pay, they’re not only wrong, they’re dead wrong,” he said to journalists at a company-sponsored conference here in April, the first time Wal-Mart has gone out of its way to invite a number of reporters to its headquarters to hear its views. “We are instead creating a better workplace with more opportunity and more benefits than have been available in retail.”

Shouldn’t this guy run for office somewhere, he’s got the “vapor-speak” down pat! But, I’m confused here. Is this guy saying that he’s proud to be making $ 8.23 an hour?

Allow me to paraphrase Mr. Scott: “If people tell you that Wal-Mart is leading the so-called ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of job quality or pay, they’re not only wrong, they’re soon going to be dead wrong. The Republican congress, to whom we gave a lot of money, is leading the race to the bottom. Anyone who says different is a Socialist fag that deserves to die. We are instead creating a better workplace for the Chinese, with more opportunity for Communist integration and more benefits than have been available in Democracy”

That should clear the issue up.

And speaking of the Chinese, Walmartwatch.com has a nice ad running in USA Today: What Happened to Wal-Mart “Buy America” Program? I guess that program was more involved in buying American politicians, and not American goods. I reiterate my call to boycott Wal-mart this year when buying your Mother a token of your love. Drive past this bastion of unethical business practices - vote with your wallet and send the Mart of Wals to the Great Wall of China.