VirtualLarry
No Lifer
- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,548
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Of course, what they don't say, is that it is highly likely that the low wages paid by Wal-Mart in any one area, tend to depress the overall average working wage in the same area. Thus completing the vicious cycle.Originally posted by: Sasha
What? WM markets directly to the lowest income household. The poor people are attempting, maybe--just maybe--to make their dollar go farther.Originally posted by: crystal
The amount of people choose to use their services tell me they are not evil. To those people, these companies are doing a good thing.
You know, I just realized what Wal-Mart really is, and what it is about. It's about re-creating the old ideas of the "company store", alongside those ideas of violently putting down and preventing the formation of labor unions. Only in this case, instead of the people being forced to live at the company store, the company store comes to them, their own neighborhoods that they've already lived in, and effectively sets up this cycle for the working-class folks that live there, that lock them into Wal-Mart's self-propagating economic cycle.
Some interesting recent info here, here, and here
I especially liked this bit from the first link:
I almost blew a gasket when I read this paragraph. Can you imagine the CEO of Wal-Mart, of all companies in the United States, claiming they are trying to create a decent society? This is the same firm that pays substandard wages, that tells its workers to ask for state-funded health care, that has an office in China designed to facilitate the export of American jobs overseas, that is the object of the largest class action suit in American history because of its culture of discrimination against women, that just got cited for child labor violations in three states; and its CEO is talking about creating a decent society?
Googling for "Wal Mart state health care" brings us to this link
Critics say Wal-Mart's miserly approach to employee health care is forcing many of its workers and their families into state insurance programs or making them rely on charity care by hospitals; survey by Georgia officials finds more than 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees are in state's health program for children at annual cost of nearly $10 million to taxpayers; efforts are under way in California, Washington State and elsewhere to adopt measures that would force big employers like Wal-Mart to either provide affordable health insurance to workers or pay into state insurance pool; Wal-Mart claims it offers health coverage to 58 percen of employees who are eligible; this compares with insured rate of 96 percent of eligible employees of Costco Wholesale, Wal-Mart's closest competitor nationwide; critics say many Wal-Mart workers are unable to meet eligibility requirements or cannot afford monthly premiums as high as $264 a month for family of $8-per-hour cashier; Wal-Mart benefits executive Susan Chambers says larger issue of whether companies can and should absorb soaring cost of health care is national issue;
That's truely, truely sad. Not only is Wal-Mart cutting into the economic health of their laborers, but the physical well-being and health as well, by shirking the responsibility of health-care in order to "cut costs". Wal-Mart is injuring Americans, here, in order to send more $$$ over to China. That's pretty despicable.
