Hahahahahaha.
Finally, they may be getting their just deserts.
Short post, packing for a long trip to Africa, bought some things in preparation and proud to say did NOT shop at Walmart for them.
DailyBeast
Why Are Walmart Stores Underperforming? Blame Their Terrible Wages
by Daniel Gross Aug 15, 2013 9:36 AM EDT
Walmart’s same-store sales are falling as the surrounding retail market surges. What’s the problem? By screwing its workers with low wages, the nation’s largest private-sector employer is preventing a huge chunk of the American workforce from shopping at its stores.
The largest private sector employer are dicks. Bad actors. Why shop there? The word is getting out!
The biggest problem in the economy is the refusal of companies, now in the fifth year of this expansion, to boost wages broadly. The rich are continuing to do well. But the typical worker just isn’t getting a meaningful wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average hourly earnings for workers in the private sector have risen by a scant 1.9 percent in the past 12 months. Quarter after quarter, corporate America collectively puts up big profits, buys back shares, rewards executives handsomely, pays dividends—and then effectively freezes wages. And then executives at stores that cater to the bottom half of the income ladder wonder why nobody shows up. “Where are all the consumers?” read a plaintive e-mail from a Walmart executive earlier this year. “And where is all their money?”
Too many CEOs labor under the delusion that the salaries and hourly wages they pay are adequate and sufficient to sustain growing consumption. In too many instances, they’re not. We’ve discussed this before. Walmart is the largest private-sector employer in the U.S. It accounts for about 10 percent of employment in the retail sector. It claims to pay average hourly wages of $12.78 in the U.S. Critics say those numbers, which are low ($12 an hour annualized for 52 weeks is less than $25,000), are inflated because they take into account higher salary managers. Check out Glassdoor.com’s numbers on the pay at Walmart. Plenty of Walmart’s rank-and-file associates earn less than $10 an hour.
Sorry, Walmart. You
Really sad that our Congress and Dem Administration has pandered so very much to Corporate America, while, save the too small stimulus, have virtually left workers out to dry.
We need to change that.
When not traveling we live in Santa Fe, NM where workers at the two Walmarts make a decent wage because of the Living Wageordinance.
Hope you will work for one in your area!
And it goes without saying we can vote with our feet for our shopping.
Join with organized labor groups in vetting and electing better candidates
However, thus far, I have been a failure convincing friends and relatives to not shop a Walmart, but seems more and more people are doing more ethical shopping.
If you have some successful strategies in this area would love to hear them.
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Update:
Wonder how many here agree with what Robert Reich posted on his Facebook page today ?
In response to my post a few days ago, asking you whether you worried about the loss of Main Streets and bookstores, the decline of good jobs with good wages, and sweatshop labor -- and whether you nonetheless bought stuff through Walmart or Amazon, sought discount flights, and got the lowest-priced deals you could find regardless of where the goods came from or how they were made:
Some of you said you had no choice but to shop for the lowest price because you had to stretch your dollars. You just didn't make enough money to be "socially responsible." That's understandable. Workers are consumers, and people trapped in low-wage jobs can't be expected to promote, through their purchases, an economy offering higher living standards than they themselves experience. And that's precisely the problem. More and more Americans are falling into that same trap, competing over a smaller and smaller share a total economy whose largest shares are going to an ever-smaller number.
Which is why consumers can't possibly do this alone. And why we need a political movement to reverse these trends -- including, at the least, these ten essential steps: (1) a living wage and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, (2) an exemption on the first $15K of income from Social Security taxes and elimination of the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, (3) a new WPA and CCC, and major infrastructure investments, to put the long-term unemployed back to work, (4) early childhood education for all, high-quality K-12 for all, and access to affordable higher education, (5) a single-payer healthcare system, (6) an easy way to form unions through simple up-or-down votes at the workplace, (7) a higher marginal income tax on top earners, more tax brackets at the top, a wealth tax, and a tax on financial transactions; (8) a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a cap on the size of the biggest Wall Street banks, (9) a ban on gerrymandered districts, voter-suppression laws, and other means of blocking the majority's will, and (10) reversal of "Citizen's United" (by constitutional amendment if necessary), strict campaign-finance limits, public financing of elections, a resurrected "fairness doctrine" for the media, and stricter limits on the "revolving door" between government and industry or Wall Street.
We can do all of this. Just look at what the Progressives accomplished between 1901 and 1916, or the New Dealers between 1933 and 1941, or the proponents of the Great Society in the 1960s. (If you don't think reforms like this are possible, you're part of the problem.)
Update #2
Please consider signing this?
http://act.aflcio.org/...
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