Remember about 30 years ago when Ashton Kutcher was the hero of the RW media and Republicans everywhere because he gave a speech about personal responsibility?
Somehow I don’t think Mitch McConnell or Roger Ailes is gonna be fellating Ashton again anytime soon.
Ashton Kutcher heard about the Walmart in Canton Ohio holding a food drive for its own employees, and took to twitter to protest it. The following exchange ensued:
Sorry I cannot embed tweets with my stone knives and bearskins here. I can barely put in the effing link!)
Walmart is your profit margin so important you can't Pay Your Employees enough to be above the poverty line? http://t.co/...
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2013
Walmart replied to Kutcher’s tweet with the following:
.@aplusk It’s unfortunate that an act of human kindness has been taken so out of context. We're proud of our associates in Canton.
— Walmart Newsroom (@WalmartNewsroom) November 19, 2013
I LOVE his response:
@WalmartNewsroom you should be proud of your associates but I'm not sure if they should be proud of you.
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2013
@aplusk We know you believe in opportunity like we do & we'd love to talk to you more about it. http://t.co/...
— Walmart Newsroom (@WalmartNewsroom) November 19, 2013
@WalmartNewsroom you had 17 billion in profits last year. You're a 260 billion$ company. What are we missing? http://t.co/...
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2013
@WalmartNewsroom Walmart does a lot of great things but it needs to be a leader on this issue as well.
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2013
Then Walmart threw their statistics at him to try and win the day:
@aplusk We think you're missing a few things. The majority of our workforce is full-time and makes more than $25,000/year.
— Walmart Newsroom (@WalmartNewsroom) November 19, 2013
@aplusk Also about 75% of our store management teams started as hourly associates & they earn between $50,000 and $170,000 a year on avg.
— Walmart Newsroom (@WalmartNewsroom) November 19, 2013
@aplusk Lastly, every year, we promote about 160,000 people to jobs with more responsibility and higher pay.
— Walmart Newsroom (@WalmartNewsroom) November 19, 2013
@aplusk We know we can always get better as a company. This year we've made providing more opportunities for our associates a top priority.
— Walmart Newsroom (@WalmartNewsroom) November 19, 2013
I don’t know about anyone else here (though I can guess), but I am sick of those new Walmart commercials that extoll the virtues of their pay and employee promotion practices. I don’t think their wage and promotion claims have been independently verified, or if they can be verified at all, but the fact that they are running commercials (especially during the holiday season) to specifically promote their employment practices, rather than their low prices (yes, they have those commercials too), tells me they are feeling some heat, or they are projecting revenues they don’t like.