In coldfusion04's excellent diary,
Managers and Shelf Stockers, I was challenged to put together a diary based on some rather intemperate comments I made. At the time, although I thought the diary very good, I was irritated with a couple of things about it.
1) coldfusion04 talked about not really caring about the issue until a foreign company screwed over Americans. It smacked of protectionist Republican 'other-fear' to me.
2) Yes, a $30 million payout for Fiat was pretty disgusting. But it was a lot less disgusting for me than the Wal-Mart payout which he incorporated in an update. (For that, I thank him.) I was told in my response to 'fight one battle at a time', and to me, the battle is best fought with the biggest offender. That's Wal-Mart.
So let's dig into the math below the fold and show the average American how Wal-Mart (and companies like them) trade American prosperity for cash.
I'd like to direct your attention to People's Exhibit One, the
Walmart Proxy Statement. On page 18, you'll find this bit of text.
There were 4,288,758,013 Shares issued and outstanding on March 31, 2004.
That's a lot of shares.
At any rate, there are 5 investors that control more than 5% of the stock, and have to be listed as such. All are members of the Walton family. Between them, the 5 control a staggering 1,728,600,797 shares by my count. That's just over 40% of the company.
On March 4, Wal-Mart issued a news release about their dividends.
BENTONVILLE, Ark., March 2 PRNewswire-FirstCall -- The Board of Directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has approved an increase in the annual dividend to $0.52 per share, a 44% increase from the $0.36 per share paid during the previous fiscal year. The Board also declared a quarterly cash dividend on the common stock of thirteen cents ($0.13) per share. Below are the record dates and payable dates for fiscal year ending January 31, 2005.
At 52 cents a share, the Walton family just cleared a cool $898,872,414. Call it $900 million.
This is a company that calls a 28 hour workweek 'full time employment'.
This is a company whose health program is only used by about half of it's employees, simply because it's a substandard, overly expensive plan.
This is a company that resists unionization on the grounds that it would hurt their competitiveness. At the same time, they typically pay less than unionized grocery stores.
The actions of this company, as directed by it's stockholders, are detrimental to the strength of the American economy and the prosperity of the American worker. And they sold it away for $900 million.
Now, of course, virtually every company pays a dividend. Not all of them are as institutionally owned as coldfusion's Fiat-purchased company and Wal-Mart. Many of them are also responsible citizens of the community. However, we must put the spotlight on these bad apples.
Companies should not be extorting tax incentives, property grants, cash bonuses, and the like out of American communities while at the same time giving the owners big payoffs for doing it. Companies should not be cashiering American workers or outsourcing their jobs and taking the savings to put directly into their pockets. Companies should not be cutting benefits for their employees under the theme of a 'global economy' while lining their pockets.
Tell the people you know: The Waltons sold out their workers for $900 million dollars. If you uncover similar shenanigans with your local industries, use the same language - when they trade American prosperity for cash, they should be publicly condemned for it.