Taking a page from BushCo, Wal-Mart has decided to engage in a public relations campaign that basically says
"Hey, we're not that bad!"
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, took out full-page advertisements in more than 100 U.S. newspapers including the New York Times and USA Today to counter criticism it pays workers less than competitors.
``It's time for us to be more aggressive in telling the good story we have to tell,'' Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott said in an interview today.
Too bad the facts aren't in their favor...
I have to give credit to the Bloomberg author. Wal-Mart's allegation that it is a good employer are countered (quite fairly I believe):
Families of Wal-Mart workers in California use 40 percent more in taxpayer-funded health care and 38 percent more in other public assistance programs than the average for families of all large retail employees, according to a 2004 study by the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
The report also said Wal-Mart employees in California earn about 31 percent less than those who work at large retailers. Wal- Mart workers in the state receive about $9.70 an hour compared with $14.01 at retail firms with 1,000 or more employees, the report said.
Wal-Mart today said it pays its California employees an average hourly wage of $10.15. About 90 percent of Wal-Mart's employees have some form of health insurance, and half of those use Wal-Mart's health plan, the company said. The company also said in August the center never verified its information with Wal- Mart.
``I'm rather skeptical of the facts they're putting out,'' said Elizabeth Drea, a spokeswoman for UFCW Local 881 in Chicago. The company gave a wide range of average salaries for the Chicago area over the past year that differ from the $10.69 hourly wage listed in today's announcement, she said. ``They're trying to do a glossy PR campaign to gloss over the reality.''
So, even Wal-Mart admits that it pays its employees less than the national average and that only 45% of its employees have access to health care. I would like to know how many of those employess are front line workers and not headquarters/management type personnel.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has this to say about Wal-Mart's treatment of its employees:
Nationwide, Wal-Mart is facing 13 NLRB complaints since Labor Day. One cites two vice presidents and a company spokeswoman for illegally getting rid of meat department workers in Jacksonville, Tex., who were the first-ever Wal-Mat workers to vote for a union and a voice on the job in February 2000. Other complaints include telling workers they'd lose money from their bonus in Mountain Home, Idaho and engaging in surveillance of workers' union activities in New Castle, Pa. The violations demonstrate Bentonville's systematic attempt to deny workers their federal right to a voice on the job through union representation.
Wal-Mart is fully aware that the NLRB demands "laboratory" conditions to conduct a union election, and employs a flying squadron of union busters to contaminate that laboratory whenever and wherever workers express support for union representation.
On a personal note, my own boycott of Wal-Mart is entering its third successful month. I have fewer $9.99 CD players laying around, but feel better because of it. I apologize to retail workers everywhere for not engaging sooner.