We
recently learned that low pay among workers at Walmart was so problematic that "associates" at one Canton, Ohio, store were organizing a Thanksgiving food drive for the benefit of
their own co-workers.
Walmart's pushing back, of course:
Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, said the food drive is proof that employees care about each other.
"It is for associates who have had some hardships come up," he said. "Maybe their spouse lost a job.
"This is part of the company's culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships," he said.
Well.
I will say this: I can sympathize with the interpretation of this drive that posits that the "associates" care about each other. I don't doubt that. And I know that some of them even feel a little insulted that their goodwill gesture is being interpreted as something negative. But there are two things that still bother me in a big way about this thing.
First, it should be pointed out that the employees' desire to unionize is also proof that Walmart workers care about each other. But fuck that one, right?
Second, as we puzzled in the headline, if only there were some way that the world's largest food retailer to deliver food to its workers for Thanksgiving, then we'd surely have a better solution at hand. But how could a gigantic company sitting on the world's largest stocks of food manage to deliver it to people who actually physically show up at their stores at regular and scheduled intervals, nearly every single day of the week?
Well, WalMart knows only one way: sell that food to some third party, and then rely on them to donate it to hungry Walmart employees. In this case, that third party is: less hungry Walmart employees.
And what a way it is! Not only does Walmart's profit margin grow thanks to pay so low that some of their workers are in need of Thanksgiving food drives, but their profit margin grows even more as their less hungry workers buy the food they're donating right off of Walmart's shelves! It's a Thanksgiving double dip! Delicious!
By which I mean "monstrous," of course.