Now that Mayor Bloomberg has bestowed his approval for Walmart to open an outlet in the Big Apple, it won’t be long before New Yorkers get a taste of the ‘high cost of Walmart’s low prices’. But while media attention has focused on those spirited public hearings, it was business as usual at hearings elsewhere around the country, where public support for Walmart lines up behind the mike courtesy of a free dinner and a 60 dollar gift card.
There’s been plenty of great diaries detailing the ravages the Walmart has wrought upon America’s main street businesses and labor unions, so here's a partial recap:
Walmart destroys three jobs for every two that it creates.
Walmart workers earn sub-poverty wages (even though raising their salaries would barely affect consumer cost) and the company adds insult to that injury by paying its female workers between 5 to 15 per cent less than males in the same job classification.
Walmart employs the greatest number of workers who must resort to taxpayer-funded healthcare programs while the company games the federal tax code with schemes like deducting the rent it pays to itself so that the company , per it’s last annual report, can dodge about 3 billion in taxes.
For more, here’s a link to "8 Reasons We Should Fight to Keep Walmart Out of Our Major Cities"
http://news.change.org/...
Now from today’s Salt Lake Tribune’s muckraking columnist Paul Rolly-
Support Walmart on a full stomach » Salt Lake City residents who are on a Walmart mailing list received e-mails recently offering them dinner if they attend the Salt Lake City Planning Commission hearing Wednesday and voice their support for a zoning change that would open the door for a new Walmart store on Parleys Way.
"We are in the process of finalizing details for a complementary dinner prior to the meeting. When we finalize our plans, you will receive an update to let you know when and where we will be hosting our meal. Feel free to bring your friends, family and neighbors who are also supportive of the project," the e-mail said.
Last October, selected residents were treated to a free dinner and a $60 Walmart voucher for attending an East Bench Community Council meeting and expressing support for the project.
There you have it. A bald example of how a corporation bribes the very underclass it creates to perpetuate its relentless fungus-like growth on the American landscape.
But while Mayor Bloomberg may be satisfied that the Brooklyn store will be built by union workers, what about the fact that every manager inside will have a personalized union-busting handbook?
http://walmartwatch.com/...