For years, Walmart workers have attended the company’s annual shareholders meeting to call for higher wages, better benefits and more predictable schedules.
This year they’ll have someone new delivering the message on their behalf: Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The presidential candidate, who has repeatedly called on Walmart to improve its working conditions, is heading to Bentonville, Ark., on June 5 to introduce a shareholders’ proposal that would give hourly Walmart workers a seat on the company’s board.
“These workers need and deserve a seat at the table,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told The Washington Post. “If hourly workers at Walmart were well represented on its board, I doubt you would see the CEO of Walmart making over a thousand times more than its average worker."
The board is currently comprised of a dozen of wealthy executives from corporations like NBCUniversal and McDonalds along with Walmart heirs. But if this measure, filed by Walmart employee Cat Davis and leader of United for Respect, is implemented, it will “require the retailer to consider its 1.5 million hourly U.S. employees when nominating candidates to its board.”
According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, the Walmart heirs now have a combined wealth of $163.2 billion, which is more than Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. In fact, they are worth more than $70 billion more than the second-richest family in the United States.
Not only does Walmart fail to pay their workers a decent wage, over half of their employees are part time which allows them to skip out on providing healthcare or retirement benefits.
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Last November, Bernie and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced the Stop Walmart Act which would prevent corporations from stock buy backs if they fail to pay their employees at least $15.00 an hour.
Stop WALMART: Stop Welfare for Any Large Monopoly Amassing Revenue from Taxpayers.
Last year, Bernie introduced “Stop Bezos” which helped lead to raises for Amazon workers:
Amazon last year raised its starting hourly wage to $15 an hour after Sanders introduced a bill that called on the company to pay its workers a “living wage.” (Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)
Bernie refuses to take credit for it, noting the change was brought about by the workers:
Sanders declined to take responsibility for the change, saying it was the workers who deserved credit for the raises.
“I think the workers have stood up and fought back,” he told HuffPost. “What we have done is call attention to the fact that it is a disgrace that the wealthiest person in this country and in this world are paying wages so low that workers are forced to go on food stamps and Medicaid.
Change never comes from the top, it always comes from the bottom on up!