Ending The Walmart Scam

[FourScore]

Wed Oct 15, 2014 at 11:30 AM PDT
Ending The Walmart Scam
by Raul Grijalva

Right now, income inequality is the highest it’s been in our society since 1928. A lucky few in America make billions, while millions of others struggle just to get by. Nowhere is this gap more apparent than in the 4,100 plus Walmart stores across the country. Rob Walton and his family have amassed an empire of riches, and they built it on the backs of the working poor. The consequences of such skewed earning potential – where the family on top is worth $150 billion while their employees earn less than $25,000 per year – are significant and unsustainable.

As the nation’s largest employer, with $15 billion in profits annually, Walmart can afford to pay their employees a livable wage. Instead, they choose to manipulate schedules and hours to pay the majority of their workers abysmal wages. Sandra Sok, who works in Phoenix Walmart Store #5331 is a perfect example. After eight years of service to the company, she still struggles for enough work and income to make ends meet. She pleads with management every week for additional shifts because the 30 hours she is usually scheduled for simply aren’t enough. Sandra’s done her part to help Walmart succeed – she deserves more than poverty pay in return.

Many workers like Sandra are forced to rely on food stamps, health care assistance and other taxpayer-funded programs to get by. So while the Walton family alone has as much wealth as 43% of American families combined, the American people still have to pick up the tab for the Walton’s appalling business practices. And it’s not cheap: Walmart is estimated to cost the taxpayers $6.2 billion annually through public assistance costs, with expenses ranging between $3,015 and $5,815 per worker. All the while, Walmart and the Waltons are taking $8 billion a year in tax breaks that subsidize their low-wage business – and add to their profits. It is estimated that the family has avoided paying $3 billion in taxes by using special trusts to dodge estate taxes.

It’s time to end this charade and shut down the Walmart scam. That starts by recognizing that every worker deserves the decency of full-time work. Manipulating schedules to avoid paying employees what they’re due is shameful, demoralizing and wrong. The Schedules That Work Act, which has been introduced in both the House and the Senate, will give workers the right to a stable work schedule without retaliation. We also need to turn the minimum wage into a livable wage. Cities like Seattle, Los Angeles and Baltimore have led the charge in this effort, raising their minimum wage levels as high as $15 per hour. But they are the exception, and we need to make it the norm.

The American Dream is premised on the notion that anyone who works hard here can earn a decent living. Corporations like Walmart have turned that dream into a living nightmare for the men and women they employ, and it’s up to the American people to put a stop to it. As Walmart employees in Phoenix and other major cities across the country protest their conditions this week, we must recommit to ensuring the American Dream remains within reach for everyone willing to work for it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/15/1336804/-Ending-The-Walmart-Scam

[ffr]

1. And the people who work and shop at Walmart will support that structure to the death

Because, as they'll parrot back to you, it's the Walton's family right to do so. Am I right?

RWNJ media will back them up with that false legitimacy and they'll go home every night with less and less, angry at somebody other than the Waltons...probably Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or PBO or whomever that night's hit piece was broadcast about. And if you debate them about how they're getting screwed and voting against their own best interests, both with their dollars and at the polls, you best watch what you say, because according to the beliefs they hold dear, YOU are the enemy. You open to all thought Liberal!

They get what they deserve! They can be proud to eat all that Genetically Modified Organism waste being sold to them and their insides can turn to tumors, if that's their attitude. Oh I've had to deal with that crap too, where when you bring up GMO, they defend it as if they already know some future outcome will be all roses. They don't even know what GMO represents!!! Their foolish ways make us all suffer.