- Wal-Mart sales clerks made an average of $8.23 an hour—or $13,861 a year—in 2001. That's nearly $800 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. (Source: Business Week) 8.23 per hour, if full time, is more than $16,500. If part time, then it is unreasonable to expect a part time job to put one above the poverty line. Not all clerks support a family of three. In fact, I would expect that to be very rare. Most are there to supplement other family income, or to support a family of one. - In Georgia, Wal-Mart employees are six times more likely to rely on state-provided health care for their children than are employees of any other large company. (Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Walmart has a practice of hiring people that most companies would avoid like the plague. Thank you, Walmart, for helping these welfare families. - Reliance on public assistance programs in California by Wal-Mart workers costs the state's taxpayers an estimated $86 million annually. (Source: UC Berkeley Study) California is a big state. $86 million is less than $3 per person. Most people will save more than ten dollars on every visit. Walmart is a bargain. Moreover, see my comments on the above. Walmart hires people who would otherwise be a larger burden on the welfare system, and helps get them productively into society. - In the first decade after Wal-Mart arrived in Iowa, the state lost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women's apparel stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men's and boys' apparel stores. (Source: Iowa State University Study) That was a decade of change. Stores were changing. People became less willing to pay a premium price to go to a store with less selection. Those conditions were ripe for Walmart, and several other companies. The conditions were the end of a lot of marginal companies, whether or not Walmart came to town. - Every year Wal-Mart purchases $15 billion worth of products from China. (Source: Washington Post) Every four weeks, Walmart has sales in excess of $20 billion. Chinese products are a smaller part of the picture than I would have guessed. - Today Wal-Mart uses over 3,000 Chinese factories to produce its goods—almost as many factories as it has stores in the U.S. (3,600). (Source: L.A. Times) Is employing Chinese people evil? I am well aware that many companies are using Chinese factories, and the previous stat told me the volume of trade with China. I can't get my back up about it, though. - All else being equal, U.S. counties where new Wal-Mart stores were built between 1987 and 1998 experienced higher poverty rates than other U.S. counties. (Source: Pennsylvania State University Study)] Walmart builds in places where high prices are especially damaging. By providing better goods, better selection, and lower prices to the impoverished of this nation, they make the US a better place. * This company runs ads featuring the United States flag and proclaims "We Buy American". In 2001 they moved their worldwide purchasing headquarters to China and are the largest importer of Chinese goods in the US, purchasing over $10 BILLION of Chinese-made products annually. Products made mostly by women and children working in the labor hell-holes China is famous for. Wow! It is down from three points ago! I still don't hate China enough to be upset about this. * Their average employee working in the US makes $15,000 a year, $7.22 per hour! The pay is up, the salary is down! Happily, this time around, there is no mention of a family of three. * These employees gross under $11,000 a year. Taxes are outrageous. Can hardly blame Walmart for the tax rate, though. * The company brags that 70% of their employees are full time, but fails to disclose that they count anyone working 28 hours a week or more as full time. Walmart sounds like a better part-time job than a full time job. What is the problem? * There are no health care benefits unless you have worked for the company for two years. Health care is expensive, and these people have low net income, anyway. The cost of insurance would surely only decrease that income. * With a turnover rate averaging above 50% per year, only 38% of their 1.3 million employees have health care coverage. -In California alone it's estimated that the taxpayers pay over $20 million annually to subsidize health care benefits for these employees who get none from this behemoth corporation. Is that $20 million already counted in the $86 million? What are the other $68 million? * According to a report by PBS's "Now" with Bill Moyer, their managers are trained in what government social programs are available for these"employees" to take advantage of so that the company can pass on those costs to you and me. It allows them to not only keep their $7 BILLION in annual profits, but to do so by substituting benefits they refuse to provide with benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars. If we don't want government welfare to go to the people who are eligible for it, then let's change the rules on who is eligible, not complain about a company which cares so much for its employees. * This company holds the record for the most suits filed against it by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A lawyer from "Business Week" (not exactly the bastion for supporting Labor) said, "I have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for the law." They had to pay $750,000.00 in Arizona for blatant discrimination against the disabled! The judge was so incensed that he also order them to run commercials admitting their guilt. Big companies have lots of lawsuits filed against them. The fact they lost a court case in AZ doesn't distinguish them from any other company their size. * The National Labor Relations Board has issued over 40 formal complaints against the corporation in 25 different states in just the past five years. The NLRB's top lawyer believed that their labor violations, such as Illegal spying on employees, fraudulent record keeping, falsifying time cards to avoid paying overtime, threats, illegal firings for union organizing etc., were so widespread that he was looking into filing a very rare national complaint against the company. (The company contributed $2,159,330.00 to GW Bush and the GOP in 2000 and 2002. The NLRB attorney was replaced when President Bush took office.). Bush has been in office for five years, the lawsuits were filed over the last five years, and the lawyer was replaced when Bush came into office? Not easy to understand or believe this one. * Nearly 1 MILLION women are involved in the largest class-action suit every filed against a corporation. Although women make up over 65% of this corporations work force only 10% of them are managers. The women who have become store managers make $16,400 a year LESS then the men. I heard of this lawsuit a while back. What has come of it? I can readily imagine a variety of reasons for this to be true that have nothing to do with discrimination. * The corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on their employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this." If an employee dies, the company faces some loss. They insured themselves against this loss. What is the problem? Is the thinking that they then had some employees killed to collect? * They force employees to work after ordering them to punch out. In Texas alone this practice of "wage theft" is estimated to have cost employees $30 million per year. Wage theft or "off-the-clock" lawsuits are pending in 25 states. In New Mexico they paid $400,000.00 in one suit and in Colorado they had to pay $50 MILLION to settle one class-action case brought against them. In Oregon a jury found them guilty of locking employees in the building and of forcing unpaid overtime. Some managers make mistakes. I hope the corporation took appropriate action. * With 4,400 stores they practice "predatory pricing." They come into a community and sell their goods at below cost until they drive local businesses under. Once they have captured the market the prices go up. The prices at Walmart are very low, and have been at every Walmart I have visited. I have not seen this action of prices going up. * Locally owned and operated businesses put virtually all of their money back into the community which helps keep the local economies vibrant. This corporation ###### the money out of the local community, decreases wages and benefits and ships the profits out of state. Walmart provides a huge stream of revenue to local governments, serves as an anchor for other businesses, and provides employment to many. I don't care if the people getting rich off this live in my state or in another. * This company doesn't buy locally or bank locally. They replace three decent paying jobs in a community with two poorly paid "part-timers". They replace three costly employees doing the exact same thing with two who get it done better and faster? Good for them! And of course they buy locally. I don't know where they bank, but I would presume they bank in many places, and it would be local to those places. Since my bank is from Washington, replacing the one from North Carolina, which bought the one from California, I hardly care if the store has a local account. * In Kirksville, Missouri when this company came to town, four clothing stores, four grocery stores, a stationary store, a fabric store and a lawn-and-garden store all went under. Eleven businesses are now gone. How many of those would have closed, anyway? How many would have closed because of other (non- walmart) competition? How many of them served their customers as well as walmart?
