On Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, shoppers will be greeted by demonstrations in support of striking Walmart employees at hundreds of Walmart stores across the country.
The intent of the demonstrations is not to discourage shoppers from shopping at Walmart but to bring to their attention that those low prices they enjoy have a cost and that cost is the horrendous working conditions of Walmart employees.
Walmart’s unfair treatment of its employees is legendary: poverty wages; insufficient hours, most employees are not full-time even though many stores are understaffed; no overtime pay; inadequate or no health insurance; and no holiday pay despite the fact that stores are forcing their employees to work from 7:00pm on Thanksgiving to 4:00am on Friday and then return to work at 7:00am.
Walmart has been sued in the past for forcing employees to work off the clock and other wage-theft activities and their virulent anti-unionism has resulted in law suits for unfair labor practices.
Walmart has been brilliant in the art of socializing their costs and privatizing their profits. By paying their employees poverty level wages Walmart gets the public to subsidize a major part of their business expenses. The average salary for a Wal-Mart employee is less than $9.00 an hour. Even at $9.00 and a forty-hour work week - and almost no one gets forty hours - that would come to an annual salary of $18,700 which is $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of four. Whenever a Walmart employee uses food-stamps to feed his or her family, or puts their children on Medicaid or uses the emergency room for lack of health insurance the American public pays the bill in higher taxes. With 1.4 million workers the Walmart tax bill is in the billions of dollars.
Walmart‘s success as a standard setter for low-wage employers feeds one of our country’s long term economic structural problem: the growing inequality of income and wealth and the resulting increase in poverty. And a new study shows that Illinois now ranks fourth among states in the growth of income inequality. This should be of particular concern to residents of Will County where the fastest growing work-force is warehouse workers whose working conditions, as the recent strike against the Walmart warehouse in Elwood exposed, are even worse than those of Walmart retail employees. Communities in and around Will County cannot prosper if its fastest growing work force makes less than a subsistence wage. This is an intolerable situation and cannot continue.
Walmart‘s business plan has made Walmart one of the most successful businesses in the world and made the Walton family fabulously rich. But their business and financial success has come at an appalling cost to their employees and to society in general.
This coming Friday, Warehouse Workers for Justice and their supporters will gather at Sacred Heart Church, 329 S. Ottawa St., Joliet at 8:00am and then caravan to a Walmart somewhere in Will County to show support for all striking and non-striking Walmart workers across the country.
Ron Kurowski
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Attempting to unionize Walmart? Why? Labor unions are in it for the union - not the employee. Trade unions serve a valued purpose. Labor unions just raise prices and make union bosses rich.
How about working people standing up for themselves and supporting each other. Same lines Swift and Armour used to use in the stockyards - 'if you don't like it, find something better.' Problem is, there isn't anything much better out there. Unions fought for a century to better the condition of the working man and woman-now they are villified for providing their workers with a living wage/benefits/sick days/pensions. It's working man against working man, taking poverty level wages while those at the top laugh and say 'sucker' to the goofs like Michael M who do their bidding (for no pay or benefits, mind you). A reckoning is coming. That reckoning will not be the 'fiscal cliff' used to scare people-it will be the majority of people in this country who are being screwed over who will take what is theirs. Oh wait, nahhh-things will not change. Bread and circus people, bread and circus.
Concerning the political process, anyone who "feels good" about it with or without your "sugar coating" regardless of which major party's agenda we're speaking of, hasn't done their homework.
PS-I am a conservative and I think you would be truly surprised by what conservatives actually believe, if some of you would take the time to engage in actual conversation.
There are no federal laws which require private employers to give their employees a federal holiday off with or without pay. There is no federal law which requires an employer to pay their employees extra pay for working on a federally designated holiday. These benefits were won by workers, mostly in unions, fighting and striking and sometimes dying for every work benefit that people like you, who are the real 'takers' in our society, enjoy.
I love how you call me a taker. How do I take from anyone? I pay all my own bills with money I earn from my 2 jobs, I feed my family with that same money, I give to charity, I take nothing from the govt or from you. And I pay a ton in taxes and I am middle class and we are going to pay even more in taxes and so will you.
#2 Minimum wage is not a living wage, especially if you are always getting less than 40 hours a week. #3 Conservatives can't have it both ways: Medicaid and food stamps can't be horrible problems that unfair support lazy people, but acceptable for Walmart employees to use to compensate for low wages. It's not right for a company that makes that much profit to pay it's employees so poorly. What ever happened to the idea of investing in the people who work for you and are the faces of your company?
As for healthcare you will not be able to afford the insurance yourself. Also, you have to answer to IPAB as well as doctors and hospitals will have to answer to IPAB. IPAB is a 15 member board that will regulate healthcare, but only a minority of the board can be health care providers. They will set up protocols for healthcare, not your doctor. So if you go to the hospital with a heart attack, they will decide your treatment, not your doctor. Last word we got was that drug eluding heart stents will not be covered, they are the best stents you can get. So you will get a bare metal stent with a re-closure rate of 40% within 6 months; drug eluding have a re-closure rate of 1% in 6 months. So many will end up back in the hospital with another cardiac event or death, thus driving the cost of healthcare higher because of the repeat visits. You will be able to get the best stent, but only if you pay out of pocket, the cost will be between $2500-$6000 for the best stent. The govt will be making these decisions on a host of health care, plus you have to buy the plan the president chooses, and Obama has chosen the most expensive plan, can you afford $5,000-$7500 per year for insurance, plus the out of pocket expenses? You get the govt you deserve and now the healthcare you deserve.
Unions accomplished great things - in the 1960s. Nowadays, unions are obsolete. P.S. my father lost his job when Hostess went out of business - the Teamsters aren't paying his miortgage. Thanks Unions!