Wal-Mart, the good, the bad, the ugly!

My friend SuperFantasticGirl kept telling me that Wal-Mart was the devil. I finally watched the documentary about it(Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price) and she was absolutely right. Wal-Mart comes into small towns and ruins what people have worked years for to maintain. They are against unions (so all union employees should not patronize them) because they don't always follow the labor laws. This documentary follows Americans who has first hand knowledge about what this company is doing. I am just going to touch on a few issues here.

Public assistance: Many of the employess who work for the Waltons received public aid. Now if this is such a great company to work for (you know that feed us that bullshigedy on their commercials) then pay me a fair wage. I know they have the money to do so. Drive by a Wal-Mart on a Saturday morning and you'll see the lot is full of cars. Better yet, go by on the 1st of the month and see how packed the place is. The following is an excerpt taken from a Wal-Mart internal memo:

"We also have a significant number of Associates and their children who receive health insurance through public-assistance programs. Five percent of our Associates are on Medicaid compared to an average for national employers of 4 percent. Twenty-seven percent of Associates' children are on such programs, compared to a national average of 22 percent (Exhibit 5). In total, 46 percent of Associates' children are either on Medicaid or are uninsured." Source: Wal-Mart Internal Memo [PDF File], via New York Times

Is Wal-Mart actually proud that their employess receive public-assistance? Sound like it to me.

My second point is full-time status. Full-time employees work 34 hours per week (this change occurred in 2002 to prevent employees from getting health care). This is 6 hours per week less than most other businesses. Wal-Mart's plan is to keep as many employees as they can in a part-time status. If you go to http://www.wikipedia.com/ and enter Wal-Mart, you will get a lot of information there, such as "In 2002, Wal-Mart increased the waiting period for enrollment eligibility from 90 days to 6 months for full-time employees. Part-time employees must wait 2 years before they may enroll in the plan, and they may not purchase coverage for their spouses or children. The definition of part-time was changed from 28 hours or less per week to less than 34 hours per week." The change was not done to benefit more full-time employees, but to discourage more employees from being eligible for Wal-Mart's healthcare plan. Those of use who have worked other places know that 90 days is a long time to wait for health coverage. Now these underpaid employees have to an additional 90 days. It's crazy.

My last rant is unpaid wages. You heard it right, they are not paying their empolyees like they should. Let's get real here: I work a 34 hour work week at $9.68 an hour (the average wage) and you won't pay me for overtime. At the end of the year, I got $17, 114 annual salary. I am still poor. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $17,650.

Wal-Mart gets tax breaks from most of the cities they set up shop in. I could go on, but I don't have the energy. I strongly urge you to watch this documentary and judge for yourself. I hope America wakes up and see Wal-Mart for who they really are.