Wal-Mart critics are pressuring the retail giant to pay their employees more.
With most of Wal-Mart’s workers earning less than $19,000 a year, a number of community groups and lawmakers have recently teamed up with labor unions in mounting an intensive campaign aimed at prodding Wal-Mart into paying its 1.3 million employees higher wages.
A new group of Wal-Mart critics ran a full-page advertisement on April 20 contending that the company’s low pay had forced tens of thousands of its workers to resort to food stamps and Medicaid, costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
H. Lee Scott Jr., Wal-Mart’s chief executive, contends that the critics, including competitors, are defenders of an outdated status quo, intent on upholding a retailing system full of inefficiency and inflated prices.
Mr. Mrkwa, the food stocker, does not see it that way. With pay that brings him about $20,000 a year, he said he could not afford a decent apartment or a vehicle better than his 1991 Dodge Dakota. “I don’t see why Wal-Mart can’t pay more,” Mr. Mrkwa said.
Stumble it!
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Wal-Mart critics are pressuring the retail giant to pay their employees more.
With most of Wal-Mart’s workers earning less than $19,000 a year, a number of community groups and lawmakers have recently teamed up with labor unions in mounting an intensive campaign aimed at prodding Wal-Mart into paying its 1.3 million employees higher wages.
A new group of Wal-Mart critics ran a full-page advertisement on April 20 contending that the company’s low pay had forced tens of thousands of its workers to resort to food stamps and Medicaid, costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
H. Lee Scott Jr., Wal-Mart’s chief executive, contends that the critics, including competitors, are defenders of an outdated status quo, intent on upholding a retailing system full of inefficiency and inflated prices.
Mr. Mrkwa, the food stocker, does not see it that way. With pay that brings him about $20,000 a year, he said he could not afford a decent apartment or a vehicle better than his 1991 Dodge Dakota. “I don’t see why Wal-Mart can’t pay more,” Mr. Mrkwa said.
Stumble it!
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, May 4th, 2005 at 12:30 pm and is filed under main, walmart.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.