Walmart Worker Woes: "There will be no working class. We'll all be in a poverty class."

I got news for ya, Walmart workers, you're already in the poverty class, although I suspect this isn't new news to you. 

It's bad enough that the taxpayers have to support those who actually work full-time at Walmart but can't break the poverty ceiling. As Congressman-elect Alan Grayson points out:

"In state after state, the largest group of Medicaid recipients is Walmart employees. I'm sure that the same thing is true of food stamp recipients. Each Walmart ‘associate’ costs the taxpayers an average of more than $1,000 in public assistance,"

But the attack on the taxpayer wallet is barely dented by the greed of Walmart; the taxpayer pocketbook gets positively raped by Walmart's:

"more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country."

And it doesn't stop there, either.  The impact of a new Walmart in any community is devastating to the small business owners unlucky enough to have to compete against them.  Just ask any of the local store owners in Chicago, who watched and suffered interminably when:

 "Within two years of Walmart's opening its doors, 82 local stores went out of business."

East New York residents protest Walmart in front of New 

Lots Hardware Glass and Locks, Brooklyn, in April.

http://nydn.us/1hzwXi1

It is next to impossible to calculate the devastation to the owners and employees of the 82 stores that were run out of business, but you can bet that it had an impact on "we the taxpayer" as those individuals scrambled to rebuild their lives and find other work.  It doesn't take a genius to understand that at least a percentage of those folks ended up relying - temporarily or chronically - on taxpayer subsidized assistance as they tried to recover from the layoffs, the worrying, the fear, the job hunt, and the struggle of caring for themselves and any family that depended on them in the aftermath.

And lest you think Walmart comes to the table with an altruistic ideology that the "promises of jobs, jobs and more jobs" will help those struggling in poverty to dig their way out, know that they aren't interested at all in the wages that come with those jobs:

"Reclaim Democracy has posted a set of three internal Wal-Mart documents from the 1990s detailing the company's internal stance on how to handle unions, union organizers, and disgruntled associates that might be attempting to organize."

Why would Walmart so vigorously attempt to squash union organizing?  Well, it could be because Walmart has a long and successful history of engaging in worker oppression:

"Wal-Mart has admitted to using minors to operate hazardous machinery, has been sued in six states for forcing employees to work off the books (i.e., unpaid) and without breaks, and is currently facing a suit brought by 1.6 million current and former female employees accusing Wal-Mart of gender discrimination. At the same time, Wal-Mart workers are paid less and receive fewer benefits than other retail workers. 

Wal-Mart, according to its own reports, pays an average of $9.68 an hour. That is 12.4% below the average wage for retail workers even after adjusting for geography, according to a recent study by Arindrajit Dube and Steve Wertheim, economists at the University of California's Institute of Industrial Relations and long-time Wal-Mart researchers. Wal-Mart's wages are nearly 15% below the average wage of workers at large retailers and about 30% below the average wage of unionized grocery workers. The average U.S. wage is $17.80 an hour; Costco, a direct competitor of Wal-Mart's Sam's Club warehouse stores, pays an average wage of $16 an hour (see box on p. 13). 

Wal-Mart may be improving its benefits, as the Journal's editors report, but it needs to. Other retailers provide health care coverage to over 53% of their workers, while Wal-Mart covers just 48% of its workers. Costco, once again, does far better, covering 82% of its employees. Moreover, Wal-Mart's coverage is far less comprehensive than the plans offered by other large retailers. Dube reports that according to 2003 IRS data, Wal-Mart paid 59% of the health care costs of its workers and dependents, compared to the 77% of health care costs for individuals and 68% for families the average retailer picks up."

Walmart so hates the idea of its workers organizing and asking for livable wages for their 40+ hour workweek that they will cut their own nose off to spite their face and close a store rather than let the employees organize a union.

 What's particularly incredible - and frankly disgusting - about Walmart's tactics is that the kingpins of the Walmart Cabal don't need the money. In fact, they could easily pay their workers a livable wage and toss in some benefits.  They might have to downgrade the marble floors from Italian to domestic on their yacht fleet, but hell, one would think that would be a small price to pay for the happiness and productivity of their workers.  I'll bet with what they'd save from having to bust unions and defend themselves from lawsuits, they'd probably come out earning more than they currently do now:

"Six members of the family rank among the top eleven on Forbes’ list of wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of about $93 billion. With their 49% stake in Walmart, they brought in $2.2 billion in dividends off of Walmart stock last year alone.

The Waltons aren’t just the face of the 1%; they’re the face of the 0.000001%. In 2007, when the six Waltons on the Forbes list were worth $69.7 billion, their wealth was equal to the total wealth of the bottom 30% of American families. When new data on American wealth is available next year, it will probably show an even wider gap between the Waltons and the rest of American families. The Waltons are worth $93 billion now, while most Americans still haven’t recovered from the recession."

None of this is a secret to any of us who've been paying attention to the nefarious practices of the Walton Family and Walmart.  It's just that we seem to be reaching a tipping point in the tolerance of American workers to put up with the ridiculous disparity in wages and disrespect that Walmart clearly has for anyone unlucky enough to land a job in one of their stores.

It's about time.   

Largest Civil Disobedience In Walmart History Leads To More Than 50 Arrests

Posted: 11/08/2013 1:04 am EST  |  Updated: 11/08/2013 3:15 pm EST
Kathleen Miles 

Surrounded by about 100 police officers in riot gear and a helicopter circling above, more than 50 Walmart workers and supporters were arrested in downtown Los Angeles Thursday night as they sat in the street protesting what they called the retailer's "poverty wages."

Organizers said it was the largest single act of civil disobedience in Walmart's 50-year history. The 54 arrestees, with about 500 protesting Walmart workers, clergy and supporters, demonstrated outside LA's Chinatown Walmart. Those who refused police orders to clear the street after their permit expired were arrested without incident. Those who fail to post $5,000 bail would be jailed overnight, Detective Gus Villanueva, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, told The Huffington Post.
Their primary demand to Walmart: pay every full-time worker at least $25,000 a year.

One of the protesting Walmart workers, Anthony Goytia, a 31-year-old father of two, said he believes he will make about $12,000 this year. It's a daily struggle, he said, "to make sure my family doesn't go hungry."

"The power went out at my house yesterday because I couldn't afford the bill," Goytia told HuffPost. "I had to run around and get two payday loans to pay for my rent from the first" of the month. "Yesterday we went to a food bank."

To make ends meet, Goytia said he sometimes participates in clinical trials and sells his blood plasma. He has been asking his managers for full-time employment for a year and a half. Instead, he said, they hire temporary workers, who can be fired at any time.

Goytia was one of several dozen Walmart workers in Southern California who went on strike Wednesday and Thursday, calling for an end to low wages, unpredictable part-time hours and retaliation for speaking out. They were joined by other employees on their days off and dozens more who rode buses from Northern California.

The strike, protest and arrests are the latest in a series of worker actions across the country coordinated by OUR Walmart, an advocacy organization with ties to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The actions in Los Angeles this week are the first in what organizers said would be a series of protests leading into the holiday shopping season.

The protesters said Walmart can afford to pay every worker at least $25,000 a year -- pointing to Walmart's $17 billion profit from the latest year and the founding Walton family's fortune, which equals the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of American families.

Walmart CEO Bill Simon disclosed in a presentation recently that 475,000 Walmart workers are paid more than $25,000 a year. That leaves 525,000 to 825,000 Walmart workers earning less than $25,000. House Democrats seeking to boost the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour have criticized Walmart for its low wages.

Walmart invited HuffPost to speak to a couple associates working in the Chinatown store during the protest Thursday. In the presence of a consultant working for Walmart, two employees -- Do Nguyen, 29, and Aldo Hernandez, 55 -- said that they are treated well by their employer. Nguyen, who has worked for Walmart for almost a year, said that asking for a minimum of $25,000 is "a national issue, not a Walmart issue."

Hernandez, who has worked for Walmart for almost five years, said he gets good health benefits through Walmart and doesn't struggle to support himself and his son. Both Nguyen and Hernandez declined to say how much they make.

Kory Lundberg, a spokesman for Walmart, said that the company has hundreds of thousands of associates who earn $25,000 or more and that others have the opportunity to do so.

"There are unparalleled opportunities at Walmart," Lundberg said. "We're going to be promoting 160,000 associates this year. That’s larger than the total workforce of most companies out there."
"Folks can come in as entry level or whatever level they're at and can work up as far as they're willing to go," Lundberg said. "That's one of the things we're proudest of."

After working full time at Walmart in Paramount, Calif., for 10 years, Martha Sellers, 55, makes $25,400 a year. In the last few years, she said, her managers have been cutting her weekly hours, sometimes to as few as 12 hours a week.

With that income, she said, she has to pay her rent in pieces. "If I pay all my rent at one time, then I have $12 to live on and put gas in my car until I get paid again," Sellers, who attended Thursday's protest, said.

"I have a very nice neighbor who lends me money. But then the next month, I'm short again," Sellers said. "I never get caught up."

LA's Chinatown Walmart, about one-fifth the size of the company's regular stores, opened in September despite thousands of Angelenos protesting it during the summer. It is the retailer's first store in central LA.

In October 2012, for the first time in Walmart's history, some workers went on a one-day strike, even though Walmart jobs have never been protected by a labor union. More than 70 LA Walmart workers from nine stores walked off the job for a day, followed by over 80 Walmart workers walking off the job in a dozen other U.S. cities.

Last year, through online organizing, OUR Walmart coordinated strikes on Thanksgiving and Black Friday in 46 states and 100 stores. The actions put a spotlight on the world's largest retailer during one of the biggest shopping periods of the year. And yet, Walmart had its most lucrative Black Friday ever, according to the company.

Regarding associates being required to work earlier on Thanksgiving, Lundberg said, "Folks understand that when they come to work for Walmart, that we're a 24-hour store, and Thanksgiving is one of those days that we serve our customers."

Sellers went on strike on Black Friday last year and said she plans to do so again this year. "Walmart claims to be a family-oriented company," she said. "But where's the family time? They took away Easter too."

"Where is the American economy going if we're all working poverty wages?," Sellers said. "There will be no working class. We'll all be in a poverty class."