Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:03:00 -0700, Jon Schild <jjs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Josh Hill wrote:

It was certainly true before there were unions: in some cases,
employees were literally worked to death. And non-union companies like
Wal-Mart pay their people miserable salaries. In some states, Wal-Mart
employees have signed up for Medicaid because they don't get medical
insurance.

I keep hearing this, but people I know personally who work at Wal-Mart
are all happy with it. They report NONE of the supposed abuses that
activists are always talking about. I think unions are just spreading
lies about how horrible it is to work without having union dues forced
out of your pocket. They see how much power they could get by bringing
down a company that large, and they want it.

According to a web site I found:

In 2001, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on
average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. The 2001 poverty
line for a family of three was $14,630. ["Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?",
Business Week, 10/6/03, US Dept of Health and Human Services 2001
Poverty Guidelines, 2001]

A 2003 wage analysis reported that cashiers, the second most common
job, earn approximately $7.92 per hour and work 29 hours a week. This
brings in annual wages of only $11,948. ["Statistical Analysis of
Gender Patterns in Wal-Mart's Workforce", Dr. Richard Drogin 2003]
Wal-Mart Associates don't earn enough to support a family

The average two-person family (one parent and one child) needed
$27,948 to meet basic needs in 2005, well above what Wal-Mart reports
that its average full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its
average associate earned $9.68 an hour in 2005. That would make the
average associate's annual wages $17,114. ["Basic Family Budget
Calculator" online at www.epinet.org]

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/

It seems they're paying poverty-level wages.

--
Josh

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals.
We know now that it is bad economics." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike
    ... Wal-Mart pay their people miserable salaries. ... employees have signed up for Medicaid because they don't get medical ... average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)
  • Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike
    ... And non-union companies like ... Wal-Mart pay their people miserable salaries. ... employees have signed up for Medicaid because they don't get medical ... And 8.23 is a couple of bukcs over the minimum wage in 2001. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)
  • Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike
    ... average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. ... Poverty Guidelines, 2001] ... Wal-Mart Associates don't earn enough to support a family ... elsewhere that pays better -- What's that, there are none, Walmart is ...
    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)
  • Re: NBC: How Wal-Mart does more for poor than anybody?
    ... If you are going to bash Wal-mart, as liberals love to do these days, you ... programs to increase access to affordable health insurance. ... Medicaid and live in households with incomes at or below 235% of the federal ... Welfare reform opens Medicaid to millions ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • Re: ::shudder::
    ... Wal-Mart wants to pocket the money that badly disabled mother of three got for medical care after traffic accident Wal-Mart is establishing a new low point for bad corporate behaviour. ... through medicaid and medicare programmes. ...
    (alt.support.stop-smoking)
Loading