I shop at Wal-Mart and have not thought much about it. Wal-Mart is great right? Everything is at one location. I was completely surprised to find out that NEA (National Education Association) is speaking out against Wal-Mart. In the summer of 2005, NEA made the decision to support the “Wake-Up, Wal-Mart” campaign. I thought that an education association speaking out against a major chain was quite interesting. NEA’s decision was based on information including the following findings.
· The Sam Walton family donates millions of dollars a year to anti-public education reform and funds vouchers to private schools.
· Wal-Mart offers low wages and benefits. The average Wal-Mart salary is $1000 below the national poverty level for a family with three members. On average, the nation’s employees pay 16% of their health insurance. Wal-Mart employees pay 33% of their insurance. The insurance covers only 48% of Wal-Mart employees.
· Many Wal-Mart employees rely on state funding for their family. In Georgia, 10,000 children of Wal-Mart workers have state health care. In Tennessee, 9,000 workers are on TennCare.
· Numbers and research show that a 200-employee Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers $36,000 for free and reduced lunch, $42,000 for living assistance, $125,000 for poverty deductions, $100,000 for Title 1, $108,000 for child health insurance coverage, $9,750 for poverty energy aid.
· Wal-Mart does not allow unions. Managers are provided with a “Toolbox to Remain Union-free”. Previous attempts to form unions have been shut down.
· Wal-Mart was found to have 1,371 cases of minors working later hours than allowed, working during school hours, or working too many hours in one day. It was also found that the records indicated 60,767 times a break was missed and lunches were missed 15,705 times.
· In 2003, it was found that 2/3 of Wal-Mart employees were women but only 1/3 of the manager jobs were filled with women.
· Women managers in 2001 had earnings of $14,500 less than males.
I perhaps am not in touch with the news as much as I should be. The entire list of findings on Wal-Mart was a shock to me. Wal-Mart is a major store in my town. We no longer have K-Mart and Target has not considered opening in our location. Therefore, options are limited. While I do not agree with some activities listed above, I cannot say that I will not return to Wal-Mart.
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Oy! Just went shopping at Wal-Mart!