Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
**WAL-MART Drives Down Retail Wages $3 BILLION Every Year
UPDATE: Since the completion of the film, the published study ultimately found that Wal-Mart actually reduced the take-home pay of retail workers by $4.7 BILLION dollars annually. Unfortunately for the retail workers this statistic concerns, Wal-Mart's effect on retail wages turns out to be worse than we had anticipated.
**WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees [In the US alone].
**In the film, a former Wal-Mart co-manager claims that store managers are told to "Keep the number of associates from being full time, as many as you can, keep many of them part time, as much as you can." A paragraph in a recently released internal memo from Wal-Mart corroborates the co-manager's statement:
5. Capture savings from current initiatives to improve labor productivity. These initiatives include reducing the number of labor hours per store, increasing the percentage of part-time Associates in stores, and increasing the number of hours per Associate.
However, they spend....
$7,000 ANTI-UNION CAMERA PACKAGE per store
$30,000 UNDERCOVER SPY VAN per store
$100,000 24 hour ANTI-UNION HOTLINE
$7,000,000 Rapid response team with CORPORATE JET
At least 59 complaints have been issued by the National Labor Relations Board on the basis that Wal-Mart uses illegal surveillance techniques to monitor union activity inside and outside their stores.
**Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had worked off the clock.
**In Texas it is estimated that they cheated workers out of up to one hundred and fifty million dollars over four years in unpaid wages.
**Wal-Mart Managers delete time from workers' timecards.
**Federal Poverty Level Family of Four - $17,650 // Average Wal-Mart Hourly Sales Employee Wages - $13,861
**Wal-Mart is facing a class-action lawsuit for discrimination against $1.6 million former and current female employees.
**Wal-Mart is paying eleven million dollars to settle Federal allegations it used illegal immigrants to clean its stores.
**WAL-MART SUBSIDY NATIONWIDE [U.S.]: $1.008 BILLION // FAMILY STORE SUSIDY'S: $0.00
**Currently in the U.S. there are 26,699,678 SQUARE FEET of empty WAL-MARTS
**All new WAL-MART construction halted in state of PENNSYLVANIA due to Environmental Violations
**2001, EPA ordered WAL-MART to pay $1.0 MILLION fine for Clean Water Violations in: TEXAS, OKLAHOMA AND MASSACHUSETTS
**2004, WAL-MART fined $3.1 MILLION by EPA, the largest ever for a retailer, for Clean Water Act violations in TEXAS, COLORADO, CALIFORNIA, DELAWARE, MICHIGAN, SOUTH DAKOTA, NEW JERSEY, TENNESSEE and UTAH
**2005, Connecticut EPA orders WAL-MART to pay $1.15 MILLION for Clean Water Act violations in 22 stores
**Cost for WAL-MART Factory Worker to Assemble: $0.18 // Retail cost at Wal-Mart: $14.96
**Lee Scott [CEO of Wal-Mart] earnings for 2005: $27,207,799 // Average WAL-MART Hourly Sales Employee Earnings: $13,861
**Creators of Wal-Mart are worth:
HELEN WALTON: $18.0 BILLION
ALICE WALTON: 18.0 BILLION
JOHN WALTON: 18.2 BILLION
ROB WALTON: $18.3 BILLION
JIM WALTON: $18.3 BILLION
**The WALTON FAMILY Has Given LESS THAN 1% of Their Wealth to Charity // Bill Gates has given 58%
**A WAL-MART Worker may donate money from their paycheck to the CRITICAL NEED FUND, a program to aid other employees in times of crisis, like a fire or tornado.
In 2004, WAL-MART Employees gave OVER $5 MILLION to help fellow workers // The Walton Family gave $6,000
**WAL-MART Drives Down Retail Wages $3 BILLION Every Year
UPDATE: Since the completion of the film, the published study ultimately found that Wal-Mart actually reduced the take-home pay of retail workers by $4.7 BILLION dollars annually. Unfortunately for the retail workers this statistic concerns, Wal-Mart's effect on retail wages turns out to be worse than we had anticipated.
**WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees [In the US alone].
**In the film, a former Wal-Mart co-manager claims that store managers are told to "Keep the number of associates from being full time, as many as you can, keep many of them part time, as much as you can." A paragraph in a recently released internal memo from Wal-Mart corroborates the co-manager's statement:
5. Capture savings from current initiatives to improve labor productivity. These initiatives include reducing the number of labor hours per store, increasing the percentage of part-time Associates in stores, and increasing the number of hours per Associate.
However, they spend....
$7,000 ANTI-UNION CAMERA PACKAGE per store
$30,000 UNDERCOVER SPY VAN per store
$100,000 24 hour ANTI-UNION HOTLINE
$7,000,000 Rapid response team with CORPORATE JET
At least 59 complaints have been issued by the National Labor Relations Board on the basis that Wal-Mart uses illegal surveillance techniques to monitor union activity inside and outside their stores.
**Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had worked off the clock.
**In Texas it is estimated that they cheated workers out of up to one hundred and fifty million dollars over four years in unpaid wages.
**Wal-Mart Managers delete time from workers' timecards.
**Federal Poverty Level Family of Four - $17,650 // Average Wal-Mart Hourly Sales Employee Wages - $13,861
**Wal-Mart is facing a class-action lawsuit for discrimination against $1.6 million former and current female employees.
**Wal-Mart is paying eleven million dollars to settle Federal allegations it used illegal immigrants to clean its stores.
**WAL-MART SUBSIDY NATIONWIDE [U.S.]: $1.008 BILLION // FAMILY STORE SUSIDY'S: $0.00
**Currently in the U.S. there are 26,699,678 SQUARE FEET of empty WAL-MARTS
**All new WAL-MART construction halted in state of PENNSYLVANIA due to Environmental Violations
**2001, EPA ordered WAL-MART to pay $1.0 MILLION fine for Clean Water Violations in: TEXAS, OKLAHOMA AND MASSACHUSETTS
**2004, WAL-MART fined $3.1 MILLION by EPA, the largest ever for a retailer, for Clean Water Act violations in TEXAS, COLORADO, CALIFORNIA, DELAWARE, MICHIGAN, SOUTH DAKOTA, NEW JERSEY, TENNESSEE and UTAH
**2005, Connecticut EPA orders WAL-MART to pay $1.15 MILLION for Clean Water Act violations in 22 stores
**Cost for WAL-MART Factory Worker to Assemble: $0.18 // Retail cost at Wal-Mart: $14.96
**Lee Scott [CEO of Wal-Mart] earnings for 2005: $27,207,799 // Average WAL-MART Hourly Sales Employee Earnings: $13,861
**Creators of Wal-Mart are worth:
HELEN WALTON: $18.0 BILLION
ALICE WALTON: 18.0 BILLION
JOHN WALTON: 18.2 BILLION
ROB WALTON: $18.3 BILLION
JIM WALTON: $18.3 BILLION
**The WALTON FAMILY Has Given LESS THAN 1% of Their Wealth to Charity // Bill Gates has given 58%
**A WAL-MART Worker may donate money from their paycheck to the CRITICAL NEED FUND, a program to aid other employees in times of crisis, like a fire or tornado.
In 2004, WAL-MART Employees gave OVER $5 MILLION to help fellow workers // The Walton Family gave $6,000
Seriously! How do these people sleep so soundly at night? I refuse to step foot in another Wal-Mart ever again!
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
On line purchases are the bane of my existance, but that's the only place I seem to be able to find things that make me happy, and that I use until they really cannot be used any more.
Le sigh...I wish I could get my greedy little hands on Asian letter sets in a far easier manner than I am currently able to