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"DEFINITION OF CORRUPT"

Wal-Mart Facts:

A report prepared by the minority staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Education and the Workforce Committee, "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart" (February 2004), uncovered some startling facts:

- Each Wal-Mart store employing 200 people costs taxpayers approximately $420,750 annually (about $2,103 per employee) in public social services used by Wal-Mart workers whose low wages and unaffordable health insurance mean most of them are among the working poor.

- Wal-Mart employees who utilize their health care confront high deductibles and co-payments. A single worker could end up spending around $6,400 out-of-pocket, or nearly 45% of their average annual full-time salary, before seeing a single benefit from the Wal-Mart health plan.

-The average Wal-Mart worker earns less than the federal poverty level for a family of four. Full-time Wal-Mart workers average a maximum of 32 hours per week.

- Over 39 class-action lawsuits against the company in thirty states have been filed against Wal-Mart, claiming tens of millions of dollars in back pay for hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart employees. Wal-Mart was ordered to pay over $50 million in unpaid wages to 69,000 Colorado workers. In a Texas class-action lawsuit that was certified on behalf of 200,000 former and current Wal-Mart employees, statisticians estimated that the company short-changed its workers $150,000 over four years just based on the frequency of employees working through their daily 15 minute breaks.

-Six women filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart in California claiming the company discriminated against women by systematically denying them promotions and paying them less than men. The lawsuit has expanded to potentially the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history on behalf of more than one million current and former female employees. While two-thirds of the company's hourly workers are female, women hold only one-third of managerial positions and constitute less than 15 percent of store managers.

-An estimated 50-60 percent of Wal-Mart's products are imported from overseas. Over 10 percent of all U.S. imports from China go to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart plays its suppliers off of one another in search of lower and lower prices. American suppliers have been forced to relocate their businesses overseas to maintain Wal-Mart contracts; this has led to dramatic job losses in the American manufacturing sector. Overseas manufacturers are forced to engage in cut-throat competition that further erodes wages and working conditions for American and global factory workers.

The Congressional report concludes that, "Wal-Mart's success has meant downward pressures on wages and benefits, rampant violations of basic workers' rights and threats to the standard of living in communities across the country. The success of a business need not come at the expense of workers and their families. Such short-sighted profit-making strategies ultimately undermine out economy."

The full report can be found at: http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/WALMARTREPORT.pdf

JAMES O.
GOLDBOROUGH
THE SAN DIEGO
UNION-TRIBUNE
January 26, 2004

Wal-Mart
vs.
America's
middle
class

Wal-Mart's Social and
Economic Impact
Four-Part Series
Examines
Influence of Largest
U.S. Employer;
Please click on the link
above to take
you to the NPR website
for more information.

Wal-Mart and its' practices stink!

The world's largest and richest corporation, Wal-Mart, is increasingly using your tax dollars to expand in areas that they have targeted for a Supercenter. They are abusing Tax Increment Financing money and similar "Economic Incentive" programs to hold up communities in an effort to increase their profits.

Wal-Mart informs a community that they are interested in putting up a Supercenter, but only under the condition that they can use your tax dollars as economic incentives. If the community is unwilling to give away their tax dollars, Wal-Mart threatens to go to the nearest town that will readily open their treasury. Communities have tax dollars because you and long-time established business owners have invested in the community. Don't allow Wal-Mart to come in and under price their products to drive the smaller businesses out of town.

This is a complete misuse of tax dollars and the economic development programs that were developed to create jobs. Your tax dollars and these programs were never intended to help fund the increased growth of major corporations-they are designed for the town's health. When used by a company who has no real need for the assistance, it is nothing more the Corporate Welfare. Three jobs are lost for every two jobs created by Wal-Mart.

Click on the link above to
read a transcript
from the December 19,
2003 show titled:
Is Wal-Mart Using Your
Tax Dollars To
Subsidize Its Costs?