DISGUSTING!!!

I receive periodic emails from the National Labor Committee and I am just DISGUSTED with Wal-Mart.
I was already not a huge fan.

Here is some of the text from their email:

Over three million garment workers in Bangladesh, mostly young women, are asking for our help.
They need our support in their struggle to win a new minimum wage of at least 35 cents an hour. Since 2006, the minimum wage for garment workers has been set at 11 ½ cents an hour, which is a starvation wage! The latest offer by the powerful and wealthy garment factory owners is to set the new minimum wage at just 17 cents an hour, and the Bangladeshi government appears ready to accept a minimum wage of 21 cents an hour.

The workers will not accept this. There are two more negotiations, on July 8th and sometime between July 20th and July 27th.

The estimate is that at this point over 700 garment factories have been shut down by management to frighten the workers into accepting a lower wage or no wage at all.

Hundreds have been beaten--see AFP's photos which reveal unbearable scenes of children beaten by policemen with batons.

The garment workers and their allies are calling for a national shutdown if they do not receive their modest 35 cent an hour demand.

Workers' Minimum Wage Demands

$0.35 an hour
$2.77 a day (8 hours)
$16.60 a week (48 hours)
$71.84 a month
$863.31 a year"

The fact that Wal-Mart won't provide a wage of at least a little over $800 is fucking disgusting.

Does anyone know if Bangladesh
has a minimum wage law?
If you want to sign the petition, here is the link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/677/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4035

I am going to send off a hand written letter tomorrow. I live in AR so it won't take any time to get to Bentonville.

35 cents an hour is what we're competing with. Fucking disgusting.

because 11 cents an hour is slave wages... I'm at a loss for words.

sacrifice their lives for 17¢ an hour. I just don't know what to say.

It's its own country.

And it's the next stop for cheap labor now that Chinese workers are demanding higher wages.

But like India it offers no protections for workers. They are disposable.

I feel stupid for not knowing that. :dunce:

Someone said India had a better democracy than the United States.
I think in some ways India is more advanced (they are raising gas taxes in order to get people to use less fossil fuels) but then the fact that they don't have a minimum wage law is pretty bad.

I haven't set foot in a wal-mart in nearly 20 years, and never will.

have you seen the documentary, "the high cost of low price"?? I thought I knew a great deal about the evil empire, but that documentary made all who have seen it sick.

My mom works for Sam's Club.

I do a lot of grocery shopping at Wal-Mart but not ALL of it.
I haven't bought clothes from their in years. I mainly just buy groceries.

grocery store to you, please try to go elsewhere. I do just fine with coupons, watching sales, and looking for bargains (and our farmers' market is open for the season, yayyyy)

I also shop at the farmer's market when I can and a grocery store that tries to stock a lot of locally grown foods.

for forcing its suppliers to do things its way. If Wal-Mart refused to buy from suppliers who failed to meet employee and environmental standards AND ensured the factories could still make a profit, believe me things would change.

Farm workers' unions have discovered they get better results by putting pressures on the corporations such as Campbell's and McDonald's than by talking directly to the farmers. Farmers can't raise wages if they get pushed to the wall on prices by the corporations. People working for better treatment of animals have made a similar discovery.

FWIW - i figured out a few years back that if the packer I was working for doubled the hourly wage and that was passed through to the consumer, a pound of cooking onions would go from costing 39 cents to a whopping 40 cents!

Wow.

I know studies have been shown that said if Wal-Mart raised wages for its workers, it would barely put a dent in the average shopper's wallet and they'd still make a ton of money each year.

So the fuck what shareholders get $995 back instead of $1,000?

adding a few cents to stuff, like people would even know the difference. I mean really, how many people care if the price is 2.79 over 2.75? I read the other fay where it costs 3 cents to make a penny and 9 cents to make a nickel.

If I trusted the government to do the right thing I'd say get rid of pennies and nickles and round everything up to the nearest dime, and use the extra money to pay people what they are worth.

the mark-up gets passed straight through. In other words, the shareholders would still get $1000, it would just be a mere 9.9998% instead of 10% profit.

3....2....1...

of the world unite. Stop working until you are paid a living wage.

I hate corporations.

that if you are buying $5 t-shirts at Wal-Mart, someone making starvation wages made those. There indeed it a 'high cost to a low price'.

Ditto for our food supply (the industrial sort) in this country. If it is cheap, there is a reason, and that reason is usually not good for your health nor the health of the planet.

where they were stolen from people might get justice. I am not a fan of WalMart or any big business. But does Walmart run the factory overseas. I don't think so. It is the AMERICAN CORPORATIONS who do. They took these jobs overseas so they could make more money. If WalMart didn't but the clothes to sell in America who would. That's the problem. WE BUY ALL THOSE CLOTHES AND THE REPUBLICAN CORPORATIONS GET RICH. Even if we had to pay more in wages, if these jobs were here we would be better off.

They do business with this company.
I am sure Wal-Mart is their biggest customer.

Wal-Mart bullies ALL their suppliers.

I agree even if we had to pay more in wages, those jobs being in America is a great thing.

american corporation--one of those you are excoriating by excusing wal-mart.

bought their stuff here while other retailers imported clothing. Shortly after, Lands End started importing. Oddly enough, the price of their garments didn't go down.

The last time I bought towels and sheets at K-Mart and Sears, i could buy American made. Now, those are gone, too. Oddly enough, once again I didn't see a huge drop in price.

Lest there not be enough blame going around, the people managing Lands End, Sears and K-Mart are in competition to sell their stock with Walmart and everyone else including the hedge fund. Who is going to buy stock that gets a 6% annual profit when they could buy another stock that returns 8%? Would all of us here be willing to put our 401K money in a mutual fund that makes less money, but makes it guilt-free?

since the early days of the ERA boycotts, I have indeed been spending my money as much as possible in a socially responsible manner.

to save you the purchaser anything. jeez, what does the Bentonville family make a year? Billions? Do they even need wallets or have to carry any type of cash/credit cards?

I highly doubt they do.

and they probably sleep like baby lambs on 60000 count slavewage made sheets.

I had friends who just gushed over that fucking book. I never could convince them that maybe a round world would be better for everyone.

Yuck.

difference between kids going to school and kids going out to work!

That they bought for 12 cents.