LISSA’S: Wal-Mart’s Wages Increase in China, Rollback in US

Wal-Mart is raising wages for its employees -- in China, that is. Yes, the labor union representing Wal-Mart's Chinese workforce won yet another fight against Wal-Mart, successfully negotiating for an 8 percent raise for 2008 and 2009 as well as setting terms for paid vacation, social security, and overtime. This comes at a time when China's economy is booming, and demands for higher wages and better benefits are being pushed by none other than the Chinese government. Meanwhile, as the U.S. economy falters and Wal-Mart benefits, Wal-Mart's U.S. hourly workers are experiencing nothing short of a wage "rollback."

Sadly, wages for the average hourly U.S. Wal-Mart employee have actually fallen when adjusted for inflation. In 2004, Wal-Mart reported an average (Wal-Mart refuses to disclose a median wage which would provide a more accurate picture of wages at the company) hourly wage of $9.68. In 2008, the reported wage is $10.86. But in 2004 dollars, the average hourly wage is $9.55, which means workers are worse off today than they were four years ago. So, while the price of gas, food and health care are rising, Wal-Mart employees' wages are falling.

Even when not accounting for inflation, Wal-Mart's "average" disclosed hourly wage puts a family of four below the federal poverty line. In light of the fact that "full-time" work for Wal-Mart employees is often 34 hours a week, this means the "average" hourly worker earns only about $19,200 annually. Plus, starting wages at the company's stores are often much lower than the "average hourly wage."

So, it is no wonder that Wal-Mart employees top the public assistance rolls for Medicaid, SCHIP and other programs. But instead of actually raising wages to help employees lift themselves out of poverty, Wal-Mart chooses to get credit for telling them about how to get more government assistance. Case in point, just a few weeks ago, Wal-Mart came out in support of legislation that would require large employers to notify their employees about the availability of the Earned Income Tax Credit. Wal-Mart would never disclose how many of its employees likely qualify for this poverty-alleviating tax option, but given Wal-Mart's low wages, it is likely to be a sizeable number.

This is all happening in the context of an American economy that continues to decline while Wal-Mart's revenue continues to rise higher than ever. The company was again crowned the largest company in the world by Forbes, and has continued to outperform its retail competitors as shoppers trade down. The Walton family -- who control 43% of Wal-Mart stock through the Helen Walton Family Group -- earned close to $29 billion just on the increase in Wal-Mart stock prices during the previous seven months (November 2007 to June 2008) alone. The relationship between the Walton family and Wal-Mart workers is a stark example of the old adage that while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

We don't begrudge Wal-Mart raising wages at its stores in China (the employees there certainly need it) and it's also appropriate for the company to inform its employees about issues such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. But the company's U.S. employees need higher wages now more than ever.

Instead of perpetuating a cycle of poverty among its workers with a low wage, poor benefit business model, it is time Wal-Mart consider a meaningful wage increase for its hourly U.S. employees who are struggling just to make ends meet for their families. Wal-Mart can and should do better for its 1.4 million U.S. workers.

source: The Huffington Post

LISSA’S: Discounted Employees

Discounted employees

Wal-Mart's appalling labour practices mean it's getting rich at the expense of workers and their families

Wal-Mart, the world's largest private employer, now employs over 1.3 million Americans. Globally, more than two million people are now Wal-Martees, and several million more are dependent on these employees. Millions also make their livelihoods by selling their products, albeit at rock-bottom prices, to Wal-Mart. In America the only employer with more clout than this overgrown supermarket chain is the federal government. The company has annual revenues three times larger than California's state budget, profits bigger than the GDP of many small developing nations and the clout to set its own purchasing prices and drive competitors out of business by undercutting them with consumers.

This is all bad - very bad. I'm not going to try to make the argument that all big corporations are, by definition, problematic. For better or worse, we live in a corporate world. Unless we want to dedicate our lives to living some back-to-land dream, for the foreseeable future most of us are going to spend a significant portions of our incomes shopping at one megastore or another.

No, the reason it's bad that Wal-Mart is so extraordinarily dominant (and, arguably, the reason why Wal-Mart is so dominant in the first place) is that the company has appalling labour practices.

The monitoring group Wal-Mart Watch has reported stories of employees refused bathroom breaks, forced to work off-the-clock overtime and punished for attempting to unionise their fellow employees.

In recent weeks, I've spoken with employees who have been with the company nearly a decade and still make only about $10 per hour. Huge numbers of Wal-Mart workers earn far less, scraping by on as little as $7 an hour.

Many are technically part-time, because if they're listed as not working a full 40-hour work week they don't qualify for health insurance for the first year of employment. Afterwards, when the benefits kick in, Wal-Mart removes a startlingly high percentage of the already-low wages to help cover the costs of the insurance. In other words, while Wal-Mart claims to provide most of its employees with health insurance, in reality the employees themselves are paying much of the bill.

One 58-year-old woman I spoke with brings home, in a good month, just over $1,100 after taxes. Out of this, over $100 is removed for health insurance. If the insurance she got for this was comprehensive, that wouldn't be so bad. But it's not. She has to pay the first $1,000 of her medical bills each year before her insurance kicks in, and after that she still has to pay $20 for every doctor's visit and $20 for most prescriptions. So, she has health insurance, but she can only really afford to use it for emergencies. Other employees pay less that her per month in premiums, but their deductibles are even higher - having to pay upwards of $2,500 before the insurance kicks in.

How far does a $1,000 take-home paycheque go today? Well, figure that even in a depressed rural community, $350 is about as low as you can go for rent or a mortgage, or even for paying to use a trailer lot space. Heating is going to run you about $100 a month. Utilities, including phone charges, another $100. Since a car is pretty much a necessity in most of the small towns and outer-burbs where Wal-Mart sets up shop, add in $100 a month for basic car insurance. If you're paying off the car, your payments will be at least $100 a month. Then there's gas. At current prices, even someone not driving more than a few miles a day to and from work is likely spending close to $100 a month on gas.

That leaves about $150 for food, basic household items like toilet paper, dish soap and shampoo, clothing, medical bills, the paying off of credit card debt and entertainment.

What gives? Well, first off goes entertainment. If you're working a low-wage job in America today, even going to the movies is increasingly an impossibility.

Then you go without new clothes. Then medicines. Sure, you might need your blood pressure pills or you'll likely have a heart attack or stroke down the road, but who can plan that far ahead when you have to make a few dollars and change last the month. Many end up giving up their insurance altogether, banking on the fact that they are paid so little they can qualify for state Medicaid coverage or hoping, against hope, that they don't get sick.

Finally, you start skipping meals. Recently, I've interviewed Wal-Mart employees who never eat breakfast, who take low-grade sandwiches to work for lunch and crack open a discount can of soup for dinner. They buy fruit if it's on sale at one or another discount market. Occasionally they treat themselves to low-grade meat for dinner.

Wal-Mart has annual revenues of over $351bn, and last year made over $11bn in profit. On the assumption an average employee works close to 40 hours a week, it could pay every one of its two million employees an extra two dollars an hour (translating to roughly $4,000 more per year, per employee) and still end up with nearly $4bn in profit each year. That's close to $1.5bn more than the 2007 profit level of Target, its closest rival in the all-in-one department store business and a company known for paying its workers more than Wal-Mart does.

The extra money would raise hundreds of thousands of workers out of lives of poverty, would allow them to afford healthcare and to buy enough food to feed themselves and their families.

Don't hold your breath on this happening anytime soon. But, next time you shop at Wal-Mart, remember that many of those who serve you probably don't make enough money to properly feed and clothe their families.

source: guardian unlimited

LISSA’S: Random thoughts on 2008 politics.. by "Moondog".

Well, with equal rights, maybe this time when McCain is elected, women will be drafted, married, retarded, old, young,, just get the phone book and pick 5 on every block,, especially Muslims and drop them into the middle of the terrorist,, and handicapped can cut down on targets, and nursing home residents can absorb some gunfire,,



Wait,, that would be McCain,, oh well drop him in there,, to bad they missed last time.. maybe this time we will be free from his kind of Aemirikkanism.



Patriotism means having free will, not being an obedient clone of some false mold made to fall into. Wal Mart employees,, fertile ground for sending into the gunfire, do what they are told for subsistence pay, and believe dip shit manager officers..




Vote McCain and Walley Whirld,, and march into the gunfire,, slow world population growth, abortions only profit abortionist, war profits politicians, industry, news, movie industry, pro peace movement fund raisers.

LISSA’S: An interesting point of view from my friend "Moondog"

From my friend "Moondog" again...

"If Wal-Mart was a slave plantation, and all the employees captives, "we can not leave or we will starve, and our families will fall apart, and we will not be able to see a doctor, and our credit will collapse and, we will have to change school districts when we get a cheaper house, and and no one will hire us because we escaped, and all other businesses are going to be bankrupt because Wal-Mart is taking their customers away, and and and and...

Gee maybe it's time to run, Andee, cuz i think da place is gonna blow!

Let me think...

...to work at Wal-Mart and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,{Shakespeare}

...or just say fuck it!" {Moondog}

LISSA’S: Wal-Mart customer service slips

Wal-Mart's service has been sliding for many years, according to an annual survey conducted by the University of Michigan. The most recent information from Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index shows Wal-Mart dropped to a score of 72 last year, down from 81 in 1995. Many of Wal-Mart's workers feel outright hostility toward the company, and, by extension, they often treat customers with indifference or worse.

source: Business Week

LISSA’S: Gizmodo’s Year-End Report Card for Wal Mart

Oh, Wal-Mart. You are so easy to hate. What with your union-busting, mom-and-pop-killing, big box awfulness, who wouldn't hate you? It would be all to easy for me to come in here and just give you an F and everyone would agree with me and we could all walk hand-in-hand into the sunset, hating Wal-Mart. And while I do have my Wal-Mart issues, there's no denying that it's made some pretty solid moves in the tech world this year, and no matter how much I hate to admit it, I need to give Wal-Mart at least some props.

This was the year that DRM stopped cramping online music stores, and that's in some part due to Wal-Mart's insistence on selling DRM-free tunes. Together with Amazon, it's one of two major online retailers selling MP3 files. And while the MP3 store is still pretty lousy, Wal-Mart's push to have the last major-label holdouts drop DRM will be good for us all. If that happens, Wal-Mart's influence will at least have something to do with it.

This year has also seen the prices of HD DVD and Blu-ray players drop significantly, thanks in part to Wal-Mart's pressures. Wal-Mart's size gives them huge influence over the industry, and earlier this year when it went around that Wal-Mart was pushing for cheapo HD DVD players it gave the then-suffering HD DVD camp a shot in the arm. The push for cheaper players makes us happy.

In addition to using its influence to bring down pricing in the HD disc war, it also used it to try and break up Microsoft's Windows dominance by introducing a $200 Linux gPC to thei generally non-techy clientele. It was a ballsy move, one clearly motivated by desire to sell cheaper computers over the desire to stick it to Microsoft, but stick it to Redmond it did. There's no bigger retailer out there who has the power to introduce an alternate OS to the masses and make it seem friendly, and that's just what Wal-Mart did. (Of course, we think the reason the gPC sold out so fast was because of Linux fanboys in search of cauldrons for their potions, but you never know.)

Things aren't all forward-thinking at Wal-Mart, though. They still do a lot of the stuff that's earned them a horrible reputation for years now. They refuse to carry movies and CDs that they deem "inappropriate," at times arbitrarily pulling products from shelves—or at least that's how it seems. Consumers should get to choose what they want to buy; they don't need retailers to act as babysitters and decide what is and isn't appropriate.

As for the brutal labor practices, there's still a lot we think is totally uncool to, but to be fair, Wal-Mart is introducing a much-improoved health care plan next month. Still, don't look for the reputation of Wal-Mart retail jobs to get a lot better anytime soon. Everybody knows the store is full of miserable employees half-assedly serving miserable customers.

So kudos, Wal-Mart, for being more forward-thinking in the tech department than I would have ever expected. Keep it up! When the gigantic, faceless companies that make up the RIAA and the MPAA want anti-consumer practices to become the norm, we need other gigantic, faceless companies to stand up to them, and if it's gonna be you I'll take it. And if you're gonna make next-gen disc players cheaper for everyone, I'll thank you for that. But I'll still never set foot in one of your stores. I'll admit to cautiously admiring some of your moves from afar but your reduced letter grade is because of the human cost: you really should treat your employees better.

Final Grade: C

source: Gizmodo's Year-End Report Card

LISSA'S: Think Wal Mart cares? Think again...

Seven years ago, a semi-trailer plowed into the driver's side of Deborah Shank's minivan.

The 52-year-old Missouri Wal-Mart employee and devoted mother of three suffered permanent brain damage. Today she lives in a nursing home for round-the clock care, unable to walk, feed or dress herself.

As the Wall Street Journal reported on November 20, it's a tragic story - but it gets worse:

"Wal-Mart started out as one of the good guys in this story, paying almost $470,000 of Shank's initial medical bills. But three years after Shank's husband sued and settled with the semi driver's employer, the retail giant changed hats. It demanded every penny back, plus interest and legal fees -- more, in fact, than the $417,477 the settlement had placed in a special trust fund specifically for Shank's future health care expenses."

Wal-Mart sued a permanently brain-damaged woman out of her medical care funds. Thanks to her former employer - the world's largest retailer - Deborah's family is sinking deeper into debt and Deborah will be completely dependent on Medicaid and Social Security for a lifetime of medical care.

Wal-Mart's actions are horribly unethical and morally bankrupt, but the company says it's legal - and it's right about that.

As the Wall Street Journal explains:

The reason is a clause in Wal-Mart's health plan that Mrs. Shank didn't notice when she started stocking shelves at a nearby store eight years ago. Like most company health plans, Wal-Mart's reserves the right to recoup the medical expenses it paid for someone's treatment if the person also collects damages in an injury suit.

In cases like the Shanks', where injuries and medical costs are catastrophic, accident victims sometimes can be left with little or none of the money they fight for in court. Company health plans are increasingly adopting language such as Wal-Mart's, which dictates that it is to be paid first out of any settlement, regardless of what remains for the injured person. Moreover, the victim is responsible for all legal costs in pursuing the suit.

Last year the U.S. District Court sided with Wal-Mart over the Shank family - making its ruling just six days before Deborah Shank's 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed while serving in Iraq.

The decision has forced Deborah's family to take drastic measures. Earlier this year, her husband divorced her because of advice from a health care administrator, who said that she would qualify for more public assistance as a single woman.

The Shanks aren't gold-diggers. They are an honest, hard-working American family trying to deal with a catastrophic event, and now they're doing it with an empty wallet - thanks to Wal-Mart.

This holiday season, Wal-Mart rolled out a new slogan: "Save money. Live better."

But who lives better with Wal-Mart's low prices? Clearly, it isn't Wal-Mart employees like Deborah Shank.

LISSA’S: What Do Wal Mart Employees Have To Be Thankful For?

What do Wal-Mart's employees have to be thankful for this season? Perhaps not as much as they would like. The company's health care plan is still far short of the beneficial panacea the company would have us believe, and store employees are working harder than ever as the retailer continues to understaff stores. 1.6 million current and former Wal-Mart employees still await the outcome of the landmark class action Dukes v. Wal-Mart, and workers in Wal-Mart's supplier factories are working overtime in inhumane conditions to meet the company's holiday demands.

Wal-Mart executives can't be happy, either. The company's "green" report -- a thinly veiled marketing ploy - recieved a critical response from environmentalists and didn't win over critics as the company hoped it would. Wal-Mart's stock continues to decline, and shareholders are becoming increasingly impatient with the company's superficial attempts to solve its reputational issues.

So what can we be thankful for this year? We can still come together to try to change these things about Wal-Mart, and improve its behavior as the largest corporation in the world. Become one of the thousands of people working to make Wal-Mart a better corporate citizen.