Walmart's Employees Hold T-giving Food Drive for....
backseatLover12
Posts: 2,312
...Other Walmart Employees
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/11 ... 2013-11-19
Some Walmart employees can't afford a $50 Thanksgiving dinner once a year.
Americans are used to seeing food drives this time of year: Donation boxes start popping up at churches, offices, and public buildings to collect canned goods from those who can afford to give, because the thought of a family in need going without a traditional holiday supper that includes all the fixings is practically un-American.
So at first glance, news of the food drive at a Walmart in Canton, Ohio, seemed like nothing out of the ordinary: Why wouldn't the world's largest company, with annual profits of nearly $16 billion last year, hold a food drive for the less-advantaged souls in its community?
Then it hits you: This food drive is held in the employee-only section of the store. The intended recipients are the company’s own employees.
Out of customers’ view, purple and orange bins sport signs that read, “Please donate food items here so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.”
The image, snapped by a 12-year Walmart employee, spread like wildfire across the Internet yesterday.
Why is a food drive needed for workers who have jobs?
Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokesperson, told us that it’s a way for associates to help each other out.
“We have a program called Associates in Critical Need Trust. It’s been in place since 2001 and is a way for associates to help one another out in times of need.… If someone is affected by a tornado or the typhoon in the Philippines, they can rely on the Walmart family for additional assistance,” said Buchanan.
Except the photo doesn't show that. This food drive has nothing to do with the Associates in Critical Need Trust. It’s not about Canton workers being displaced by a tornado. It’s not providing canned food to a Walmart worker in the Philippines. It’s about fair wages. It’s about our nation’s working poor.
And it’s a stark example of corporate policies that have created an environment in which employees’ take-home pay isn’t enough to cover the $49.04 average price of this year’s Thanksgiving feast.
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in America. It made $15.7 billion in profit in 2012. Workers’ rights group the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) has been holding strikes in Cincinnati and Dayton, and it seized on the Canton store food drive as a case in point.
“Why would a company do that?” Vanessa Ferreira, an OUR Walmart organizer told The Plain Dealer. “The company needs to stand up and give them their 40 hours and a living wage, so they don’t have to worry about whether they can afford Thanksgiving.”
Buchanan counters, “This program has been completely mischaracterized. It’s a kindness for associates to help each other out. It’s just one circumstance in one store. It’s for people who need extra help.”
People needing extra help is America’s new normal. It’s a mirror reflection of last month’s call by a McDonald’s employee who had been with the company for 10 years and was seeking financial and health care assistance via the company’s McResources hotline. The response? She was referred to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.
And don’t forget the “Practical Money Skills” budget McDonald’s championed this summer: If you hold a minimum-wage job, you’re going to need two to make ends meet.
Wal-Mart says associates earn $12.87 an hour, on average, when viewed nationally, and that those working at least 34 hours are considered full-time. That wage puts them just slightly above the national poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four. But for sales associates, salary survey sites such as Glassdoor show a different story. They put average hourly wages for sales associates at $8.86 an hour. Cashiers make even less.
This summer, when Washington, D.C.’s city council tried to enact a living wage bill, Wal-Mart threatened to pull plans for three new stores. Simply showing its muscle was enough, and the mayor vetoed the bill. It’s a point that has dogged the national retailer for years.
It’s one that affects you, whether you realize it or not. When Wal-Mart refuses to pay a living wage to workers, the burden of housing, health care, and food falls to the public. Its policies have a ripple effect.
"As long as Walmart keeps its wages at or near the bottom, other low-wage employers keep wages there, too. All they need do is offer $8.85 an hour to have their pick,” writes former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
He doesn’t stop there.
“You can help teach Wal-Mart how much power its consumers have: Stand with its workers who deserve a raise, and boycott Wal-Mart on the most important sales day of the year, November 29,” Reich writes.
That tactic might be more effective, eventually, at improving the life of employees than putting a can of green beans in a collection bin hidden in the employee break room.
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/11 ... 2013-11-19
Some Walmart employees can't afford a $50 Thanksgiving dinner once a year.
Americans are used to seeing food drives this time of year: Donation boxes start popping up at churches, offices, and public buildings to collect canned goods from those who can afford to give, because the thought of a family in need going without a traditional holiday supper that includes all the fixings is practically un-American.
So at first glance, news of the food drive at a Walmart in Canton, Ohio, seemed like nothing out of the ordinary: Why wouldn't the world's largest company, with annual profits of nearly $16 billion last year, hold a food drive for the less-advantaged souls in its community?
Then it hits you: This food drive is held in the employee-only section of the store. The intended recipients are the company’s own employees.
Out of customers’ view, purple and orange bins sport signs that read, “Please donate food items here so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.”
The image, snapped by a 12-year Walmart employee, spread like wildfire across the Internet yesterday.
Why is a food drive needed for workers who have jobs?
Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokesperson, told us that it’s a way for associates to help each other out.
“We have a program called Associates in Critical Need Trust. It’s been in place since 2001 and is a way for associates to help one another out in times of need.… If someone is affected by a tornado or the typhoon in the Philippines, they can rely on the Walmart family for additional assistance,” said Buchanan.
Except the photo doesn't show that. This food drive has nothing to do with the Associates in Critical Need Trust. It’s not about Canton workers being displaced by a tornado. It’s not providing canned food to a Walmart worker in the Philippines. It’s about fair wages. It’s about our nation’s working poor.
And it’s a stark example of corporate policies that have created an environment in which employees’ take-home pay isn’t enough to cover the $49.04 average price of this year’s Thanksgiving feast.
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in America. It made $15.7 billion in profit in 2012. Workers’ rights group the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) has been holding strikes in Cincinnati and Dayton, and it seized on the Canton store food drive as a case in point.
“Why would a company do that?” Vanessa Ferreira, an OUR Walmart organizer told The Plain Dealer. “The company needs to stand up and give them their 40 hours and a living wage, so they don’t have to worry about whether they can afford Thanksgiving.”
Buchanan counters, “This program has been completely mischaracterized. It’s a kindness for associates to help each other out. It’s just one circumstance in one store. It’s for people who need extra help.”
People needing extra help is America’s new normal. It’s a mirror reflection of last month’s call by a McDonald’s employee who had been with the company for 10 years and was seeking financial and health care assistance via the company’s McResources hotline. The response? She was referred to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.
And don’t forget the “Practical Money Skills” budget McDonald’s championed this summer: If you hold a minimum-wage job, you’re going to need two to make ends meet.
Wal-Mart says associates earn $12.87 an hour, on average, when viewed nationally, and that those working at least 34 hours are considered full-time. That wage puts them just slightly above the national poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four. But for sales associates, salary survey sites such as Glassdoor show a different story. They put average hourly wages for sales associates at $8.86 an hour. Cashiers make even less.
This summer, when Washington, D.C.’s city council tried to enact a living wage bill, Wal-Mart threatened to pull plans for three new stores. Simply showing its muscle was enough, and the mayor vetoed the bill. It’s a point that has dogged the national retailer for years.
It’s one that affects you, whether you realize it or not. When Wal-Mart refuses to pay a living wage to workers, the burden of housing, health care, and food falls to the public. Its policies have a ripple effect.
"As long as Walmart keeps its wages at or near the bottom, other low-wage employers keep wages there, too. All they need do is offer $8.85 an hour to have their pick,” writes former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
He doesn’t stop there.
“You can help teach Wal-Mart how much power its consumers have: Stand with its workers who deserve a raise, and boycott Wal-Mart on the most important sales day of the year, November 29,” Reich writes.
That tactic might be more effective, eventually, at improving the life of employees than putting a can of green beans in a collection bin hidden in the employee break room.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
i think you miss the point ...
the article mentions these drives are for when families are adversely affected by what you call unforeseen circumstances however, in this particular case - that unforeseen circumstance is every day reality ...
politics aside - one must clearly see the disparity in wealth in the US and all its consequences ...
Do you think everyone should make the same wage? If not, then how much disparity is acceptable?
If I was suddenly dropped into another life where I was the sole breadwinner of a family of 4 who worked at Wal-Mart, I'd quickly realize that isn't a situation that is going to work for any length of time and I'd do what I needed to change it. I do not believe an hourly position at Wal-Mart was ever designed to be the sole source of income for a family. Either you need both parents working, or you need to get a second job or you need to find a way to get a different/better job.
But, the article is playing all kinds of tricks with the numbers as usual.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
people are a summation of their decisions.
a disparity level that allows the lowest income earners the ability to live without gov't assistance .. a wage that allows these people to live safe and healthy lives ... we're not talking about making everyone earn the same amount - that is absurd ...
we live in a world where executives are rewarded for driving share holder value ... which only looks at the bottom line ... based on a faulty theory that if corporations succeed so will the economy and therefore the people ... that myth has long been busted ...
Just 6 years ago, my then-girlfriend was making an hourly wage actually below the amount described in the article. She was living a safe and healthy life.
When you start talking about the amount of money it takes someone to live, you bring in a lot of subjectivity and variables as well as the ramifications of personal choices.
I'm not saying that I think it's a good thing that CEO makes such a disparagingly large amount of money more than the "workers" (whatever that means), but I think it's a worse thing to have our government dictate or mandate salary structures.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
soo ... as it relates to the discussion at hand ... are you ok with how the US is currently moving towards? in terms of the widening prosperity gap? ... have to ask because you are talking through both sides of your mouth here ...
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
If you're not happy with it, then why defend walmart's low wages?
Not the same thing. I think companies should set whatever wage they want. If people don't want to work there, they won't.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
And circumstances.
And no.
Companies need to be self-sufficient. That means that before your CEOs and company owners get bonuses and dividends..... your staff need to have a living wage WITHOUT the tax payers footing the rest of the bill.
Don't ask me to pay your staff because you're too greedy to do it.
the problem is that because of Walmart being the top employer driving all the other businesses out and keeping wages that low... people don't HAVE other choices. When you're the biggest company, you get to set a lot of the rules.
and the "they should pay how low they want" thing is going to destroy the economy even more.
RIGHT NOW... YOU are paying for their greed. Even if you don't shop there.. you're paying for their employees food stamps and welfare and medicaid and school lunches because Walmart won't pay them enough to afford it.
And you're saying you don't want the government telling them what to pay... which means you're just fine with footing the bill yourself. Yes... your tax dollars have to make up the difference. You're paying Walmart employees because you don't want to tell Walmart to pay them themselves.
That makes you a socialist.
thought you oughta know.
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
very well said ...
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
between your comments here and the gay marriage thread ... you are flat out a leftist now! ...
oh lord have mercy on your soul ...
I think a person can be socially liberal and still be fiscally conservative. I don't think Ive ever said people don't deserve living wages. Sorry to disappoint you
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
my comment was by no means a knock ...
Well said
nice.
Why is it assumed that everyone who works at Wal-Mart is on food stamps and welfare?
Another assumption is that I'm in favor of the government perpetually subsidizing someone's life. I'm not (unless they truly have a disability or something).
The final assumption is that people truly have no other option but to work at Wal-Mart. I do not buy that for one minute.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
the walton family can go fuck themselves.
meanwhile, costco is doing just fine and it's employees don't have to collect food for their co-workers.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
That's interesting....because without the minimum wage you would be making less than you are now.
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And maybe things might not cost as much, too.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.