Wal-Mart is Rolling Back Wages!

A note about Wal-Mart from today's Chicago Tribune:
"Full-time employees make $9.68 an hour, or about 30 percent less than grocery workers, according to a University of California at Berkeley study."

Assuming a 40 hour work week and 52 weeks of diligent service per year, that is an annual income of $20,134.40. How is it not immediately transparent to all readers that Wal-Mart has chosen the $9.68 sum so their employees will at least break $20k annually?

Does Wal-Mart really think their customers would protest if they raised prices by a few pennies in order to pay better wages? In 2004 Wal-Mart had $288 billion in sales, gross profits of $68 billion and net income of over $10 billion. Wal-Mart employs one million employees in the U.S. (that's one in 300 U.S. citizens) and pays them squat.

My suggestion to Wal-Mart, which is facing greater competition from trendier stores like Target, is that they should pay their employees better, and spin this revision to boost sales; Run advertisements that portray Wal-Mart as a place that loves their employees and treats them with respect, and mean it. Your employees will spend more at Wal-Mart, your critics will be silenced (well, at least on this issue), and that elusive middle-class that avoids Wal-Mart may once again consider shopping at a store that has, up to now, best been known as a company that dominates at the cost of everyone in their path, including their own employees.

Wal-Mart is Rolling Back Wages!

A note about Wal-Mart from today's Chicago Tribune:
"Full-time employees make $9.68 an hour, or about 30 percent less than grocery workers, according to a University of California at Berkeley study."

Assuming a 40 hour work week and 52 weeks of diligent service per year, that is an annual income of $20,134.40. How is it not immediately transparent to all readers that Wal-Mart has chosen the $9.68 sum so their employees will at least break $20k annually?

Does Wal-Mart really think their customers would protest if they raised prices by a few pennies in order to pay better wages? In 2004 Wal-Mart had $288 billion in sales, gross profits of $68 billion and net income of over $10 billion. Wal-Mart employs one million employees in the U.S. (that's one in 300 U.S. citizens) and pays them squat.

My suggestion to Wal-Mart, which is facing greater competition from trendier stores like Target, is that they should pay their employees better, and spin this revision to boost sales; Run advertisements that portray Wal-Mart as a place that loves their employees and treats them with respect, and mean it. Your employees will spend more at Wal-Mart, your critics will be silenced (well, at least on this issue), and that elusive middle-class that avoids Wal-Mart may once again consider shopping at a store that has, up to now, best been known as a company that dominates at the cost of everyone in their path, including their own employees.