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this week's common-sense award
goes to the striking wal-mart workers
now it goes without saying that these guys are incredibly brave for setting up
to a company that is historically anti union
and it should be commended for that
but more importantly is
what they're fighting in what they represent
wal-mart is the academy of the stereotypical evil corporations
let me explain
we all know they have incredibly low prices but we should ask ourselves what
is the cost of that
was the trade-off
well according to u_c_ berkeley labor center study wal-mart has driven down
the wages of retail workers by four point seven billion dollars
if you work full time a wal-mart you still live under the poverty line
the average at worli sales employee makes thirteen thousand eight hundred
and sixty one dollars a year
and the federal poverty level for a family of four is seventeen thousand six
hundred fifty dollars a year
now meanwhile while date
payee
inexcusable low the owners of wal-mart the warm family
are worth ninety-three billion dollars
that's more than the bottom forty one point five percent of americans combined
every year
wal-mart spends millions of dollars for political contributions
he spends seven thousand dollars per store on into union camera packages
he spent thirty thousand dollars per store for undercover spy vans
to quash any union organization
they spend all hundred thousand dollars for twenty four-hour into union hotline
and they spend a hundred twenty-five million three hundred fifty thousand
dollars
for a corporate jet fleet
wal-mart has also received over a billion dollars from the government for
start-up subsidies
because you know of any tax dollars to incentivize them
to make more money
they don't offer health care to many of their employees than the ones that they
do offer it to
day find it
either inadequate or too expensive so as a result they need government assistance
via medicaid
this means while the owners of wal-mart for the way obscene profits in school
over their workers
the company has cost the taxpayers for one point five trillion dollars in total
talk about welfare queen
all of this that i haven't even brought up the clean water violations from
illegal dumping of toxic pollutants and public waterways
leading to millions of dollars of t_p_a_ finds across multiple states
including texas colorado california delaware michigan south dakota new
jersey tennessee and utah
they also have one point six million
current and former employees ceiling alleging gender and racial
discrimination
endgame for
about eighteen billion dollars a year in goods from chinese sweatshops
there's also a standard practice
used by management to purposely under high gear at a given store and overwork
the employees that they have
and then delete tryin
from their time cards
a massachusetts court found seven thousand instances of this
in just that state
there were two hundred thousand instances found in texas
and two hundred fifteen thousand in california
and in texas alone it's estimated at the under paid their workers a hundred and
fifty million dollars
so for all of these reasons that i just stated and believe me there's many many
more
it's important that we stand behind the striking workers
so for moral and ethical and intellectual reasons they get this
week's common sense of where