|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature"Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
|
Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We all Pay for Wal-Mart |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
16 Mar 2004
|
|
I've been watching the community-wide discussion on Wal-Mart and have been hoping to find a document that adequately represents my own serious concerns with facilitating the entry of Wal-Mart to Urbana. Whether you agree or disagree with the Urbana City Council decision, I believe that having access to well-documented information will help facilitate constructive debate. |
|
I've been watching the community-wide discussion on Wal-Mart and have been hoping to find a document that adequately represents my own serious concerns with facilitating the entry of Wal-Mart to Urbana. Whether you agree or disagree with the Urbana City Council decision, I believe that having access to well-documented information will help facilitate constructive debate.
The hidden costs of Wal-Mart's low wages (just one of the reasons that I believe makes that company an extremely bad investment for our community) are enormous. As explained in the congressional report below, "One 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year -- about $2,103 per employee."
From a moral and ethical standpoint (as opposed to pure economics), Walmart has an egregious record of disregarding organizing rights,
discriminating in pay, requiring off-the-clock work, utilizing child labor, ignoring work-break laws, illegally utilizing undocumented workers, discriminating against those with disabilities, and numerous worker safety violations. The link below provides documentation for all of these assertions.
This report also provides an in-depth critique the economic impact studies often provided to communities (like Urbana) by Wal-Mart (and which are both funded and disseminated by Wal-Mart itself). I think this report is an enlightening read; because it provides extensive documentation, it
allows for readers to investigate its claims and draw their own conclusions:
http://na4lc.org/studies/millerwalmartreport.pdf |
This work is in the public domain |
