Wal-Mart Memo Eyes Benefit Cuts

[dogwalker]

Want to see Wal-Mart's super secret memo on health insurance for it's workers?

www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/26walmart.pdf

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, [the memo] suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."... "It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier work force than it will be to change behavior in an existing one," the memo said. "These moves would also dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart."

In addition blatant discrimination, Wal-Mart donated $5000 to Tom DeLay 2 days after he was indicted.

[dogwalker]

On the Wal-Mart Money Trail
www.thenation.com/doc/20051121/featherstone

The Waltons' philanthropy--and their hostility to paying their fair share of taxes--also needs to be viewed in the context of tax subsidies Wal-Mart has received for building new stores, which Good Jobs First places at more than $1 billion, an estimate that does not include the many other ways taxpayers subsidize Wal-Mart stores, for instance, through numerous forms of public assistance--Medicaid, Food Stamps, public housing--that often allow workers to subsist on Wal-Mart's low wages. A report by the House Education and Workforce Committee conservatively places the latter at $420,750 per store; the Wal-Mart Foundation's per-store charitable giving is just 11 percent of that amount ($47,222).

"The Waltons could be an enormous force for good," says Responsible Wealth's Chuck Collins. "As the company's biggest shareholders, they could decide that Wal-Mart could pay a living wage. They could use their charitable dollars not to undermine public education but to boost educational opportunity. They could become major contributors to social good. But they're not."

[dogwalker]

I have always wondered what the Waltons' do with all of their money. They currently have a fortune of over $80 billion. They just seem to hoard more and more of it. The above article tells you how they spend their money on donations to manipulate the system into giving them even more money. It takes the meaning of GREED to a whole new level.

[Sparky]

Have you seen the trailer of the new documentary coming out about Wal Mart:
www.walmartmovie.com/teaser_qhi.php

[red]

Anti-Wal-Mart film to be shown in area

"`Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices' is the story of one company using its power to destroy the fabric of American life