Walmart

Received from a friend
The owners of one of America's premiere retail corporations is comprised of
five of the ten richest people in the world, all from the same family.
Their personal wealth eclipses 100 BILLION dollars. Last year the
companies CEO was paid a cool $11.5 million, more than the annual salaries
of 765 of his employees combined! The company's profits are over $7
BILLION annually. In these difficult economic times how do they do it?

This company runs ads featuring the United States flag and proclaims "We
Buy American". In 2001 they moved their world-wide purchasing headquarters
to China and are the largest importer of Chinese goods in the US,
purchasing over $10 BILLION of Chinese made products annually. Products
made mostly by women and children working in the labor hell-holes China is
famous for.

Their average employee working in the US makes $15,000 a year, $7.22 per
hour! The company brags that 70% of their employees are full time, but
fails to disclose that they count anyone working 28 hours a week or more as
full time. There are no health care benefits unless you have worked for
the company for two years. With a turnover rate averaging above 50% per
year, only 38% of their 1.3 million employees have health care coverage.
In California alone it's estimated that the taxpayers pay over $20 million
annually to subsidize health care benefits for these employees who get none
from this behemoth corporation.

According to a report by PBS's "Now" with Bill Moyer, their managers are
trained in what government social programs are available for these
"employees" to take advantage of so that the company can pass on those
costs to you and me. It allows them to not only keep their $7 BILLION in
annual profits, but to do so by substituting benefits they refuse to
provide with benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars.

This company holds the record for the most suits filed against it by the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A lawyer from "Business Week"
(not exactly the bastion for supporting Labor) said, "I have never seen
this kind of blatant disregard for the law." They had to pay $750,000.00
in Arizona for blatant discrimination against the disabled! The judge was
so incensed that he also ordered them to run commercials admitting their
guilt. The National Labor Relations Board has issued over 40 formal
complaints against the corporation in 25 different states in just the past
five years. The NLRB's top lawyer believed that their labor violations,
such as illegal spying on employees, fraudulent record keeping, falsifying
time cards to avoid paying overtime, threats, illegal firings for union
organizing etc., were so widespread that he was looking into filing a very
rare national complaint against the company.

Nearly 1 MILLION women are involved in the largest class-action suit ever
filed against a corporation. Although women make up over 65% of this
corporations work force only 10% of them are managers. The women who have
become store managers make $16,400 a year LESS then the men. The
corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on their
employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation
as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and
although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is
known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The
company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this."

They force employees to work after ordering them to punch out. In Texas
alone this practice of "wage theft" is estimated to have cost employees $30
million per year. Wage theft or "off-the-clock" lawsuits are pending in 25
states. In New Mexico they paid $400,000.00 in one suit and in Colorado
they had to pay $50 MILLION to settle one class-action case brought against
them. In Oregon a jury found them guilty of locking employees in the
building and of forcing unpaid overtime.

With 4,400 stores they practice "predatory pricing." They come into a
community and sell their goods at below cost until they drive local
businesses under. Once they have captured the market the prices go up.
Locally owned and operated businesses put virtually all of their money back
into the community which helps keep the local economies vibrant. This
corporation sucks the money out of the local community, decreases wages and
benefits and ships the profits out of state. This company doesn't buy
locally or bank locally. They replace three decent paying jobs in a
community with two poorly paid "part-timers". In Kirksville, Missouri when
this company came to town, four clothing stores, four grocery stores, a
stationary store, a fabric store and a lawn-and-garden store all went
under. Eleven businesses are now gone. (The above information can be found
in "Thieves in High Places", James Hightower, The Penguin Group, New York,
NY, 2003 p. 166 193.)

Now you know how they can claim, "Always low prices." Wal-Mart is the
largest corporation in the world, larger than General Motors and Exxon
Mobil. Wal-Mart will reap over 250 billion in sales in 2003, which is
larger than the entire gross national product of Israel and Ireland
combined. It has over 1.3 million employees. It sells more groceries,
jewelry, photo processing, dog food, and vitamins than any other chain in
the world.

Wal-Mart is owned by the Walton family.

"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world;
indeed it is the only thing that ever has."